Donut Girl and the Bosshole: An Enemies to Lovers Billionaire Romance

CHAPTER 1

 

FAITH                                                                                                      

 

To the discordant symphony of car horns honking my own personal New York City soundtrack, I hurried along a rainy Madison Avenue. The soggy sock on one foot squished uncomfortably in my holey Doc Martens. I couldn’t bear to part with my favorite shoes, even though they were falling apart, like the rest of my life. They made me feel a bit like a badass, and I needed that support today. My last job-hunting stop, some fifty city blocks south of 72^nd and Broadway where I started, was just down the block and around the corner. Which was timely since I needed to pee. Fingers crossed they had a bathroom, or I was in trouble.

At twenty-eight, I was supposed to be climbing the corporate ladder in marketing, but the universe had other ideas, or at least my ex-boyfriend—we’d dated for six months— and his new girlfriend did. Mark had been my boss until I’d caught his pasty ass balls-deep in his boss, the CEO of Piranha Advertising, Amanda, on his office desk. She’d promptly told me what a loser I was and fired me, and he hadn’t even apologized or bothered to remove his penis from her while she did it. Rude.

I’d had to suck it up and take it. I wasn’t sure which sucking was worse—the sucking she’d have to do to Mark from now on or the sucking up I’d endured that day. In any case, shutting up and taking it was getting old.

So here I was, about to hand out my twenty-fifth résumé for the day. I was avoiding marketing because they’d refused to give me a reference letter, as if it were my fault I’d caught them going at it. Not that I was ready for corporate life again. It was best I swam with other goldfish in a smaller pond for a while until I learned how to grow my own shark teeth.

Shutting out the pain in my aching legs, I imagined the cup of hot chocolate waiting for me in Café Nero… and the little girl’s room. Sure, I was short on money, but I deserved a treat for the effort I put in today. Paying for one hot chocolate and a donut wasn’t going to make any difference to whether I ended up having to retreat to my hometown with my tail between my legs or not.

A strong gust of chilly springtime wind buffeted me, turning my umbrella inside out, ruining my sweet musings. My hair whipped in my face as I wrestled the umbrella under control and flipped it the right way. Success! I held it at an angle to the wind. Now my face was protected, but my back was getting wet. The day that kept on giving.

I was almost at the café when my phone rang. I dodged a woman walking her dog and stopped under a maroon awning, pulling my cell from my handbag. Argh, it’s the Momster. Just what I needed at the end of a painful day—more torture. “Hey, Mom.”

“Hello, Faith, dear. I hope you’ve been job hunting.”

Not “how are you” or “how has your day been.” I pulled the phone away from my mouth and sighed, lest she hear and give me a lecture on respect and manners. I returned the phone to my ear. “Yes. I’m about to hand out my last résumé.”

“Where have you applied? I hope you haven’t been shooting too high. You don’t want to waste time.” Ever my supporter. Ha. If only.

“Two dry cleaners, three pharmacies, ten cafés, two Gristedes, a dog-walking place, and six restaurants. I have one café left.”

“Well, that’s something. Are you wearing a skirt?”

“No. It’s freezing. I’m wearing pants.”

“How many times have I told you—you’re seen as more employable if you wear a skirt. Brandy never has trouble getting a job.” Argh, double whammy—Momster wholeheartedly embracing patriarchal ideals and reminding me that my younger “stepsister” was better than me in every way.

I sucked up my angst—defending myself never ended well. If I wanted to stave off another lecture, I’d have to pacify her. “I’ll wear one next time. Promise.” I placated myself by rolling my eyes.

“You do that, and let me know how you go. Surely you’ll hear back from one of them, even if you were wearing pants. Honestly, Faith, the number of times we’ve been through this.” She sighed—a sigh I was more entitled to than her.

I didn’t tell her that I’d visited another twelve places yesterday—in my don’t-employ-me trousers—and they all said they had no openings right now. Today had been much of the same, except one of the restaurants said they might need a server, and they’d let me know within the week. Maybe this last place would be the one that said yes from the get-go. A girl could dream.

