Hate Notes: A Grumpy Boss Romantic Comedy, page 9
I grinned. "In other words… you moved me because I was distracting you? I’m flattered to know I have such a profound effect on you, Mr. Foster.”
He leaned forward, planting both hands on my desk. The motion brought his face close enough that I could smell his cologne—something expensive and subtle that made my stomach do an annoying little flip. Focus, Ember. Remember why you're here.
"You don't even begin to distract me, Miss Hartwell."
"Liar," I whispered back. "And I think you're annoyed because you can tell I'm good at this job. So good that you don't want to fire me, even though you kind of do."
"Fire you?" he asked. "No. Giving you this job was giving you enough rope to hang yourself. It was a punishment, and you've been too naive to see it."
"Then I guess I like being punished by you, because—" I clamped my mouth shut, swallowed, and forced a carefree smile. "Pretend I didn't just say that."
His eyes darkened slightly. "I want a full report on all your communications and... parcels sent to Eleanor Golding on my desk by five." He straightened up, adjusting his tie in a way that drew my eyes to his hands. They were nice hands. Strong. Capable. The kind of hands that... No. Bad Ember. Orion is the enemy. Well, maybe Cole was the real enemy. Maybe both men were? God, my life was complicated.
"It's been on your desk since nine this morning," I said sweetly. "Maybe if you spent less time watching me, you'd have noticed it."
His nostrils flared. Definitely getting to him.
"Anything else?" I asked, unable to resist pushing just a little further. "Or did you just come by to loom over me menacingly? Because I have to say, the whole tall-dark-and-brooding thing? It's a little..." I gestured vaguely with my hand.
"A little what?" he asked, voice dangerously low.
"Distracting," I finished with a small smile.
For a moment, neither of us moved. The air between us felt thick with possibility—the kind of tension that made me want to grab his perfectly straight tie and pull him down to my level.
Then someone dropped a stack of papers nearby, and the spell broke.
Orion straightened, his professional mask sliding back into place. "Five o'clock," he said. "My office."
"The proposal's already there," I reminded him.
"I know." His eyes locked with mine one last time before he turned and walked away, leaving me to wonder exactly what kind of game we were playing—and who was actually winning.
I waited until he was safely back in his office before pulling out the rest of my sandwich. Through the glass walls of his office, I could see him sitting at his desk, definitely not looking in my direction.
I took a big, deliberate bite and watched as his hand tightened almost imperceptibly around his pen.
Why was pushing his buttons so fun?
I chewed my sandwich as I wondered to myself if Orion was the only one getting too distracted in this arrangement. As much as I loved this new job and wanted to fit in, I had to admit I was far more preoccupied with teasing Orion than I should’ve been.
It wasn’t as if I was falling for Orion like Kora continued to insist. I was just… having fun interacting with him. Taking things beyond “fun” would turn my revenge scheme into something a lot more complicated than I bargained for.
So all I had to do was not fall for Orion Foster.
15
EMBER
"You haven't given Cole any dirt yet?" Kora asked, her eyes wide with disbelief as she lounged on my ratty couch. "None at all? Hasn’t it been like a month since you started at Foster Real Estate?"
I paused my aggressive assault on a bag of low-calorie popcorn the size of a body pillow to shoot her a guilty look. " Five weeks. And I've been busy actually working. And I mean really working. Did I tell you about Eleanor Golding? She was this super tough client nobody could crack, but then I noticed she had this one ceramic duck on her desk during a video call. Turns out she collects them. So I sent her one, and now she calls me just to chat about her collection."
"That's... great?" Kora said slowly. "But what does that have to do with getting revenge on Cole?"
"Nothing. I just... I don't know. I kind of love this job? I think Orion put me in client relations because he wanted me to fail spectacularly, but it turns out I'm good at it. Like, really good. I'm doing something that matters for the first time in my life. I'm not just plugging numbers into a spreadsheet or proofreading meeting notes. And Moira—my terrifying vampire boss—actually smiled at me yesterday. Well, her lip twitched. But for her, that's basically a hug and an invitation to be bridesmaids at each other's weddings."
