Dating The Boss

My boss is smart, ambitious, and sexy. 

He’s also Spring City’s most eligible bachelor, which means Coulter Manning has an endless supply of women begging for his attention. 

It also means he’s out of my league.

You’d think that would be reason enough for me to stop fantasizing about him, but…

After acting as the third wheel on a slew of after hour events where he represents Manning Industries with a different woman on his arm, I put my foot down and tell him no.

I mean, come on, being the third wheel on Valentine’s Day is one indignity too many. Instead, I begrudgingly attend a speed dating event with my co-worker.

So you can imagine my surprise when my boss pulls me out of the event with some fantasies of his own.

This boss says he wants forever, but can I hope this will last longer than a few dates?

The ladies of Spring City, Colorado voted my boss the hottest bachelor of the year. He won the title from the previous front-runner, Deacon Scott, ex-quarterback and heir to the Scott family fortune. He took the title from Derrick Grayson, the billionaire real estate tycoon who was taken off the market when he married program director Jessica McLain. 

At least that’s what our local gossip rag says.

To say that Coulter Manning is hot would be an epic understatement. The man oozes sex appeal, as well as brilliance and class, with an appropriate touch of arrogance for someone of his stature. He’s picture perfect in the way romance novels describe a mythical man: tall with wide shoulders and a tapered waist, built solid with lean muscle but not so big that he looks uncomfortable in a suit. He’s got dark hair that he grows until it barely curls up on the ends. 

You know, just long enough to tease a girl into fantasies of running her fingers through his thick locks and tugging as she comes apart on his presumably magical dick. 

He’s got golden brown eyes that sparkle appropriately when he grins, which he does nearly as often as he broods. Both looks are equally sexy, but when he smiles—good god! The man has dimples and a cleft chin, which means he has the arsenal to drive an entire room to swoon.

Not that I’m infatuated or anything.

For eight months, I’ve watched him go on a slew of “dates” with supermodels to high-profile public events. Galas, fundraisers, art shows—you name it and he’s making a grand appearance with a stunning airhead on his arm.

To be fair, I don’t know that they’re airheads, but considering none of them last longer than three dates or a month, whichever is shorter, I have to assume they are boring, vapid, or shitty in bed.

Ugh! I don’t want to think about him sleeping with them. 

I, on the other hand, am not the hottest bachelorette in Spring City. I’m not the hottest bachelorette in the building. Hell, I’m not even the hottest bachelorette on this floor, and I’m one of only four single women working for Manning Industries. 

As Coulter Manning’s executive assistant. My job requires me being by his side whenever and wherever he wants, which means I’m sometimes the awkward third wheel on the aforementioned dates—a duty I absolutely abhor. But as his assistant, I’m the only one who sees him when he’s not putting on airs for the cameras. That is, except for his brother, Camden, who acts as his social director and is the pimp who sets Coulter up with all the supermodels.

It’s the rare glimpse into the man behind the image that sparked my fantasies months ago. Under the thousand-dollar suits and hundred-dollar haircuts is a boy whose driving goal is to live up to his late grandfather’s memory and be the success his father never was by bringing Manning Industries back from the verge of bankruptcy. 

That boy is sweet, thoughtful, and charming. 

That boy stole my heart last winter at a company Christmas party at his mini-mansion up north.

That boy has no idea I exist.

My phone rings—it’s his line. “Yes, Mr. Manning?”

“Could you order us lunch?” His voice is gruff, his tone clipped, which means his brother is in there, probably annoying him.

“No date this afternoon?” I quip, unable to stop myself. Thankfully, he’s used to my saucy side. I suspect he even likes it. 

His tone changes, and he chuckles. “Not today. I’m in the mood for sushi. Order the usual times two for Camden and me, and whatever you want.”

“No problem. Anything else?”

“Have you seen the month-end financials from Jack yet?”

I refresh my email and shake my head. “Not yet.”

“He’s late. Call him. I want those in my inbox by two. Shane is coming at three, correct?”

“Yes, and the marketing team is presenting to you at four.”

“Great.” Mr Manning pauses, Camden murmuring intelligibly in the background, and then returns to me with the grumpy facade again. “Lunch, Ms. Pierce. Now.”

“On it.” I hang up and launch a delivery app. Then I call Jack, giving him the what-for about our missing financials, before returning to the marketing presentation. I review and give every presentation my stamp of approval before it goes in front of my boss. All the departments have learned to trust my judgment because I know what he wants to see and how he wants to see it. 

Working for Manning Industries as an executive assistant is a dream job, and yet, I’m Coulter’s sixth assistant in the past few years. He pays well, but expects a lot—a mini-version of himself who can be available to do whatever, whenever—which I can be with my non-existent social life. It helps that I have a business finance degree from SCCU, read the Financial Times every morning, and skim the tech trades every afternoon. 

Simply put: I do what I can to be the best assistant possible to Coulter Manning.

I’d love to be more, but I’ve accepted that it’s never going to happen. Not with the kind of women his brother lines up for him. I don’t fit into their world. I can barely put myself together enough to hang out in the background while they work the room, schmoozing with investors, industry leaders, and local celebrities at these high-profile events. 

“Hey.” Margot bounces into my office and props her hips against my desk. She’s bachelorette number two of the four that works here, and I’d say she’s a million times prettier than me with her glossy red curls versus my limp blonde hair. She is curvy, but in the perfect way where all of her extra weight is in her boobs and ass. I carry a bit of extra weight everywhere, which makes me thick instead of curvy and not nearly as much fun. She’s also got better fashion sense than me—always wearing some kind of vintage 50s housewife garment—and a bubblier personality. Very pinup-esque. “What are you doing for lunch?”

“I’m having lunch in today. Why?”

“Just wondering.” She fiddles with things on my desk. A tiny succulent. The pen cup. My stapler.

I snatch my stapler from her hand. “What devious plots are you cooking up in your head now?”

She smiles. “What are you doing on Valentine’s Day?”

I roll my eyes and direct my gaze to my computer screen. “Most likely nothing.”

“You should go out with me.”

Sighing, I glance up at her. “Really? A girl’s night on Valentine’s Day. Could we be more pathetic?”

She frowns. “First of all, celebrating friendship on Valentine’s Day is not pathetic. I mean, what is a relationship except a friendship with sex? We can have a girls’ night and go home to our vibrators, and I guarantee that’s a date better than the last five you’ve had.”

Shaking my head, I chuckle. “Better than the last ten, easily. At least when I go home to my vibrator, I know I’ll be getting off.”

“Exactly.”

“So, what did you have in mind for V-Day?”

“Well,” she says, pulling a folded piece of paper out from her skirt pocket. “Check this out.”

I unfold the paper and read the contents, my mind taking a minute to wrap around the advertisement. “Speed dating?”