Beauty and the Boss - MINK

1

Liam

Golden sunshine puts a glare on my screen, so I press a button that drops the blinds behind me. I get a better view of my target, her computer ridiculously easy to hack according to my tech guy.

She’s scrolling through jobs on a search engine, the list carefully curated by my high-dollar hacker—some guy in Finland. Each position seems to be an okay fit, but not what she’s looking for. She double-majored in literature and business, is a cat person, and wants something close to her apartment. The job as a communications assistant at a dog food company? She scrolls right past it. Same for the positions at tech companies with all-male staff. But when she comes to my listing, she pauses.

Her cursor hesitates over the link.

I hold my breath as she flits around like a butterfly, her wings new and ready to open, with no clue there’s a spider web right in front of her. My web.

She clicks the link.

I can breathe again.

She scrolls through the listing--one perfectly tailored to hit all her high-points: entry-level, PR and assistant duties, plenty of women at the company and many in high-level positions, environmentally-conscious office, and only a few subway stops away.

She clicks to apply and begins filling out the form for my temporary position.

I lean back and steeple my fingers. She doesn’t need to bother with the formalities. She’s got the job. And once she’s under my thumb, I’ll have the one bargaining chip that Duncan Lavine can’t resist. His daughter.

“Why are you looking so evil?” Bradley strides in, his blond hair in disarray and his suit rumpled.

“Why are you looking freshly fucked?” I fire back.

“Got a new secretary.” He shrugs. “She likes the cock. What can I say?” He plops down in the chair across from me, then leans over and hits the button to open the blinds.

It’s fine. I’m done with Georgia Lavine … for now.

“So why the devil face?” He runs a hand through his mussed hair. Bradley is my half-brother, a total skirt-chaser, and quite possibly my only friend, though I’d never tell him that.

“I just love it when a plan comes together.”

“What plan? Based on your expression, is it the ‘stomping puppies’ plan?”

“Something like that.” I’ll twist and bend Georgia to get what I want, and then I’ll toss her aside. So perhaps he has a point.

“Is this about that Lavine asshole again?” He sighs dramatically.

I shrug. “We’re going to own that business.”

“You’ve been saying that for a year.”

My anger flares like the head of a match. “Maybe you don’t care that Duncan Lavine fucked our mother over, but I do.”

He shakes his head. “I care. I want him to get what’s coming to him. I’m just not sure that it’s worth--” He waves a hand at me. “Whatever it is you’re planning to get back at him.”

“Mom was in rehab for three months after he left. He put her there with his false promises and lies. Not to mention he talked her into selling him her cosmetics company for a song. No, I won’t allow him to get away with it. And I intend to buy his company, break it down into tiny pieces, and ship them off to China.”

“Count me in.” He looks out at the blue sky behind me. “Where do we start?”

“With my new assistant.” I sit back and watch as she submits her resume through the online portal.

My foolish little snack is caught in the web, and I’m a particularly hungry spider.

2

Georgia

Feeling excited, I hit the submit button. I try not to get my hopes up. This is the first job I’ve applied for that I really want. I had no idea it would be so difficult to find a position when I left college, but it’s proving to be harder than I thought.

“I’m not being picky,” I tell Mr. Grumpy Pants, who’s lying on the counter where he’s not supposed to be while giving me a judgy look. Then again, I think that’s his normal face. I let him get away with lounging there because he’s so stinkin’ cute with his hair sticking up in a million different directions. He really does live up to his name. When I went to adopt him, the shelter tried to warn me away from him. I refused to budge. I was going to give his grumpy butt a home and smother him with love. So I let him lie on the counter.

“I just want to find the right position, you know? It’s my first