Catman chose that moment to materialize from whatever dimension he spent his time in, hopping onto the coffee table to give me his signature one-eyed stare of judgment.
"Don't look at me like that," I told him. "You're still my favorite undead creature." I scratched his wrinkly cheeks. "I know what I'm doing," I added, though I wasn't sure if I was trying to convince Catman, Kora, or myself.
"Do you, though?" Kora asked, reaching for the popcorn satchel. I surrendered it reluctantly. "Because Cole texted me today asking if you were okay. Apparently, you've been dodging his calls."
I flopped back against the couch cushions. "Ugh. I know. But every time I see his name on my phone, I just..." I made a gagging sound. "There’s so much going on every day. I've even been bonding with Orion's sister, Remmy, too. She invited me to dinner tomorrow night, and she's going to teach me to paint!"
"Uh-huh," Kora said. "And how's working with the devil himself? Still making him crazy?"
"Orion? Oh, he's... fine. I mean, he's still ridiculously uptight. Last week, he got out a ruler to check my skirt for dress code like I was back at boarding school or something.”
Kora smirked. “You went to boarding school? How am I just learning this?”
“Yeah, well… Some might say I’m a handful, and my parents had enough after middle school. So, yeah. I spent my high school years at Primington’s Academy for Troubled Youth in upstate New York.”
Kora rolled back and clapped her hands as she let out a shrill laugh. “Oh my God. Troubled youth? Now that you say it, I can totally picture it. Was this before or after juvie?”
“Shut up,” I said, smiling. “I wasn’t actually troubled. I just thought it was funny to talk back to people. And play minor pranks. And occasionally get into trouble…”
Kora gave me a look, so I threw a few pieces of popcorn at her.
“Anyway!” I said loudly, changing the subject. “Like I was saying. Orion is hilariously uptight. Yesterday he went on a five minute rant about the size of the margins on a client report I sent him. Who even notices that? And he's always lurking around my desk with his stupid perfect suits and his stupid perfect hair, probably plotting new ways to try to catch me breaking his ridiculous rules..."
"Sounds awful," Kora said, failing to hide her smirk.
"It is! He's impossible. And he has this thing he does when he's annoyed where his jaw ticks and his nostrils—" I caught myself. "I mean, not that I notice things like that. I just happen to have eyes. In my head. Which sometimes see things. Completely normal, non-obsessive things."
Kora’s face said her bullshit detector was blaring at full volume. To her credit, she only smiled patiently and nodded.
My phone buzzed. Cole's name flashed on the screen.
"Speak of a different devil," I muttered.
"You should probably answer it this time," Kora said. "Before he gets suspicious."
I knew she was right. With a deep sigh, I picked up the phone. "Hey, Cole."
"Finally," his voice crackled through the speaker. "I was starting to think you'd forgotten our arrangement."
The word 'arrangement' made my skin crawl. "No, just been busy. It's not like I could just walk in and ask for the company secrets at Foster Real Estate. I have to actually build trust first."
"And? What do you have for me?"
I caught Kora's eye. She made an encouraging gesture.
“Nothing yet,” I said slowly.
“That’s not good enough, Ember. You need to give me something right fucking now, or this whole thing is over.”
I felt a stab of panic. Shit.
"Well..." I said, scrambling for something I could toss out that wouldn't really help Cole but might get him off my back. I needed something that sounded important, but it was vague enough that it wouldn’t actually hurt Orion or help Cole. “I mean, I’ve heard them talking about a guy named Davenport a lot, I guess? But like I said, I’m still trying to get more trust so I can do more than eavesdrop.”
"Davenport?" Cole's voice sharpened with interest. "Tell me more."
My stomach dropped at his tone. Something in the urgency and hunger there made me think even the vague tip was something Cole would cling to like a dog with a bone.
