Like a Boss Read online

  Like a Boss

  Sylvia Pierce

  Lili Valente

  Contents

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Tell Sylvia and Lili your favorite parts!

  Sneak Peek of Naughty or Ice!

  Sneak Peek of Hot as Puck!

  About the Authors

  Also by Sylvia Pierce

  Also by Lili Valente

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright © 2018 by Sylvia Pierce and Lili Valente

  Cover Design by Bootstrap Designs.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This contemporary romance is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with, especially if you enjoy sexy, hilarious romance novels with alpha males. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

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  ABOUT THE BOOK

  I’m one puff piece away from tearing up my journalism degree and hurling my laptop into the Hudson River. So when I smell a juicy story brewing at my brother’s Wall Street investment firm, I’ll do whatever it takes to get my scoop.

  * * *

  One clever disguise later, I’m deep undercover as the firm’s newest broker, simultaneously gathering intel and spouting off stock tips like a boss.

  * * *

  Go me, right?

  * * *

  Sure, it sounds good on paper, but there’s a catch: the actual boss.

  * * *

  Chief Executive Panty-melter Jack Holt is cocky. Infuriating. And one smoldering look has me ready to violate every rule in the employee handbook.

  * * *

  Thank God my assignment has an expiration date. Because falling for my brother’s best friend and business partner is a lose-lose proposition. Right?

  * * *

  In the market for a hot tip? Here’s one.

  * * *

  Don’t bang your best friend’s little sister. Especially when she’s an investigative journalist and your company is the target of her latest exposé.

  * * *

  Unfortunately, I’ve got a hard-on for high-risk bets, and I’m more than eager to invest my considerable stock holdings in Ellie Seyfried’s…ahem…glorious assets.

  * * *

  Friends with fringe benefits is a sweet deal, but it’s not long before I’m falling harder than the post-bubble Nasdaq, hooked on Ellie’s sweet smile and determination to make the world a better place.

  * * *

  There’s only one problem…

  * * *

  When it comes to risking my money, I’ve mastered every trick in the book. But how the hell do I risk my heart?

  Dedicated to the Smut Boneyard Social Club

  Prologue

  Jack

  They say money can’t buy happiness, and that’s probably true. But if your lot in life is to be a miserable prick, wouldn’t you rather be a rich miserable prick?

  Notice I didn’t say a selfish prick. Quite the contrary, ladies. I’m a generous man. My portfolio is massive, and I’ve got the kind of hard assets guaranteed to deliver mutually pleasurable returns every time.

  But mutual pleasure is where our arrangement ends. I learned long ago that unlike my bank account, love is not FDIC insured. So once my generous supply has met your eager demand, I’ll be returning to the welcoming arms of my one sure thing: business, baby.

  And it’s booming.

  My company is poised to become the go-to investment firm for elite athletes around the world. I’ve got a penthouse apartment with a killer view of downtown Manhattan, a private office suite on the fifty-eighth floor, a vacation home in the south of France, and a net worth that just won’t quit.

  And you know what? I deserve it.

  Think I’m cocky? Sorry to disappoint, but it’s just numbers. Money is math and math is money—clearly defined rules, time-tested formulas, predictable answers—and that’s about as un-cocky as it gets.

  No, I wouldn’t call it happiness, exactly…

  But I’ve made my peace with it. Hell, I’ve embraced it. No complications, no emotions, and best of all—no losses I can’t recoup.

  And then she sweeps back into my life.

  Chapter 1

  Eleanor

  “It’s like how colonel is pronounced KER-nal.” Stephen draws out the last two syllables for the benefit of my tiny female mind. “Even though there isn’t an ‘R’ in there.”

  I blink, stunned.

  This guy can’t possibly be for real. Can he?

  It’s hard to believe that just a week ago, I was thrilled at the prospect of spending time in a normal work environment. One where people don’t sit at their desk in wrinkled pajamas with bed head, surrounded by coffee cups they haven’t gotten around to washing even though their kitchen is three feet from their work station.

  I have good housekeeping intentions, I really do, but it’s hard to care about a mess when there’s never anyone around to see it. It’s like the tree in the forest. If a mug—or a freelance journalist—goes unwashed in the privacy of her tiny Queens apartment, does she make a smell? I think not.

  “You get it?” Stephen continues with a patronizing squeeze of my upper arm.

  I nod, lips pressed together to keep from saying something I shouldn’t.

  This is my brother’s investment company—he and his partner Jack built it from the ground up. And Stephen is apparently a valuable member of their brokerage team, no matter how hard it is for me to imagine this douchebag closing a financial deal with anyone, let alone a famous athlete accustomed to a certain amount of deference.

