My Boss's Kiss Read online

  My Boss’s Kiss

  By Destiny Chase and Melanie Marks

  Copyright 2015 Destiny Chase

  Copyright 2015 Melanie Marks

  Cover image © solominviktor | Shutterstock.com

  All Rights Reserved.

  MY BOSS’S KISS

  CHAPTER 1

  At work, I got my salad stolen. STOLEN! For the second time today. I had just made it for table eight. Now—gone.

  “That’s it!” I slammed down my serving tray.

  I didn’t even care (for the most part) that all my co-workers were now staring at me. So what? I’d had enough. They were all catty witches anyway and I was ready to quit.

  Adam was at my elbow in a second. “What’s going on?”

  He had no clue how my co-workers treated—none. Because he’s “the boss” and everyone loves him

  I opened my mouth, ready to rat everyone out. But Sharona cut me off, accusing Adam, “You give her all the good tables and do whatever she wants because you have the hots for her.”

  Huh?!

  My jaw dropped. Literally.

  Adam had the hots for me? What a joke. The truth was so totally the opposite it wasn’t even funny. Adam only gave me the waitressing gig as a favor to my dead husband, Jason. If they hadn’t been best friends since childhood, Adam would have laughed in my face when he learned I needed a job.

  “He does not have the hots for me!” I snorted. “The guy hates me.”

  “Jones! I don’t hate you.” Adam sounded surprised, completely baffled by the mere idea.

  Yeah, right. Whatever. He was full of it.

  “Okaay,” I muttered, not even slightly believing his protest, still in a rage, still so ready to quit.

  I was going to storm off—out of the kitchen, out of the restaurant. That was my plan, but then I couldn’t help myself. I whirled back to Sharona.

  “Yes he does. He totally hates me.”

  Adam stared at me for a second, as though he couldn’t believe I really thought that. Then he let out a breath and herded Sharona and me into his office, telling everyone else to get back to work. I ignored their lingering, smug stares. I hated them—all of them—the bitter, mean … salad stealers.

  Once in his office, I turned my back to Adam, making sure Sharona understood that no matter how much he protested, our dear boss did indeed hate me and if she thought otherwise—if any of my co-workers thought otherwise—they were delusional. Clueless. Seriously. I got no special treatment. None. At all. Adam despised me. Big time.

  “He always has,” I huffed. “When we were kids, he used to put rice in my hood so when I put on my coat I’d get covered in rice and everyone called me Lice Head—for years! And he used to write mean notes to me, and now he won’t even work with me. I mean, look at the schedule.” I grabbed it off his desk and shoved it in Sharona’s face. “We never, ever work the same hours, ever. Just teeny, tiny little overlaps now and then—like right now—and he’s getting off soon. Trust me, I know, the guy hates me.”

  “Jones, I don’t hate you.”

  I whipped around. “Give it up, Adam! You avoid me as much as possible.”

  “Well,” Sharona ticked her tongue, still studying the schedule, seeming surprised by my indisputable proof. We had hardly any hours together—ever—and he made the schedule.

  Sharona shrugged. “When you do work together he can’t take his eyes off you. He watches you glide all through the kitchen like you’re an angel sent from the heavens.”

  “No he doesn’t!” She was so on drugs! “When I come to work he slinks up here to his office to get away from me.”

  “Hello! It’s one-way glass!” She gestured around, sounding like, duh! “He can watch you, alone—totally stalk on you.”

  Adam shot her a look, quirking his eyebrows. He appeared slightly amused, but used his I-can’t-believe-you-said-that tone, “I don’t do that.”

  Then he added, “I’m a married man.”

  Sharona scoffed. “Oh yeah. That’s going really well.”

  Adam winced. Sharona had hit a sore spot. Adam’s marriage was on the rocks. But it wasn’t his fault. Really. His wife was a vain, self-centered model who needed attention from men—lots of attention. From lots of men. She was a serial cheater and Adam deserved better.

