Rich and Bossy (Rich Boys)

3. Paxton

CHAPTER 3

Paxton

Paxton?”

Shit.

I’m sure I look guilty, snapping my Macbook shut when Bree appears out of nowhere. Damn, how long has she been standing there? Probably thinks I was looking at porn now.

“Sorry. Startled me.” I laugh it off, turning my full attention to her. “What’s up?”

Yeah, you don’t sound guilty at all.

I’m sure she doesn’t care, but I feel paranoid. Why? I’m the boss.

She blinks a few times like she’s making sure she has my attention.

Finally, she says, “Mr. Kline is on his way in. He wanted me to let you know he needs to see you as soon as he arrives.”

Fucking wonderful.

Speak of the world’s biggest asshole, John, who is also my best friend.

“Thanks. I’m available whenever he needs me.”

With that, I open the MacBook again.

She nods and turns on a heel to leave my office, going back to her phone. She types out a message on it as she heads back to her desk. I don't know how she manages that, texting while walking. I’d walk right into traffic if I tried it.

That’s why I hire people to do those things for me.

Since when is John messaging Bree to say he needs to talk to me?

Honestly, I don’t even really give a shit. I go right back to what I was doing before. Looking for any information I can find on the gorgeous little fireball that cornered me in the elevator. Hazel. I haven’t been able to think of anything else since that happened. I can’t focus for shit.

That whole conversation keeps playing through my mind, over and over. The way she gritted her teeth. The fire in her eyes. I respect the balls it took to do what she did, but at the same time—she’s so young and na?ve.

The birthday in her file tells me she’s twenty-one years old. A senior in college, studying human resources and labor management.

Big shocker!

No wonder she’s so anal about work conditions. Look, I want my employees to be able to have a good life, get great benefits, enjoy their jobs. It should be a symbiotic relationship where everyone gets something out of the deal. I’m not heartless. But some of these labor rights people go so far in the other direction, you have to push back on them, or they’ll bankrupt your damn company.

The fact she thinks she could go up against me is insane.

I breathe out a sigh, just at the audacity of it. At the same time, I remember what it was like, setting out to make the world a better place. It’s one of the reasons we started this company. To make things cheaper for people, more convenient. Why go to a store when you can get it all delivered to your house for less money. You get more time with your family, and keep more money in your wallet to go on vacations, remodel the house, have a hobby.

This would be so much easier if she was an asshole man. It’d be much easier to root out the problem before it spreads into something bigger. I can’t decide if I want to crush these illusions of hers, or if I want to arrange the world so she never has to suffer that way.

If she was only on my mind during the work day, this would be a much simpler problem. But no, she has to invade my thoughts at night. I can’t focus on anything for shit. All I do is wonder what her body is like under that work uniform, how that energy from the elevator would transfer over to the bedroom.

My dick starts to get hard under my desk just thinking about it, and I ball one of my hands into a fist.

Fuck, what is it about Hazel Strous?

“How the fuck are you sitting there all relaxed like this?” John barges into my office.

Once again, I slam down my laptop like I’m doing something I shouldn’t be doing.

Do I need to close my office door and make people knock?

I glare up at John, and he matches me with a glare of his own.

I blink a few times. “What?”

He takes his jacket off and tosses it sideways over one of my chairs.

My eye starts to twitch, just looking at it. At him treating my office like a laundry room.

I look him up and down, frowning at his disheveled appearance. Fuck, he looks rough.

“Jesus, did you shower this morning?”

Now, it’s him who stands there, staring like he’s confused. “What? I don’t fucking know.” He looks like he’s actually trying to remember.

“You have a rough one? Take home some strange? Lose a few assets?”

That gets a light grin out of him. “That happened exactly one time six years ago, and you never let me forget.”

“She stole a hundred grand worth of watches. You deserve the scrutiny.”

“For six years?” His eyes widen.

I laugh.

He scowls even harder. “I’ve never made that mistake again.”

“So far, as long as you stay out of the strip clubs.” I welcome this distraction from Hazel. Plus, it’s always fun to give your best friend some shit. “You need to take better care of your stuff.”

“Yeah, I’ll fucking do that.”

He starts pacing.

Fuck’s sake, what is his problem?

