The Guy Who Became My Grumpy Boss (Curvy Girl Crew #7)

Chapter 1

-Jessica-

The last thing I’d expected to find today was a storage unit that had literally been made into a creepy village of vintage dollhouses. Complete with eerie old dolls and plenty of spiderwebs.

“That one is staring at me.” My friend, Ashley, pointed.

“Let me finish getting pictures and we can close it,” I said. Not that I wanted photos of the beautiful but downright chill-inducing scene before us, but this way we wouldn’t have to open the unit again until we were ready to sell something.

The others jumped in to help, and in a matter of minutes, we’d captured everything.

“The dolls could be worth a lot of money,” Teresa said as Ashley pulled the door down and locked it.

Teresa’s husband, Marcus, snorted. “Are you going to put them up for sale?”

That got him a slap on the shoulder. “No way. I already feel iffy about just having some images of them on my phone.”

The others laughed.

Today was the first time in months that we’d been able to get more than two of us together in the same location. Brooke and William were in New York (him on business and her to look at wedding stuff for their upcoming marriage), Teresa and Marcus were here from Boston visiting a friend, and Ashley and Nate lived nearby.

The other three members of the Curvy Girl Crew—and their respective boyfriends or husbands—lived in Alaska or were in Europe.

Our fun, bonding activity of buying random storage units and filming as we opened them, then putting it up on our YouTube channel, had become an organizational nightmare. There were a lot of factors to this, but if I had to sum it up, I’d say that we’d outgrown it.

The other six girls had met a special someone. They were all either married or engaged. Juggling seven grown, successful women’s schedules had been challenging, but I’d been able to manage it. Toss in six men, dating, and marriage, and getting four of us together today had been a miracle of biblical proportions.

“Good job finding this one,” Teresa said to Brooke.

Brooke, who was here from Texas, grinned. “He picked it out.”

Her fiancé—billionaire investor and ranch enthusiast—William shook his head. “I should have asked you guys just to send me a picture. I can’t unsee that.”

This wasn’t the first time that one of the guys had chosen the storage unit for us to open, but today it made me bristle.

We were the Curvy Girl Crew. We hadn’t started out with a club meeting and a list of rules written in crayon on a paper plate, but we were six women who had met via an online weight loss program. Teresa, who was our only thin participant, had been Nanette’s roommate, and we’d gladly taken her in.

The Crew had never been about excluding men. It had never been about the fact that all of us had been single when we’d met. So why was I bugged that the boys were getting more and more involved?

It’s not like I didn’t like the guys. I actually enjoyed all of them. Each had their own quirks, and each of them treated my friends like they were royalty.

“You okay?” William asked.

Brooke’s fiancé had become a good friend to us all, but he’d started taking the time to visit me whenever he was in town. Brooke probably made him do it, but I appreciated it anyway. For being a billionaire businessman, he was surprisingly attuned to people’s feelings.

“Uh, fine.” I smiled. I cursed myself for getting distracted. No wonder he’d asked about my welfare; I’d stopped halfway through putting the recording equipment away.

He frowned at me, and I waved my hand. “Just trying to figure out how to put the video together.”

Brooke, our short, sassy Texan, sauntered over to her man. She slipped her hand into the crook of William’s arm but spoke to me. “Have you thought more about what we should do for the channel?” Her southern drawl only added to her adorable nature, and no one would ever guess that she’d likely fixed a barbed wire fence or wrestled a cow the day before.

I shrugged as I zipped up my bag. “I’ve thought about it.”

“You know, William can pay to fly any of us to the locations we want to be at together.” She gave him a smile. “First class.” She winked at me. “We could do it on the weekends. Even the Alaska crew could get here and be back in time for their work week.”

I looked at William. “Did she talk to you about this, or is this the first you’re hearing of it?”

He ducked his head. “It was my idea.”

Another wave of anger pulsed through me. William was awesome. Why did I hate the suggestion just because it came from him?

Knowing this was a me problem that stemmed from my own failed marriage, I forced a smile. “Maybe we’ll take you up on it.”