  “Look, Sharona, who I hire is none of your business,” Adam said. “If I want to hire my little old aunt with a wooden leg and make her head waitress that’s none of your business. I’m the boss.”

  Sharona rolled her eyes, but we both knew, although Adam kept things light, he would only put up with so much crap.

  He took the schedule from Sharona. “Go back to work.”

  I started to follow Sharona out of the office, but Adam’s next words stopped me cold. “Not you, Jones. Stay here a minute.” He waited until Sharona was gone, then he shut the door. “I don’t hate you, Jones.”

  “Right.” Immediately I could feel tears welling in my eyes. “Look Adam, it’s not a big deal.” My voice wobbled. “You’ve been really nice and helpful and I appreciate the job. I do. But let’s face it, if I wasn’t the wife of your dead best friend you would tell me to go …”—ugh, I couldn’t think of anything clever, nothing— “… jump in a lake.”

  Adam tilted his head, eyeing me. He was watching me so intently, my palms started to sweat and my stomach got all fluttery. The thing was, Adam didn’t usually look at me. Ever. He would look anywhere but at me. And it wasn’t as though he was shy. He wasn’t. At all. Adam was gorgeous and funny and charming, and … Well, I could go on. On and on. All day.

  “Jones, you have this all wrong,” he said. “But you’ve been a good worker, so I guess I should let you think what you want. Only, I don’t see how you can think that. I take your kids to the arcade and have them over to my house. I let them pee in my hot tub—”

  “Yes, Adam. Since Jason died you’ve been there … for my kids.”

  “What Jones, you want to pee in my hot tub too?”

  Ugh!

  Adam quickly changed tack, apparently realizing that now that my hurt feelings were out in the open, he couldn’t just sweep them away—no matter how much he seemed to want to, because there they were—right in his face.

  He stared at me a moment, his eyes reflective, seeming to weigh his next statement in his mind before actually asking it. “Is there something you need from me, Jones?”

  “No.” I sighed. He wasn’t getting it. Or he was pretending not to. “That’s not it. I don’t need anything from you—except my job, and I really do appreciate it. But you do avoid me. You can’t deny that, Adam. You always have.”

  “Look, Jones I’m a married man—”

  “No Adam! That’s a convenient excuse, for now. But you’ve avoided me for … ever. You don’t like me. You never have.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “You have this so wrong, Jones.”

  Ugh.

  “Adam, give it up. You avoid me at all costs. I just don’t get why I bug you so much.”

  His eyes lost their usual cockiness. “You don’t bug me, Jones.”

  The way he said that had my heart pumping all wild. He sounded completely sincere. It made me stare up at him in shock. “I—I don’t?”

  He shook his head, his eyes studying me intently, then cleared his throat. “This conversation—it’s—”

  Adam didn’t finish. Instead he rubbed his face with the palms of his hands, then let out an exasperated breath. “Go back to work, Jones.”

  He sounded sort of … I don’t even know, tortured? It was weird. Unsettling. But I did what he said. I went back to work and tried to ignore Adam’s aversion to me. And my co-workers’ aversion to me. They could all take a leap. I needed the job, and I was good at it, dang good at it.
And despite what the other waitresses said, I worked hard. I did. They were just catty, backstabbing, banshees.

  And who cared if I had no friends at the restaurant, anyway?

  Well … okay, I cared. But there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it. When I came back here to New Hampshire, after Jason’s death, I found myself pretty much alone: suddenly no husband, no job, no friends. And I sure didn’t make any friends when Adam hired me to work at his restaurant. Everyone thought I was getting preferential treatment, and I guess I was. But not for the reasons they thought. Adam was just trying to honor his dead friend, help out his family.

  So, yeah, I went back to work. And I worked hard. All week, and the next. And the tips were good, great even. Sad to say, but waitressing was my thing, seriously. I was way better at that than anything I could have gone to school for. Plus, waitressing was a release for me. My husband was dead, just died, but at work, it was so busy, I didn’t have time to think about it. And my kids were suddenly being taken over by my overbearing yet well-meaning mother-in-law, but I didn’t have time to think about that either. So work was nice, mind-numbing.

