Bad Boss
In this scorching final installment of the Billion $ Bastards trilogy, infuriating billionaire Ulysses White fulfills Morgan Blackwood’s darkest fantasies in bed!
I need Morgan. She’s the heart of my business—so when she asks for a vacation, I refuse. But Morgan won’t let it go. She wants a life, a date, to get laid. Happily, I can provide two of those things…
Maybe I’m not able to read people’s emotions, but I can satisfy a woman’s every physical craving. And I’m ready to fulfill Morgan’s fantasies, no matter how wicked she thinks they are. When she tells me she wants me—and not in a gentle way—I propose a game: I’ll help her explore her darkest desires, as long as she remains in control.
Harlequin DARE publishes sexy romances featuring powerful alpha males and bold, fearless women exploring their deepest fantasies.
Discover the other irresistible men of Jackie Ashenden’s Billion $ Bastards series: Dirty Devil and Sexy Beast, available now!
JACKIE ASHENDEN writes dark, emotional stories with alpha heroes who’ve just gotten the world to their liking only to have it blown wide apart by their kick-ass heroines. She lives in Auckland, New Zealand, with her husband, the inimitable Dr. Jax, two kids and two rats. When she’s not torturing alpha males and their gutsy heroines, she can be found drinking chocolate martinis, reading anything she can lay her hands on, wasting time on social media or being forced to go mountain biking with her husband. To keep up-to-date with Jackie’s new releases and other news, sign up to her newsletter at jackieashenden.com.
Also by Jackie Ashenden
The Knights of Ruin
Ruined
Destroyed
Kings of Sydney
King’s Price
King’s Rule
King’s Ransom
The Billionaires Club
The Debt
Billion $ Bastards
Dirty Devil
Sexy Beast
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk
Bad Boss
Jackie Ashenden
www.millsandboon.co.uk
ISBN: 978-1-474-09955-4
BAD BOSS
© 2020 Jackie Ashenden
Published in Great Britain 2020
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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To those who are just a bit “different.” You’re all
heroes.
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
About the Author
Booklist
Title Page
Copyright
Note to Readers
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
EPILOGUE
About the Publisher
CHAPTER ONE
Morgan
I WANTED TO kill my boss.
And I did mean that quite literally. I wanted to put my fingers around Ulysses White’s strong, powerful neck and squeeze the life right out of him.
Naturally, I didn’t. Instead, I stood in front of his monumental black desk in his cavernous London office, with its view of the city and the Thames laid out beneath it like a supplicant before a throne, and stared at him instead.
‘What do you mean, you declined my annual leave request?’ I demanded, my fingers itching. ‘My perfectly reasonable leave request.’
He didn’t look up from the stack of papers he was signing, the early-morning sun glossing his night-black hair. ‘Your leave request was inconvenient,’ he said in his cold, dark voice. ‘So I declined it.’
My jaw ached. There’d been many times in the years I’d worked for Ulysses that I’d wanted to strangle him, because he did induce that kind of urge. But I had to admit that I’d never actually wanted to do it more than I did now.
‘You know that I’ve accumulated nearly six months’ worth of annual leave?’ I pointed out, keeping my voice very level, as Ulysses was never moved by emotion. Only logic. ‘I have to use it or else—’
‘I’ll pay it out.’ One strong, long-fingered hand signed yet another paper in his bold, slashing signature.
I bit down on the urge to tell him what to do with his pay out. ‘That’s not the point. The point is that I haven’t had a holiday in years.’
‘So? Neither have I.’
It was true, he hadn’t. Ulysses didn’t take holidays. He barely even took weekends. Managing Black and White Enterprises, the multi-billion-dollar company he’d begun from some brilliant crypto-currency speculation, along with his friends Damian Blackwood—my brother—and Everett Calhoun took every hour of his time.
He didn’t seem to mind. Then again, Ulysses didn’t seem to have feelings at all, so who knew? He was a man who lived and breathed numbers, and his brilliance with money had enabled him to push Black and White into the stratosphere. His brilliance with people, however, was non-existent.
That was where I came in. I was more than just his personal assistant. I was his heart, or at least that was how I thought of it. He was the brain, all cold logic and strategy, while I was the heart, dealing with his staff, his colleagues, his contacts—basically anything that required personal interaction, as he had zero inter-personal skills.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved my job. It was always different, always exciting, always challenging. But Ulysses was demanding, and I worked long hours, and sometimes, just sometimes, I wanted some time off.