He nodded.

Brooke beamed.

The other four were gathered a little way down the corridor, chatting and laughing.

Husbands had their arms around wives. They casually touched. Eyes met.

For a moment, I imagined myself standing there with a man I loved.

Danger Zone.

Oh no, I couldn’t even go there. Danger Zone was my boss, and while he was hotter than Central Park in July and I might have had a tiny little crush on him for over a year, I had a strict lookie-no-touchy rule about him.

I would not enter the Danger Zone.

“Hey, Jessica!” Ashley, my old roommate, waved me over to the small crowd. “We have an idea.”

“Uh-oh,” I muttered as we all came together.

“Agreed,” Brooke said under her breath.

Ashley held up her phone so we could hear the people on the other end of the line. “Your turn.”

Shane’s voice came through from Alaska. “This is just an idea, but since we’re all over the world these days, why not have us split up into couples for opening units?”

For the third time in ten minutes, a bout of irritation hit me, and it took everything I possessed to keep the frown off my face.

Couples? Really?

Two years ago, no one here had been married—most hadn’t even been dating—and now they couldn’t do anything without their significant others?

I’d been married before. I’d lost myself to a man. Changed for him. Made myself small so he would feel big. Stunted my own emotional growth and career success so he wouldn’t feel less than me.

Even though I knew logically that all of my friends had ended up with great guys who wouldn’t be bothered if their wives outshone them, it still made me uneasy.

“Or teams,” Victoria suggested, also from Alaska. “Not everyone is part of a couple, and maybe I want to be on a team with Rachel.”

“You’re so mean,” Logan complained.

I silently thanked Victoria for the save and made a mental note to send her flowers.

Brooke put a hand on my arm and spoke to everyone. “Teams might be fun. We could make some sort of competition out of it.” She smiled at me.

I told myself that I didn’t hate the idea of teams, especially if we switched them up or had a competition. “I’ll add it to the list of ideas, and we can talk about it next week.”

“We only have seven weeks of content left,” one of the girls on the phone said.

“Six,” I corrected.

We needed to make a decision soon, but today was not that day. “Thanks, guys.” I made a show of checking the time. “I need to run back to work, so I’ll see you all later.”

Overlapping voices called out, “Love you” and “Later” and “Miss you.”

I waved as I went around the corner, then walked as quickly as I could to the door and outside into the chilly New York spring.

Getting together with the Curvy Girl Crew was becoming harder and harder for me, which I hated. I loved those ladies. We’d been through a lot and were all better people from knowing each other.

I shouldn’t be this upset about the situation. It wasn’t even that time of the month, but here I was, bolting for the train station, wiping tears from my eyes.

I didn’t have to be back at work for another hour. Danger Zone was meeting with an important client off-site, and as long as I got everything completed for the day, he didn’t mind if I took a long lunch.

He also knew I’d stay late to finish anything I needed to.

Today I’d used him as an excuse.

Not him , but work.

To get away from my friends.

Why?

I took a deep breath—inhaling that part-city, part-sewer smell—and closed my eyes for a second as I waited for a light to change so I could cross the street.

The picture of my friends all happy with their significant others would not leave my mind.

I’d always been the jealous type about guys. When I was in school if my friends had been dating, I’d found a boy to date. If they became serious, I got serious. I didn’t know anyone else who was as much of a follower in this regard as I was.

It was the reason I’d made a vow with myself that I wouldn’t go on a date for a year after Brooke and William got married in two months. If I found a guy I liked, I would constantly be wondering if I was with him because I didn’t want to be different. Because I didn’t want to be alone.

I shook my head and started walking as the light turned. This could not become a problem. The Curvy Girl Crew gals were my friends, and even if I was the last single woman standing, I didn’t need to become desperate.

There were a few projects I’d thought of that I should start. They, along with work, would keep me busy for at least a year.

But first, I had a month and a half to figure out what to do with the Curvy Girl Crew.

We had a meeting scheduled for the next week, and I needed a plan.

If not, we might fall apart, and I wasn’t sure I could handle that.