“I really don’t know more yet. If you give me more time, maybe I can find out, though. But honestly, I’m not even sure Davenport is really worth looking into. It’s just a name.”
“Your clock is ticking, Ember,” Cole said. “Give me more on this Davenport guy soon, or you’re done.”
I hung up and immediately felt like I might throw up my entire body weight in popcorn.
"You okay?" Kora asked.
"Yeah, I just..." I shook my head. "I’m worried I gave him more than I should have there. I panicked.”
"If just the name of some guy is enough to screw with Foster Real Estate, then they're operating on shaky ground anyway, right?"
"Yeah," I said, though the sick feeling in my stomach said otherwise. I couldn't shake the sense that I'd just knocked over the first domino in a very long line.
My phone buzzed again. This time, it was a text from Remmy.
Remmy: Hey! Remember how I said Orion wouldn’t be at dinner tomorrow night? Mom’s making him come and he’s being a total baby about it since he learned you’d be there. He tried to back out and our mom won’t let him. So you have to come just so we can watch him squirm. Please? My mom’s lasagna is amazing, and there may or may not be Orion’s baby pictures up for viewing if you come…
"What's that look for?" Kora asked.
"What look? There's no look. I'm just... thinking about lasagna." I was already typing my reply before I could talk myself out of it.
Me: Baby pictures of Orion Foster? I would pay money for that kind of blackmail material.
"You're in trouble," Kora said, shaking her head.
"Please," I scoffed. "The only trouble I'm in is that I have to see my impossibly grumpy boss outside of work, I said, tilting my phone toward her so she could read. “But hey, free lasagna. And maybe I'll finally figure out if he was born wearing a tie."
As I spoke, that weird feeling in my stomach was back. And this time, I was pretty sure it wasn't just the massive amount of half-digested popcorn.
No, this feeling was way more dangerous than a popcorn overdose. This was the feeling of someone who was starting to care way too much about a man who was supposed to be nothing more than a stepping stone in her revenge plot.
Catman gave me another judgmental look, and this time, I couldn't even argue with him.
16
ORION
The sound of laughter drifted from my mother's kitchen, making my jaw clench. Remmy and Ember were helping—or more likely hindering—Mom's lasagna preparation while I sat at the dining room table, pretending to check work emails.
"Oh my God," Ember's voice carried over. "He really did that?"
"Three times!" Mom said. "Every time we tried to take a family photo, little Orion would straighten his clip-on tie and demand we start over because his hair wasn't perfect."
"I was six," I muttered, though nobody was listening to me. The women in my kitchen were too busy trading stories about how “adorably neurotic” I was as a child.
More laughter. The kind that said there were probably embarrassing photos being passed around. I considered intervening, but the last time I'd gone into the kitchen, Remmy had tried to make me wear an apron covered in dancing vegetables. The time before that, Mom had asked Ember if she was single in a voice that suggested she was already planning our wedding.
So here I sat, definitely not listening to the women in my life conspiring against me.
"He was such a serious little boy," Mom continued. "When his father passed, Orion decided he had to be the man of the house. He was only twelve, but he started wearing a tie to school every day. Said he needed to look professional so people would take him seriously."
The laughter faded. I could feel Ember's eyes on me from the kitchen doorway, but I kept my gaze fixed on my phone, scrolling through emails I'd already read twice.
"After that," Mom's voice softened, "he put everything into making sure Remmy and I were taken care of. Even tried to get a paper route, but they said he was too young."
"So he started his own business instead," Remmy added. "Went door to door offering to organize people's garages. Can you believe that? What twelve-year-old thinks of that?"
"He made pretty good money, too," Mom said proudly. "Though I had to make him stop when Mrs. Henderson from three doors down started asking him to organize her bedroom."
"Mom," I warned, heat creeping up my neck.
"What? I'm just telling Ember about what a good son you've always been. And how you've always taken such good care of us."