Such as now. My brother had got married the previous week, which had prompted a certain amount of soul-searching. He was blissfully happy with Thea, his new wife, and their happiness had made me look at the emotional wasteland that was my own life.
Probably overly dramatic, but still. I was twenty-six and single. I’d never had a boyfriend and never had the opportunity to get myself one, given Ulysses owned all my time.
Not that I needed a man to complete me but, if I was going continue to be the heart of Ulysses’s company, I needed something more than work in my life.
I was lonely. I’d spent years telling myself that I was fine, that I loved working and living in London, that I didn’t need anything more than the challenge of working for Ulysses and Black and White. But perhaps I wasn’t as fine as I’d thought.
If my former man-whore brother could find someone to share his life, why couldn’t I?
‘I am not you,’ I said. ‘And I need a holiday.’
‘Too bad.’ Ulysses didn’t look at me, continuing to sign his stack of papers. ‘I need you here. Especially with Damian and Everett still away.’
Frustration coiled inside me, but I ignored it. Ulysses was uncomfortable with emotional displays, which wouldn’t help my cause.
‘I’ll be much more productive after a break,’ I argued. ‘And it won’t be for long. I’m thinking a week would—’
‘What do you want a holiday for?’ Ulysses picked up another piece of paper.
It was a genuine question. All his questions were genuine. Ulysses didn’t do sarcasm and didn’t understand it when it was directed at him. So I used it a lot for my own amusement, not to mention to let off steam, because dealing with Ulysses was a whole thing.
‘Why does anyone want a holiday?’ I asked. ‘To have a break from work, relax, do things they want to do and not things they have to do.’
He kept on signing those wretched papers. ‘What do you want to do?’
I eyed him. Interesting. He never asked me personal questions. ‘Oh, you know, have an actual life for a change.’
‘You already have an actual life.’ He scrawled across another page.
‘But not one like any other woman my age.’
‘How would you know? Plenty of women your age have different kinds of lives.’
I gritted my teeth. ‘I want to meet someone, Ulysses. Go out on a date. And maybe even get laid for once in my life.’ I said the last merely for effect, but I should have known that Ulysses would take it seriously because he took everything seriously.
‘You don’t need to meet someone,’ he said. ‘You have me. I’ll take you on a date, if that’s what you want.’
Because he wasn’t looking at me, I rolled my eyes at this typical response. ‘And I suppose you can get me laid too?’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t miss a beat, signing yet another paper. ‘I can do that as well.’
This would have been a joke with any other man. But Ulysses didn’t joke.
I nearly laughed. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
‘No, I’m not kidding.’
Of course he wasn’t. He didn’t know how to kid.
An inexplicable jolt of electricity shot through me. ‘So, you’re seriously offering to take me on a date? And then what? Have sex with me?’
He signed the last paper and finally looked up. ‘Yes. I believe that’s exactly what I said. Do I really need to repeat myself?’
I was conscious of a strange, twisting feeling in my gut. A familiar twisting feeling.
Because although Ulysses White might have zero people skills, he got away with it, because he was, quite simply, beautiful.
Not in the way my brother was beautiful—Damian was all warmth, all charm—but in the way a perfect diamond was beautiful. Or an iceberg. Or a mountain. Or a statue.
His features were sculpted: high cheekbones and a sharp jaw, an oddly sensual mouth and straight nose. It was an intensely masculine face and yet there was a distance to his beauty. A coldness. His looks were the kind that prompted worship rather than a desire to touch; his beauty was so sharp, you’d probably cut yourself on it.
His eyes were as black as his hair and as cold as the rest of him, glittering like obsidian, and for a second I didn’t know what to say.
He meant it. He’d absolutely take me on a date and then he’d have sex with me. Which would have been a lot more flattering if it had been about me. But it wasn’t. He’d never shown the slightest bit of sexual interest in me, which was just as well since not only was he my boss, he was my older brother’s friend, and Damian would definitely have words to say about it.
Not that I cared about what words Damian would have said.
Do you care about Ulysses showing interest, though?
That strange little pulse went through me again.
