CHAPTER 1
Sutton
Dear Electronic Diary Thingy,
My boss, as usual, is a giant, epic, total, gargantuan, MASSIVE, pain in the ass.
Okay, that’s nothing new. I have enough evidence stored away in all your saved files by now that this point is just a given. I’m not going to delete it because it gives me satisfaction to vent, which I guess is what this whole project is about. Granny told me to write. So, I’m writing. Yes, I’m pointedly ignoring the fact that Granny also said Philippe Wilson isn’t just an ass—he also has a nice ass. And that if she was fifty years younger, she might have considered getting remarried again. Or at least entertain naughty thoughts. *Shiver*. Thinking about Granny having naughty thoughts about my boss is just about the grossest, most unnatural thing in the universe. I’d rather think naughty thoughts of my own. Like how to get back at said boss for giving me two different cost report sheets to complete by Monday at five minutes to five on a Friday. When I fetch him his sandwiches every single day, I already get the full-fat mayo instead of light mayo. He’s never complained. That’s about the extent my evil goes. I know. #SadAF. That’s me. So yes, come Monday, I had those reports done. I also never complain when Philippe—who by the way isn’t even French but likes to say his name like he is even though his last name is Wilson, which is also clearly NOT French—gives me his credit card statements with like a thousand charges and two receipts to try and reconcile. Nope. I never say a thing.
I leave my cursor blinking on the next line and stare at the white screen until my eyes threaten to drop out of my head and roll onto the carpet. Yes. They’re that dry.
I finally tear my eyes away to glance down at the keyboard. I hover my finger over the delete button, but leave it there, like a gentle caress. Yup. My keyboard is about the only thing I’ve gently caressed lately. And no, my lack of a love life doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that I live with my eighty-four-year-old grandmother. The house is Granny’s, but that’s not the issue. I have my own basement. I pay her rent. I do have my own life. So, no, it’s not like that. Really. I’m twenty-seven. Independent. I have a good, well-paying job, even if I don’t like it very much. I have a Business Degree. I have a life. I just don’t have a love life.
Maybe it’s Granny’s example that did me in. She was always my favorite person in the world. My parents both worked, and they were always really busy, so I spent a lot of time with Granny growing up. This included my entire summer vacation every single year, but I’m not complaining. I had the time of my life. Granny and I golfed. She taught me how to play the guitar and the organ. She gave me my love of garage sales and thrift stores, and she honed me into a lean, mean, card-playing machine. She also taught me how to shoot whiskey. Okay, that one was later.
Most of all, she taught me that I could be a woman in this world and make it on my own. My grandpa died when I was four, so Granny’s been on her own for twenty-three years. She never wanted to remarry. She never even went on another date. She loved my grandpa, but she also tells me that after he died, she had to start living life on her own, doing everything for herself, and after she got used to it, she never wanted to go back.
I have my own little office here, even if it is the size of a tiny little broom closet, but it does give me the advantage of four walls and privacy. When footsteps sound in the hall, I quickly click save on the vent piece I was working on and clear it off my screen. A second later, Cherry, our receptionist, pops her head in the door. She’s blonde, in her early twenties, and gets really worked up when Philippe turns into an office tyrant. P.S. He acts this way most of the day.
When Philippe isn’t yelling, he likes to pretend that he can’t actually talk. He goes all silent and broody, and it’s creepy. Basically, it fits his personality. He has a broody name. He has long, jet black hair. Like, shoulder-length. His chiseled features—and what I like to call pretty nose and lips—are totally at odds with the rest of his body. Not that he’s not chiseled there, because heck yes he is, but he’s tall and broad and jacked in a way that makes women salivate all over before they realize what an ass he can be.