My Sinful Boss (Alphas in Charge #8)

Chapter 1

HAZEL

“So you think you’re qualified to work at a hedge fund?” Cassi’s smile looks like it’s about to drop off as she watches me fill out the online application.

I shrug, attaching my pathetic resume to the e-mail.

She’s got a point. But as a girl who is three months behind on her rent, lost her barista job last week because the coffee shop closed, and whose resume is as blank and barren as the Sahara Desert, I’m taking the shotgun approach to finding work: Aim at everything, and eventually, something’s gotta stick.

“Hey, not all of us can make five hundred a night serving drinks, okay?”

Cassi does that disapproving thing she does with her lips when I say something she doesn’t agree with. “Girl, what do I keep telling you? If you’d just come out of your shell a little bit, guys will just give you their money!”

I give her the counter-smirk I always give back, sticking out my tongue. As best friends, we can often communicate without words.

“Easy for you to say.” And it really is. Cassi has the confidence of a WNBA player. She’s the girl who all the guys liked in high school, who dated the most popular jocks, and who can wake up after an all-nighter looking ready for the catwalk.

I, on the other hand, am a solitudinarian—that’s a big word I just learned online last night. I seek solitude. I’m much more comfortable at home in a pair of pajamas with a good book than I am at the bar in a tight dress and heels, about to break my ankles with the slightest misstep.

As I’m furiously sending out my lacking resume to anyone and everyone, Cassi is just chillin’, getting ready for a brunch date with a hunk she met at work a few days ago.

“Hazel, I think you don’t give yourself enough credit,” she says as she brushes the blush onto her cheeks. “You’re a sexy girl.”

“Oh my God, stop!” My face instantly goes redder than hers.

“You are,” she protests. “You just don’t have any self-confidence, so you end up being…you know…”

I know what she’s going to say, so I just finish it for her. “Forgettable?”

This time, she twists her lips in that way that indicates she feels bad for me. “Well, what guy’s going to remember a girl who totally ignores him and looks the other way when he talks to her?”

“I don’t do that!”

“Oh, you so do,” she laughs. “That guy at work the other day—when you came to pick me up—he asked me if you ‘liked girls.’”

“He did not!”

Laughing, Cassi nods. “Yup. He said you basically ignored him when he was trying to ‘rizz you up.’”

Making my ick-face, I shake my head. “Well, maybe if he didn’t say things like ‘rizz you up,’ I would have talked to him!”

Again, Cassi laughs. “Bros will be bros. Your problem is your standards.”

“My standards? What’s wrong with my standards?”

For some reason, I’m feeling slightly persecuted. So what if I’ve never had a boyfriend? I’m waiting for the right guy!

“They’re astronomical!” she replies. “It’s like you’re waiting for Brad Pitt in his prime to come back and swoop you off your feet.”

Finalizing the application, I scroll to the send button.

“I don’t need Brad Pitt. Just the right guy.”

“Oh, like him?” Cassi leans over my shoulder and points to the screen, exactly to the spot I was hoping she wouldn’t notice.

The headshot of Dominic Blackwood, CEO of Blackwood Capital, the hedge fund I’ve just submitted my resume to.

“Holy crap, he’s gorgeous. Hazel, tell me you’re not applying here because the CEO is a ten.”

I don’t answer.

I can’t because something is happening to me.

It’s in his eyes, I think. Dark and steady and fixed straight ahead, like the photographer caught him deciding whether or not this was worth his time. High cheekbones. A hard, clean jaw with a shadow of stubble. A mouth that doesn’t smile for the camera because it doesn’t have to.

He looks rich and bored and also faintly dangerous, like the kind of man that could pick you out of a crowd, decide he wants you, and just take you home and eat you up because he was hungry.

And low in my belly, somewhere deep I’ve never paid much attention to, something tightens.

Wow. Oh, okay. That’s new.

Is this a kink I have that I didn’t even know about until now? Dangerous-looking men?

I’m blushing even harder than her makeup now.

I shift on the couch, my thighs pressing together without even asking. Heat crawls up my throat—a heat so hot even ice water couldn’t cool it.

