About This Book
During the day, I work for Dylan McAllister, the hunky billionaire who became CEO of his own company at thirty. He may be one of the hottest men I’ve ever met in my life, but he’s also the boss from hell. He has dazzling blue eyes that pierce your soul and freeze your heart. And he’s a known womanizer.
I call him AB to my friends—Asshole Boss. He’s grumpy, demanding, and rude. And that’s on a good day. He’s definitely the worst boss ever.
The only reason I’m still his secretary is because I have debt up to my eyeballs thanks to student loans and an ex that conned me into letting him use my credit cards. I’m counting down the days until I can quit and tell him to get his own coffee and lobster rolls. My calendar says that between both my jobs, I only need to work for him for three more months.
You see, Mr. McAllister has no idea that his “mousey little secretary” has a night job just so I can quit as soon as possible.
That is, until I end up at a bachelor party for his brother.
And then the real drama begins … because Mr. McAllister can’t seem to get over the fact that his boring secretary also pops out of cakes.
Chapter 1
Abby
* * *
The stack of bills sat on the edge of my bed like a mountain that I didn’t have the energy to climb. By my calculations, I owed more than a hundred thousand dollars. Thanks for nothing, school loans and David Adams.
David Adams was my con artist of an ex-boyfriend. We’d only gone on three dates before he’d convinced me to buy him materials for his flooring business. “I’ll pay you back after I finish the job,” he’d said. I hadn’t heard from him since. That was an awful way to lose $5000, but as my best friends said, at least it was only $5000, and at least I hadn’t slept with him. I would have felt even more betrayed then.
“Hey, Abby.” Emma knocked on my door before poking her head inside my room. “Isabella is going to come over with a pizza. She wants to know what kind you want?”
“Tell her to surprise us.” I jumped off of the bed. The stack of bills didn’t even move. It was solid and going nowhere. I gave it a glare before turning my attention to Emma. “Is Jack coming, or is it just her?”
“I’m pretty sure she said she wanted a ladies' night.” Emma glanced down at her phone. “So it will just be us girls.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Jack was Isabella’s new boyfriend. He was great, but now that she had moved out of the apartment we shared, I was happy to have some alone time with her and without him. “Will Chloe be joining us?”
“No, I’m actually not sure what she’s up to tonight.” Emma typed rapidly into her phone. “Okay, I’m going to have a quick shower before she gets here.” She wrinkled her nose and sniffed herself. “I went for a run this afternoon and I’m stinky.”
“You’re not stinky.” I laughed. “Next time let me know when you’re going on a run and I’ll join you.”
“Of course you will.”
We both knew that I had no intentions of running with her. I hated running. I’d tried running through Central Park once and ran out of breath after five minutes. I’d collapsed onto the ground after ten minutes, and I still hadn’t gotten over the shame. My body was not made for running. Not at all.
“Hey, Isabella!” I jumped up as soon as my best friend entered the living room. She was wearing a summery yellow dress and white wedges, and she looked beautiful and happy. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages!”
“You haven’t seen me in two days, Abby.” She grinned and gave me a hug. She smelled like peonies, and I wondered if her new scent was a gift from her new boyfriend.
“Well, it feels like ages.”
“I know. I missed you too.” She stepped back, and I noticed that she had a glow to her that I’d never seen before. I guess that’s what happened when you found love.
“So how’s it going with you and Jack?”
She bit her lip. “Would you hate me if I said it was going absolutely fantastic?”
“Of course not!”
It was the truth, of course, but I was slightly envious. Her boyfriend was absolutely gorgeous. He was a famous NFL player. He was a billionaire. He was handsome. He was hot. And he loved her. I mean, what more could you wish for than that? And, to top it off, I was the one who’d set them up. If it hadn’t been for me, they wouldn’t be together, which, I have to say, made me very proud of myself. In a different life, I could have been a matchmaker.
“So, are you excited about the new job?” Isabella asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, tomorrow’s the big day. I can’t believe I’m finally starting.”
“You must be absolutely excited,” Emma said with a tinge of jealousy in her voice. “You’re going to be making so much money.”
“It’s good money for sure, but it’s going to be a lot of work. I mean, I’m working for Dylan McAllister. I’ve heard he’s absolutely crazy to work for.”
“Those are probably just rumors,” Isabella said. “I mean, he can’t be that horrible, right?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I don’t have a lot of experience, and I don’t know if he even knows that. I don’t know how he’s going to feel about me learning on the job.” I smiled, trying to play down my anxiety. “I mean, I went through the employment agency. It’s not like I lied. I was a PA for a little while.”
“Weren’t you a PA for your uncle?” Isabella asked. “For like a month?”
“Yeah, but …”
Emma said. “That’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it?”
“It’s not a stretch. I was a PA for one summer, it was like three months.”
“And you told the employment company this?”
“Well, maybe I didn’t tell them it was just for one summer,” I admitted. “But I didn’t say that I have any skills that I don’t have. To be honest, I got the feeling that they were desperate for applicants.”
“That’s not a good sign,” Isabella said.
“No, it’s not. I don’t want to think about why they settled for me as the secretary to a billionaire at a multi-billion-dollar company, even though I don’t have that much experience, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. I was just doing my finances, and those interest rates are killing me. I’m paying so much money each month on these loans and the balances just never seem to go down.”
“Yup, it’s all going to interest,” Emma nodded. “You gotta make some huge payments to start getting the principal down.”
“I know that now. I loved my time at Columbia, but man.” I made a face.
“I feel ya,” Emma said.
“Me too,” Isabella nodded. We all looked at her. “What? It’s true. I’ve got loans to repay as well.”
“But you’re also dating a billionaire.”
“It’s not like I’m going to ask him to pay off my loans!”