  “So Seyfried is like that.” Stephen lifts his hands into the air, fingers spread wide in a ta-da motion. “You pronounce the ‘G’ before the ‘F’ even though it’s not there. Because Seyfried and Siegfried are actually the same name if you look at it from an etymological standpoint.”

  I shake my head, dumbfounded. “Wow.”

  He grins. “Blew your mind a little, didn’t I, slugger? Bam!” He reaches for my head, but I duck, avoiding further fondling by drawing my cell from my purse.

  “You did, St
ephen. You really did.” I glance out across the open plan office, praying to see Ian’s head bobbing above the crowd of people packing up for the day.

  I’m not sure how much more I can handle. If my brother doesn’t show in the next two minutes, I’ll make a run for it and text him to call me when his plane touches down in Portland.

  I’ve suffered through my fair share of mansplaining, but this is the first time I’ve had a guy explain to me how I’m mispronouncing my own last name.

  Yes.

  My. Own. Last. Name.

  I’ve been Eleanor Seyfried—pronounced SIGH-fred, not SIG-freed—for twenty-eight years. One would assume I know how to pronounce it. Unless one were Stephen, or one of the other Wall Street dude-bros who make Seyfried & Holt a challenging place to work for anyone without a Y chromosome.

  I would bet a thousand dollars Stephen has never dared to tell my brother that he’s mispronouncing the name etched in gold outside his office door.

  “Have you explained this to Ian?” I blink innocently as I point toward his office.

  “Nah.” Stephen’s lips pucker and his brows dip into a V. “Ian knows. He’s a shark, your brother. Never stops swimming. Always thinking.” He snaps his fingers several times, the sharp snick making my teeth itch. “Synapses always firing.”

  I’m about to tell Stephen that I understand Ian’s nimble brain well, because I also scored high on my GMATs—one hundred points higher than my brother, in fact. But before I can speak, Ian emerges from the executive lounge.

  “Ian! There you are.” My arm surges into the air, fingers wiggling. “Glad I caught you. I need a word before you leave for the airport.”

  “Sure thing, but I’ve only got five, ten minutes, tops.” Ian’s brown eyes flick from me to Stephen and back again, a distracted smile on his face. “Hey, Rictor, how’s the Cruise account going? You seal the deal?”

  “Not yet, but I’m close,” Stephen says, his chest puffing up. “Should have him on the hook by the end of the month.”

  “All right, but let’s keep in touch on this one,” Ian says, throwing the rest over his shoulder as he pops into his office. “I’m meeting with Cruise in Portland. I want to be sure we’re all on the same page about what Seyfried and Holt can offer him that other wealth management companies can’t.”

  “Gotcha, chief,” Stephen says before winking and adding in a voice for my ears only, “Gonna miss your pretty face around the office, slugger. Don’t be a stranger, okay?” He backs away, pointing at my chest. “And send us a copy of your article, when you’re finished. My mom loves that stuff. She takes all my press mentions to church to show her friends. It’s super cute.”

  “Super cute,” I echo with a queasy smile as I lunge after Ian, shutting his office door behind me with a combination sigh-groan that makes my brother laugh.

  “A week out of your writer cave that rough on you, sis?” He smiles at me from across his massive oak desk, where he’s busily tucking folders into his briefcase. “You appear to have showered several days in a row. I’m impressed. Surprised…but impressed.”

  “Very funny. Yes, I’ve been showering daily, but that’s not the problem.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He taps at his cell, attention fixed on the screen. “Just in case you need to look for a job outside your lair, showering is a good life skill to keep in your arsenal.”

  “Again. Hysterical. You should do stand-up in your spare time.” I keep my tone light, though the reminder of the tenuous nature of my freelance writing gig compared to Ian’s high-salaried, big-bonus position isn’t the most welcome at the moment. Especially considering I might have to cancel the “Not Your Mother’s Wall Street” article I’ve been working on for the editor at Barrington Beat, and the week I spent here will have been a waste of time. “But I need the not-funny Ian right now. Seriously. There’s a problem.”

  He looks up, his smile fading. “Is Dad okay?”

  “Dad’s fine,” I say, with a frustrated huff. “Which you would know if you called him every Sunday. You know he wants you to call, too. It’s family check-in, not Ellie check-in.”

  “But he keeps me on the hook for hours, El, and you make sure I stay abreast of all the news that’s fit to print,” Ian says, his golden boy grin coming out to play.