Ulysses was very attractive and I’d have had to be blind not to notice. In fact, when I’d first started working for him, I’d developed a bit of a crush. However, that had soon vanished when it had become apparent he didn’t seem to notice that I was even a woman. I’d have thought he wasn’t interested in sex at all if it hadn’t been for the fact that he often got me to find him female company of an evening.
Yes, I managed his little black book, and he had quite the stable despite his consistent lack of charm or anything approaching romance. I’d once asked one of them what drew them to him, and I’d expected it to be about the money or the power. But, though those were indeed attractive, it was more because he was very, very good in bed.
A fact I hadn’t realised I’d filed away until now.
I knew getting offended would be pointless, as he hadn’t meant to be offensive. He was only being his usual literal self.
‘No, you don’t need to repeat yourself,’ I replied, his literalism meeting my calm. ‘But you do realise that sexual relations between us would be problematic?’
He gave me the frown he always gave me when I confronted him with something puzzling. ‘Why?’
‘You’re my boss and sleeping with the boss is generally not a good idea.’
‘I don’t see the problem. If you feel you’d be more productive after sex, then it seems logical that I should provide you with it.’
My cheeks warmed, which was stupid, given I’d never had a problem with Ulysses’s blunt honesty before. ‘I didn’t say that I would be more productive after sex. I said I would be more productive after a holiday.’
‘Yes. A holiday involving meeting someone, a date and some sex.’
Damn. Why had I said that? I’d let my irritation get the better of me, which had been a mistake. It always was with Ulysses.
My cheeks got even warmer and he noticed, his gaze narrowing. ‘There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Morgan.’
‘I’m not embarrassed,’ I said automatically.
‘Yes, you are. Does the thought of sex with me bother you?’
My stomach twisted again, a certain heated fantasy taking shape in my head of his hands holding me down, not letting me go. Of me struggling to get away, but knowing he was too strong. Of knowing that I’d never be able to get away from him no matter how hard I tried…
I shoved the shameful fantasy away. Hard.
‘Again, you’re my boss,’ I said. ‘It isn’t appropriate. Come on, Ulysses. You know HR has a policy about this kind of thing. I helped you write it, remember?’
He ignored that completely, his gaze unwavering and very, very direct. ‘It shouldn’t bother you,’ he went on, as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘I’m very good at it.’ He said the words without any discernible smugness or triumph. As if it was an undisputed fact, as certain as gravity and that humans needed oxygen to breathe.
‘I’m sure you are.’ I took no notice of the feeling that kept twisting in my gut. ‘But that doesn’t change the policy.’
‘Then I’ll rewrite the policy.’ He put his pen down, continuing to stare at me with the kind of unwavering concentration he normally only gave to his study of the stock market. ‘If you need me to prove it to you, I can.’
‘Prove it to me?’ I repeated blankly. ‘Prove what?’
He pushed his chair back and stood up, and just like that I became aware of him in a way I hadn’t been before—or, at least, hadn’t let myself be aware of before.
Six-foot-four and built like a rugby prop forward, his beautifully cut charcoal suit enhanced powerful shoulders and a broad chest, a lean waist and long legs. Just like his face, his body was nothing but sheer male perfection.
He rounded the desk and, with a jolt, I realised he was coming straight for me.
‘Ulysses?’ My voice sounded not quite as shocked as it should have. ‘What the hell are you doing?’
CHAPTER TWO
Ulysses
MORGAN’S DEEP BLUE eyes were wide with surprise, which was puzzling. She’d told me what she wanted and I’d told her I’d provide it. And I would, given I couldn’t let her have her annual leave, not with Damian and Everett being gone and the Black and White Foundation—the charity our company had just launched—getting off the ground. I needed her with me.
‘What do you think I’m doing?’ I frowned as she backed away. ‘I told you I’d give you what you needed.’
‘Now?’ Her voice sounded breathy and there was a distinct glitter in her eyes. I recognised that glitter, because I’d trained myself to look for it. The glitter of a woman beginning to feel sexually aroused.
‘Of course now.’ She’d said she’d be more productive with a holiday, a date and sex, so there was little point in waiting. I preferred to act immediately once I’d made a decision and this was the most logical decision to make.
She’d backed up to the meeting table near the windows, putting her hands back to brace herself against it, still looking up at me, blue eyes wide.
Her face was pale and yet there was colour in her cheeks. She had perfectly symmetrical features. I’d heard people call her beautiful, though beauty didn’t interest me. What interested me was the small beauty spot near the left-hand side of her top lip, the one flaw in her face. The one break in the pattern.