“After the garage thing, Orion branched out into all kinds of little businesses. By the time he was sixteen, he had become involved in investing and day trading. At seventeen, he paid off mom’s mortgage.”
“And I still think about how amazing that is almost every day,” my mom gushed.
“Okay,” I said. “Ember doesn’t want to hear you two exaggerate and paint me as some boy genius of business.”
I finally looked up to find Ember watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read. There was something soft in her eyes that made my chest feel tight. It was the same look she got sometimes at work when she thought I wasn't watching—like she was trying to figure out a particularly complex puzzle.
“I think it’s interesting,” Ember said softly. “Some people don’t make sense until you understand the dark places they won’t show.” She gave a shrug, as if trying to lighten the otherwise serious topic. “Maybe I can use this juicy information to earn a promotion somehow.”
“Ambitious, too!” my mom said, wiggling her brows at me. “This one’s a keeper, huh?”
"More wine?" Remmy asked, already refilling Ember's glass.
"Oh, I probably shouldn't..." Ember said, but she was already accepting the full glass. "I tend to get a little... honest when I drink too much."
"Perfect!" Mom said. "Maybe you can tell us what my son is really like at work. Does he still measure things with rulers?"
Ember's eyes went wide. "Who told you about the skirt incident?"
I nearly choked on my water. "That was a legitimate dress code violation."
"Sure it was, Mr. Boarding School Principal," Ember said with a grin.
"See?" Remmy stage-whispered to Ember. "He's doing that brooding thing again. Probably thinking about work. We need to get him to relax more."
"Some of us have responsibilities,” I said in a dry voice.
"Some of us have sticks up our—" Remmy started.
"Dinner's ready!" Mom announced.
Two hours and several bottles of wine later, Ember was trying—and failing—to convince everyone she was fine to get home on her own.
"I'll walk her," I said, already standing.
"Aww," Remmy cooed. "Look at my big brother being all gallant."
I shot her a look that promised retribution, but she just grinned.
"I can walk myself," Ember insisted, then promptly bumped into the coat rack, nearly knocked it over, caught it, and then she nearly fell over. The bumbling incident ended with Ember laughing and pretending to dance with the coat rack before both tipped into the wall with a thud.
“Oopsie,” Ember said softly as she unsteadily got herself upright and fixed the coat rack.
"You’re not walking yourself home. End of discussion," I said, steadying her with a hand on her lower back. The contact sent an inconvenient spark through my palm.
“Yes, Da—” Ember coughed suspiciously, cleared her throat, then continued. “Yes, Sir, Mr. Orion Sir.”
Mom and Remmy were watching with folded arms and knowing grins. I ignored them, ushering Ember out of my mom’s apartment before she could cause any more damage.
The walk to her apartment was... interesting. Ember apparently became even more talkative when drunk, filling the night air with observations and wild theories. "You know what's weird?" she slurred. "The stars. They're so... sparkly tonight. Did you do that?"
"No," I assured her as she leaned against me, one arm around my back for support. I was trying very hard not to enjoy the warmth of her pressed against my side. “I have no authority over the stars, Ember.”
"You know you have dimples when you smile?" she asked. "I saw you smiling once in your office. I bet someone told you they made an employee cry. Was that why you looked so happy?"
I grinned despite myself. "No."
"Well, whatever it was, they're nice. Your dimples. You should smile more. I bet people wouldn't think you were such a hardass if you did."
"I prefer when they think I'm intimidating," I said. "It's more efficient that way."
"Hmmm," Ember hummed. "But you don't intimidate me." She tilted her head up toward me, smiling drunkenly as she actually reached up to boop my nose. "Not even a little bit, Mr. Ruler-Man."
I cleared my throat. Focus. "Earlier," I said carefully. "You mentioned to my family that you tend to get honest when drunk. Any secrets you'd like to share while you’re feeling honest?"
"Oh, loads," she said, then laughed and lowered her voice to a whisper. "Like, I always forget if August comes before October or after September..."