This is absurd. It’s just a photograph. A man like that has women like Cassi orbiting him in mini-skirts every day of his life. And even then, he probably doesn’t even bother to learn their names.

He would never learn mine.

Men don’t see you, Hazel. They look right through you.

“Um, hello?” Cassi waves a hand in front of my face. “Did you short-circuit?”

“No,” I reply. My voice comes out squished and wrong. I clear my throat. “And I’m applying because I need the money!”

“That’s true.” She’s grinning at me. “But you’re also drooling over that guy’s photo.”

I’m not drooling. I’m all warm inside. There’s a big difference…

…I think.

I click submit before she talks me out of it. The page blinks, and Dominic Blackwood vanishes, leaving me feeling strangely hollow.

Get a grip. He’s a stranger who runs a hedge fund. And you’re never going to hear from him.

“You have zero qualifications for that job,” Cassi says cheerfully, going back to her makeup.

“Yeah, well I need money.”

She points her mascara wand at me like a mini sword. “That’s a big red flag, babe.”

“You wanna pay my rent for me?”

Cassi frowns. But it’s not like I was really asking.

My folks got divorced when I was twelve. Mom works constantly but doesn’t have anything to spare. And my dad remarried and started another family on the other side of the country. He sends the occasional fifty bucks, which I obviously appreciate, but it’s not enough to make a dent in what I owe.

I go to the cramped kitchen and make tea. Ginger-orange for her and a regular green for me. She takes hers with a queenly nod specifically designed to make me roll my eyes.

She looks like a million bucks, and I look like I haven’t left my apartment in three days. But that’s basically how our friendship is. She shines, and I fade into the shadow behind her. But you know what? I’m fine with it.

I’m nineteen, and I’ve never had a boyfriend. And I’m fine with that too.

The right man is coming. He just hasn’t noticed me yet.

I raise my cup to my lips to take a sip. But before I can, my phone dings, signaling I’ve just received an e-mail. Cassi raises an eyebrow. “You got hired?”

“Yeah, right,” I reply, brushing her off as I open it. “Probably somebody telling me to look somewhere else—”

My voice breaks. My body goes rigid.

Right there, at the top of my inbox, is a return e-mail from Blackwood Capital: Your application has been approved. Congratulations.

“What?” Cassi asks. She leans over my shoulder, glances at my phone screen, and gasps. “No way!”

“Can’t be…” I mutter.

My thumb hovers over the message. I’m desperate to see what’s inside, but I can’t bring myself to actually look. Thankfully, Cassi takes over for me and swipes it open herself.

There’s a single paragraph, and it’s short. I mouth the words, like even whispering them might shatter their reality.

Miss Briggs. Your application to Blackwood Capital has been approved. We believe you will be a perfect fit for the job. Attached is a digital contract for e-signature, along with a standard NDA.

A perfect fit. Me. No one has ever called me a perfect fit for anything.

My jaw drops, and I turn to Cassi in disbelief. “I got the job!”

“Babe, it’s been like ten minutes—”

“I know, right!?” The tears come up fast and hot, and I don’t even fight them. All I can see is my first paycheck and the look on my landlord’s face when I hand him a check.

I scroll and sign, my thumb moving on its own.

“Wait,” Cassi snaps, but it’s too late. I’ve sent the forms back. “Did you just sign that NDA without reading it?”

“Yeah?” I’m already up on my feet, nervous energy bubbling through me. “I’m sure it’s just standard stuff for a firm of their size.”

Cassi shakes her head at me, but I’m not listening. My heart feels like a bird in my chest, and I’m too busy leaping all over the room like a crazy hamster, celebrating the monumental shift my life’s about to take.

I see her filming me on her phone out of the corner of my eye, and I know this will probably end up on her Instagram, but I don’t care. I’m going to get my rent paid!

A perfect fit. Dominic Blackwood thinks I’m a perfect fit.

The warm feeling is taking over, low and secret, as I tell myself the job is all about the money.

Well…mostly about the money…