Actually, that was a lie.

According to my mother, my last boss, two of my previous boyfriends, and the rich father who rejected me and Mom before I was even born, I wasn’t good enough to dream big—there was no way I was capable or deserving. I was Miss Realistic Shoot for the Kneecaps Not the Stars. I had a T-shirt made. I wasn’t even kidding.

Nevertheless, I was going to find a job if it was the last thing I ever did. I couldn’t go back home and live with Mom and her long-term partner, Bob, in Mom’s two-bedroom cottage. He loved to swan around with no shirt, his bulbous, hairy beer belly out and proud. And sometimes, he didn’t even bother with shorts. I shuddered just thinking about him in his tighty-whities. The other reason I avoided the place was that his twenty-four-year-old daughter, Brandy, lived with them. She wasn’t my biggest fan. I had no idea why, because I was always nice to her. The second bedroom, the one that used to be mine, was now hers, and she didn’t share.

I was basically on my own, except for Amy, my best friend. I’d been staying with her for the past month after Mom’s got too hairy and stepsisterish.

“Faith, are you there? Hello? Did you hang up on me again?”

“No, sorry. Just thinking. Anyway, gotta go. I’ll call you….” In a month or two.

“Okay. Chat soon. Keep your chin up, but remember—aim low, and you won’t be disappointed. You and I aren’t made for great things, darling. Love you.”

I sighed quietly—she never said that to Brandy. I hated living small, but whenever I tried to break out of that mindset, shit went south, and Mom got to say “I told you so.”

“Bye, Mom.”

I took a deep breath and tried to slip the phone back into my tote, but instead of sliding into the bag, it clipped the edge and clattered onto the pavement, face down. The clunk it made wasn’t a good clunk. Why was I so clumsy? Idiot, Faith. Be more careful.

I bent, picked it up, and turned it over, hoping for the best. Positive was my middle name.

Two large cracks marred the screen of my four-year-old iPhone. My shoulders dropped. I had no money to fix it. I squeezed my eyes shut, blocking the moisture that wanted to escape. I was not going to cry. I had one more stop, and it could be the one that ended my run of bad luck, because that’s all it was, right? Just an unfortunate chain of events that freakily happened one straight after the other. I didn’t really believe that, but carrying the I’m-not-good-enough mindset into this last stop wasn’t going to help me get a job. Others could smell self-doubt. Chin up, Faith.

Before I could put my phone back into my bag, it dinged with a message. Momster. Against my better judgment, I opened it. It was worse than I thought. Not only was it not a last-second message of support, it was a picture of my stepsister wearing her office getup. I didn’t bother responding that she wore stripper heels, and her mid-thigh-length skirt was so tight that if she sat down, her underwear would be very visible. Her pink shirt was pretty but was a size or two too small in the upper, mountainous region, the space between the buttons gaping. If they popped, someone was going to lose an eye. The pic was accompanied by text: This would get you more jobs. Love, Mom.

Maybe not the jobs she thought, but I wasn’t telling her that.

I dropped my phone, successfully this time, into my bag, banishing it from sight. Raising my umbrella and my head, I straightened my back and set off for Café Nero. When my sock squished, I ignored it. I wasn’t a total loser. I could do this. Besides, I wasn’t shooting too high. A barista job would mean money to help Amy with the bills—it wouldn’t be enough to get my own place, but it was a start. It would also mean discounted coffee and hot chocolates… maybe.

I turned onto East 27^th Street and spied the café. Finally.

Being late afternoon, there were only a handful of people occupying tables and one person standing at the counter, waiting to be served. I lowered my long, black umbrella and closed it, then took my last stapled resume—all two pages of it—out of my bag.

Here went nothing.