  “Speaking of fit to print… I can’t write the article, Ian. At least not the way I pitched it. It’s not going to work.”

  His brow furrows. “What? Why not?”

  “Because this is still our mother’s Wall Street, or more like our father’s.” I wave my hand toward the world on the other side of his door. “Different technology, different slang, but it’s still the same ol’ boys’ club underneath.”

  “What?” He props his hands on his hips. “But you said it yourself—we have more women working for S and H than any other financial firm our size. We’ve stepped up our recruiting efforts for female candidates, revamped our family leave policies… We’re almost at a fifty-fifty male to female ratio for new hires, El. What other firm can say that?”

  “Yes, and that’s all great. But most of the female hires are making less money for the same jobs, or they’re starting from the bottom while the men—many of them with less experience—are going straight to management positions,” I explain. I can’t believe my detail-obsessed brother has managed to overlook these facts. “And a lot of the women are only part-time. They don’t have benefits, job security, or—”

  “That can’t be right,” Ian says with a shake of his head. “Have you talked to our hiring manager? Blair’s been doing an amazing job.”

  “Blair’s very busy,” I say diplomatically, not wanting to get Blair in hot water, no matter what an uncooperative B-word she’s been all week.

  Being unable to get one of the two women in management positions at S&H to answer my questions hasn’t made my job any easier, but I don’t want to make unnecessary waves.

  “You should pin Blair down before you leave.” Ian taps two fingers on his desk. “I haven’t heard a single complaint from the new people. We’re running like a well-oiled machine.”

  I sigh. “People aren’t going to risk their already uncertain positions by complaining to the boss, Ian, but I’ve definitely heard rumblings of discontent.”

  “Like what?”

  “Nothing I’m ready to share,” I hedge, “but enough that I can’t in good conscience write an article about my brother’s ground-breakingly-awesome-for-ladies workplace at this juncture. I need time to dig deeper.”

  “Then take it,” Ian says. “If we’ve got parity issues, I want to know about it. That’s not the kind of company I want to run, El. I hope you know that.”

  “Of course I do.” A rush of warmth fills my chest. With his good looks, razor-sharp mind, and Chosen One energy, Ian could have become another entitled jerk like so many of his Harvard friends.

  But that isn’t my brother. He’s a good man with a great heart, which is one of the major reasons I needed to have this conversation with him before my research goes any further.

  “But if I’m going to keep digging, I need to have something to show for it,” I continue. “Eventually I have to deliver a piece to Barrington, positive or negative. Are you okay with that?”

  To his credit, Ian hesitates only a second before nodding. “But I think you’ll come to see this in a different light. Jack and I are pro-diversity and pro-equality.” His glance shifts to the door behind me. “Right, Jack?”

  “Indeed.” Jack’s laid-back drawl rumbles through the room like a soothing roll of distant thunder as the door snicks shut behind him.

  But, as always, the presence of Ian’s partner and best friend is anything but soothing. I don’t know what it is about the man, but Jack Edward Holt brings out my awkward, twitchy introvert like no one else.

  I spin on my heel with a nervous laugh and a jerky wave. “Hey, how’s it going, Jack? Didn’t hear you come in.”

  His lips curve in his signature smirk, the one that assures yo
u he’s always in on the joke. “Going good, Ellie. Get everything you needed for your article?”

  “She needs more time,” Ian says, answering for me in a big brotherly fashion that nevertheless rubs me the wrong way after spending a week with the patronizing and/or oblivious men on his staff.

  They aren’t all bad guys, for sure, but most of them could use a course in not interrupting their female colleagues while they’re speaking and keeping jokes appropriate for the workplace. There’s also the matter of the exotic odor emanating from the men’s locker room in the company gym.

  But hey, one battle at a time…

  “And someone at the top to make sure she gets access,” Ian continues. “Can you handle that for me, Jack? I’m in Portland for the rest of the month.”

  “I don’t know, I’ve got a lot going on,” Jack says at the same time I blurt out, “Jesus, Ian, I don’t need a babysitter.”

  Jack and I turn, gazes bumping as I try not to let my aversion to Ian’s proposal show. For his part, Jack looks uncharacteristically surprised.

  But then, having his company rebuffed is probably a rare event for Mr. Holt. With his artistically mussed sandy-brown hair, sleepy green eyes, and long, lean, I-hit-the-gym-like-most-New-Yorkers-hit-the-coffee-shop frame, Jack is even more stupidly handsome than my brother. If Ian is the golden boy next door, Jack is the bad boy with a voice like whiskey and a “let’s break the rules” glint in his eye.