  Friday evening my mind was so numb, I jumped when my co-worker, Megan, tugged at my arm.

  “Oh sorry, Ashley—just trying to get your attention.” For once she sounded nice, friendly even. “I was wondering if you could, maybe, close for me tonight?”

  Oh, so that explained her non-hostility—she needed a favor.

  “Um.” I thought about it a moment, trying to decide. Of course on the one hand, I was free tonight and I could definitely use the extra money. On the other, Megan was usually a witch to me and I didn’t want to do her any favors. I mean, she was mean to me. Still, in the end, the need for money won out.

  “Sure,” I said at last. “I’ll close.”

  “Thanks! I owe you.”

  She ran off looking relieved and non-witch-like. And really, I didn’t mind closing the restaurant. It was just a lot of cleaning, and I was a pro at cleaning. I did it all the time at home, constantly—only there I didn’t get paid for it.

  When the restaurant was finally devoid of customers, I locked the door and cranked up my music on the restaurant’s loud speakers. Okay, it was basically blaring, but that’s the way I like it. Loud music helps me work faster.

  I was almost finished cleaning the salad station when my music suddenly turned off and only moments later, Adam rounded the corner, then froze. “Oh. It’s you.”

  It was the first time he’d actually spoken to me since my fight with Sharona.

  I grimaced, then gritted my teeth. “Nice to see you too.”

  “No. I just mean—what happened to Megan?”

  Of course he had scheduled Megan to close with him rather than me—anyone but me.

  I put away the last of the pies. “Something came up, I guess. She needed me to close.” I shut the fridge, then noticed two more banana creams and tried squeezing them in. “Don’t worry,” I said gruffly. “I’ll stay out of your way. I’m almost done.”

  Adam gave me a look. “You’re not in my way, Jones.”

  “Whatever. I know you would have scurried out if you knew it was me here. So, you can go. Don’t worry about it. I can lock up.”

  Adam was silent a moment. “You sure?”

  Ugh! He was willing to do that? Really?

  Really???

  “Sure,” I grumbled, planning to keep quiet, not say more. But these days that didn’t seem to be my thing. These days I couldn’t keep quiet. “Why do you hate me so much? What is it about me?”

  He was silent for a long time, then he said softly, “I don’t hate you, Jones.”

  “Oh come on, Adam. Look, don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal to me—not anymore. But admit it, you do avoid me—all the time. You always have.”

  “I don’t avoid you.”

  “Ha! Shall we look at the schedule—again? Is there a day on it that we close together? Has there ever been a day on it that we closed together? No Adam, there isn’t. And you have me down to work lunch when you work dinners, and me working nights when you work lunch.”

  “Okay, Jones, the schedule—”

  “No, Adam, it’s more than the schedule. There’s the fact that you never came to the house while Jason was alive. That you would meet him for drinks, but never come to the house.”

  He nodded, like he understood what I was getting at, so I went on, because there was more.

  “Okay, Jones,” he said at last. “I’m sorry. Yeah, okay, I avoided—avoid you, but it’s not for the reason you’re thinking. It’s the total opposite of what you’re thinking.”

  I rolled my eyes. “What, you’re saying you avoid me because you like me so much?”

  “Yeah.” He set his jaw, his dark eyes locked on mine. “Right. Exactly.”

  My heart ricochet off my rib cage.

  I would have laughed, like it was a joke or something, only he wasn’t laughing. Or joking. His eyes looked all tortured and hurting. So, my heart sort of fell to the floor. Like my jaw. And I didn’t know what to say, and he wasn’t saying anything, so we just sort of stood there, not saying anything.

  But he couldn’t really be serious.

  Could he?

  I tilted my head. “But you used to put cornflakes in my snow boots, and—write me mean notes.”

  “I was frustrated, Jones. You were in love with my best friend—you wouldn’t even look at me.”

  His gaze flickered from my eyes to the bucket I was holding, then back to my face. “You can go home now if you want.”