It bothered me. I couldn’t explain why. In fact, it had been bothering me for a while now, and the fact that I was bothered was an issue. It was likely to be some kind of sexual response, in which case the best way to solve the issue was to have sex.
Which made her confession about needing a holiday come with perfect timing.
I stopped in front of her, staring down at her. She wore a dark blue pencil skirt and a white blouse with a bow at the neck. The bow was loose, beginning to come undone, revealing the pulse at the base of her throat. It was beating very fast.
I studied her face, searching for fear, which I did when I was with a woman. Morgan wasn’t wrong—sex was a good way to relax—but I preferred sex a certain way and, as that way could be misinterpreted, I liked to make sure that the woman I was with didn’t have problems with it. Especially as making a woman come was the whole point.
I’d never feel the same things other people did, I simply wasn’t built that way, but I knew what physical pleasure was and I could give it to someone else. I could feel what they felt in that moment. I could…connect.
It was addictive. I liked to do it as often as I could, and it struck me that it was something I could give to Morgan.
‘Really,’ she murmured. ‘Must you be so literal all the time?’
She often asked questions like this, which didn’t seem to require an answer, since the answer was obvious.
Nevertheless, I replied anyway, just in case it wasn’t obvious. ‘Yes. I don’t know how to be anything else.’
I couldn’t stop studying her face. I wanted to tell her that her little mole bothered me, but I’d learned that women didn’t appreciate having such things pointed out. I didn’t understand why it bothered them, given none of those things were flaws—or at least, they weren’t to me—but I didn’t want to say anything that would bother her. I didn’t understand that urge either, as I generally didn’t concern myself with other people’s feelings. Yet for some reason the thought of Morgan’s feelings bothered me.
Perhaps it was because she was Damian’s sister and I felt an obligation to her. He’d asked me to give her a job a few years ago, also asking me to look after her, and I’d initially refused since I ran a company, not a babysitting service. But Damian had argued that I needed someone to help me when dealing with people and that Morgan was very good at dealing with people.
He hadn’t been wrong. She was good. Good enough that I simply couldn’t do without her.
‘You could pretend,’ she said.
‘What would be the point?’ I took her chin between my fingers, holding her securely.
She went very still. ‘What are you doing?’
I examined her face once more, but there were no signs of fear, only some other expression that I couldn’t identify. Her pupils had dilated and I could hear her breath catch.
Her skin was very warm and very soft against my fingertips, a sensual pleasure I hadn’t expected.
‘I thought I’d give you some proof that I’m as good in bed as I said I was,’ I said, a trifle irritated at having to explain. ‘It’s logical to try something out before you commit yourself.’
She blinked, her mouth gone very soft. It was red and it made me feel hungry all of a sudden, as if I wanted to take a bite out of it.
Careful. Be very careful.
I’d have to be. Some women had no problem with my particular desires, a lot even shared them, but I had a sense it would be different with Morgan. It was true that she was my employee, and having sexual relations with an employee wasn’t looked on with approval these days. But if both parties agreed, what was the issue?
Still, Morgan had brought it up, which made it an issue for her, and anything that was an issue for her was also an issue for me.
She blinked again. ‘I didn’t realise you were going to offer proof right now. Especially when I haven’t said that I actually want to have sex with you.’
I frowned. ‘Your pupils are dilated and your cheeks are flushed. Your pulse is also very fast. All of which indicates a certain level of sexual arousal.’ Moving my thumb experimentally, I stroked the line of her lower lip, testing the softness of it and watching her reaction. If I wasn’t much mistaken, that little sound had been her breath catching again. ‘Yes, you like me touching you, I think.’
‘Ulysses…’ Her voice sounded husky and the flush in her cheeks had deepened. ‘I don’t think this is a good idea.’
‘Why not?’ Again, I stared at the little mole to the side of her upper lip. It was dark against her pale skin, an almost perfect circle.
‘Because you’re my boss.’
‘You’ve said that before and I fail to see the relevance.’
‘A date first.’ She sounded breathless. ‘That’s what I said. A date first before the sex.’
She smelled of jasmine. I wasn’t sure if it was her perfume, her soap or what, but I liked it. It was sweet and I’d always had a fondness for sweet things.