“What is up with you, man? You’re really high strung.”

He turns and glares at me. “You really don’t know?”

“Know what, bitch?” Now, I stand up, because he needs to come out with it. He’s not some date that’s pouting and I’m supposed to figure out what the problem is.

He spreads his arms wide, looking around my spacious corner office. “What do you do around here when you come in? Are you gambling on your computer? Tha fuck?”

“Obviously, I don’t know what you’re referring to. So just fucking spit it out.”

He drops into the chair across from me, sitting on his coat in the process.

I cringe when he does it.

“One of the workers at the Minnie warehouse is trying to organize.”

I’m pretty sure some of the air comes out of my lungs. It feels like I can’t breathe, but I know I’m breathing. The worst part is, I don’t even get angry about it. I just stand there, kind of stunned. I knew she had balls, but not brass eight-hundred-pound gorilla balls.

He doesn’t need to say the name. I know who it is. I’m actually a little impressed. When she goes for it, she really goes for it.

She told you before she left. She wasn’t fucking around.

This should be easy enough to counter, but we need to do it quick, before she gets someone over there that knows what they’re doing. A warehouse union would be an absolute nightmare to deal with.

“Okay.” With my elbows on the arms of my chair, I tent my fingers under my chin.

John’s always been a hot head whose feet get way ahead of his brain. He’s always ready to fight—that makes him a good partner, but it means I have to be aware of his tendencies, too. Right now, he could be making a mountain out of a molehill. I won’t panic until we have facts.

“Give me the information. All of it.”

“You should already have it if you weren’t jerking off in your corner penthouse.”

“Just, go over everything.”

“Fine, you know Paul Morrison, the manager? You met with him a couple days ago, right?”

“Sure.” He kissed my ass the entire time, but all I could think about was Hazel, so I just let it go.

“He reached out this morning. I figured someone would’ve gotten to you first and you’d be ready to fight when I got here.”

“Nobody reached out to me. Not when I have an all-star errand boy like you on my side.”

“Dick. Of course he didn’t. Nobody wants to bother the CEO. Everything falls on my shoulders.”

“You are aware that the first O in your title stands for Operations, right?”

He ignores that part. “He overheard her talking to people in the break room. Getting a feeling, reading the room. To see if people would be interested in getting something rolling.”

“Overheard her how?” I have a hard time believing he chums it up with the workers in the breakroom. And he’s a good three hundred pounds. Not exactly a candidate for hide-and-seek world champion.

“He didn’t say.”

“I doubt people would discuss this shit in front of him.”

“I don’t think he’d make this up either.”

I wave a hand forward. “Okay, did he give names?” I know it’s her. It has to be her.

“No, but he said they all sounded pretty fed up. They were looking into first steps on how to file paperwork and that kind of thing, where to go from there.” He flops back in the chair, groaning. “Do you know the kind of shitstorm this will bring? Not just to profits, but the media shitstorm. If people are trying to form a union, it means workers are unhappy, which means the company must be driving them like slaves. That’s the story. For us, it’ll be like we’re a bunch of bullies. And once that snowball starts rolling, it can get real big, real fast. From coast to coast we’ll have people trying to organize, picketing and protesting and writing shit online. This is going to get out of control.”

“Well, we advertise on the big media, so they can be reminded that those ad dollars are fluid and can go elsewhere.”

“Yeah, but people get their news on social media now and from podcasts and YouTube shows. Information is not as locked down as it used to be. We don’t have nearly the control over the narrative we would’ve had five years ago.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We have cards to play, and this is a little premature to go scorched earth like that. I’m sure there’s a way to remedy this that’s way easier.” We haven’t gotten this far by jumping at shadows and losing our shit the second things start to go bad. “One thing at a time.”

“Fine. Then that one thing is to shut this shit down immediately. Snuff it out before it’s even lit.”

Of course, he’s absolutely right. “Okay, well get the lawyers in a room and start making a plan.”

For the first time this morning, he cracks an actual grin. “Will do, bitch.”

In the meantime, I think I may do some work of my own to fix this before it starts.

I absolutely shouldn’t do it. It’s insanity.

But I think I’m going to pay my new hot little friend Hazel a visit.