  “But, I’m not done.” I gestured about the messy kitchen.

  “I’ll finish.”

  “But you’re the boss.”

  “Jones … go home.”

  CHAPTER 2

  I went home when Adam told me to. But I didn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about Adam, about how tormented he had seemed when I questioned him about liking me. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And I kept thinking about his eyes, how they had been so full of want. Or had I imagined that? It was hard to tell.

  I’d always had a secret “thing” for Adam. Always. Even when we were kids. But he had always been so mean to me. So, I never admitted it to anyone, not even myself, that I kind of wanted him, sort of bad. And when he would show me random acts of kindness I’d always chalked it up to his being friends with Jason. And when Adam’s kindness would, at times, seem sort of romantic, well, I’d always chalked that part up to my imagination and secret, unevaluated feelings for him. After all, the guy avoided me, at all costs.

  So, now, this new insight—it was exciting. And unsettling. It had me all agitated, tossing and turning. I couldn’t get Adam’s eyes or words out of my head. Yeah. Right. Exactly.

  Adam had a thing for me. Wow!

  But he was married … sort of. Word was, they were ready to split. And whenever the kids would drag me to Adam’s for a dip in his hot tub (okay, they didn’t exactly have to drag me, he had a beach house after all), his wife, Brandy, was never around. “She’s out,” he would always say, and leave it at that.

  So where was she? Was she ever around? Suddenly, I wondered. And cared. Was Adam available? Still, by morning, I decided thinking about Adam in any way other than professional was a bad idea. For one thing, he was my boss. For another, he was married, no matter how tentatively. And for another thing, the one foremost in my mind, was my husband. I had loved him dearly and he’d only died five months ago.

  Jason was the only boyfriend I’d ever had, ever. We’d gotten together in middle school, and never separated. The week after we graduated from high school we got married, and we’d been happily married for twelve years—twelve years! And we had three beautiful children. Children that depended on me to be sensible and stable, not run around like a teenager, lusting after her rich boss—her married, rich boss. Besides, Adam was always a bit of a “womanizer.” Before he married Brandy three years ago, he’d been a serial dater, breaking hearts with recor
d speed. I sure didn’t need more heartbreak heaped up on my already broken heart. I was too fragile for frolic. Too fragile for Adam. Not that he offered me anything more than a job and kindness anyway. Maybe I was being silly, getting worked up about this. Maybe there was nothing to get worked up about.

  I went to work the next day and the next and the next. And things were back to normal with Adam, as though nothing had happened or been revealed. Only now I would notice him watching me, catch him staring at me when he thought I didn’t notice.

  But he still totally avoided me as much as possible, so I was surprised when one day he talked to me of his own accord, telling me I’d make more tips if I wore my hair down.

  “Hm?” I’d been getting drinks for a table. He’d caught me completely off-guard.

  “I’m just saying.” He raised his eyebrows. “You could work your assets more to your advantage.”

  “My assets?”

  “You just kind of—uh, seem to hide them.”

  Them?

  I walked off then, not out of anger or indignation or anything like that. We were just busy; I had customers waiting for me. But after talking to him, I did notice that a lot of the other girls totally primped for work and showed off their cleavage (gag!)—worked their assets. Still, yuck, it just wasn’t me.

  But then, weirdly, I tried it out the next day anyway, just to see. Instead of putting my long hair in a tight ponytail as I usually did for work, I wore it loose and down. And it did bring in more tips. But I noticed Adam noticing and it made me feel funny.

  I went behind a corner in the kitchen and quickly pinned my hair up in a messy bun, but when I looked up, there was Adam across the room, watching me mess with my hair. He quickly looked away, talking with a busboy as though he hadn’t been staring. But he had. It filled me with a strange feeling—a mixture of feelings, really. But the strangest was power. It was like I had power, over Adam. And, of course, I liked that idea, liked it a lot, but it was weird because I’d always thought of Adam as tough, unobtainable and indestructible. So, realizing he had “feelings” … for me … it left me confused.