I smiled, hoping it made me look less tired. I stood in line. A well-dressed executive-looking woman in her late forties with shiny auburn, just-from-the-salon hair ordered her coffee. I was next. The young guy behind the counter took her order and passed it to the barista to his right, but instead of asking what I wanted, he decided to take a short vacation. He turned to his co-worker. “Did you get the ingredients for the burgers?”

He stopped making coffees to answer. Great, now he was distracting the whole production line. “I couldn’t get the onions. They ran out.”

His forehead wrinkled, and he rolled his eyes. “Who runs out of onions? It’s literally the easiest thing to get, man.”

The barista shrugged. “Not our day, bud. What can I say? The burgers will still be fine, won’t they?”

My own personal torturer scratched his head. “Ahhhh, I think so, man.”

For crying out loud. I eyed the door to the bathrooms and squeezed my pelvic floor. I was edging from needing-to-go territory to busting, about-to-have-a-gushing accident territory. I squeezed my waterlogged toes in my wet sock—that reminder of water wasn’t helping either.

Argh. I wanted to interrupt, but that might turn them against me, and I needed a job, like yesterday. I shuffled my feet side to side. Maybe some subtle movement would attract attention without seeming rude?

“Yeah, it’ll be fine. Onions, shmonions. Am I right?” The barista chuckled.

“Yeah, onions, shmonions.” The cashier fist-bumped his friend, and I wanted to fist bump both their heads.

In case they decided to discuss what beverage was or wasn’t being served tonight, I shot my hand in the air, which just happened to be holding my resume. This was me waving my white flag, begging for mercy.

The guy supposedly manning the register finally looked at me. The nerves I suffered every time I had to ask for a job had disappeared. At least being frustrated and desperate for the restroom was good for something. “What can I get you?”

The barista chose then to froth some milk, so I had to talk loudly. “I was wondering if you had any job openings. I have experience as a barista and server, and I have a degree in marketing. I can make coffees and do social media. Bonus, right?” I was selling it. Or maybe not. He didn’t look nearly as impressed as he should. I held up my résumé again. “Could you give this to the boss, please?” The barista stopped frothing halfway through my sentence, and now I was yelling in a quiet café. The woman waiting for her coffee and the couple at a table near the windows stared at me. At least I hadn’t wet myself yet.

He took the resume. “Yeah, sure. I don’t think we need anyone right now, but you never know.” He smiled, taking the edge off the rejection.

“Ah, okay. Thanks. I’m kind of desperate, but it is what it is. Can I grab a hot chocolate and a chocolate donut?” How pathetic was I on a scale of one to ten? Thirty-seven rejections in two days. Was it some kind of record? If Brandy could see me now, she’d be smirking. I pushed her image out of my mind so I could wallow in private.

The server gave me a sympathetic look and rang up my order. Trying not to show my disappointment, I paid and stood to the side, considering whether I had time to rush to the powder room while they made my order.

Looked like tomorrow was another day of pounding the pavement. At this rate, I’d be back at Momster’s in no time. The few freelance marketing jobs I’d done since being fired from Piranha Advertising were small. How long until Amy had had enough of me staying in her study? I needed more money, stat.

Another man walked in and came straight to the counter. Tall, bulky, and wearing a beanie the same color as his black beard, he looked like he meant business. He turned to the lady next to me and pulled a knife from the front pouch of his maroon hoodie. “Give me your wallet and phone.”

Oh shit. I sucked in a breath as my stomach dropped, and my thoughts went a bazillion miles an hour, my near-to-bursting bladder momentarily forgotten. The expensively dressed woman stared at him, her mouth open, obviously shocked. She might be able to afford to give up her belongings in a monetary sense, but she was just as human as me, and the way her face paled showed she was terrified.

“Hurry up!” He waved the huge knife toward the guy manning the counter. “Give me everything in the register.” Everything? More like $2.75 and some muffin crumbs. Hardly anyone carried cash these days. Being an online scammer was where it was at for thieves—times were tough for muggers. And why was I thinking this when a violent criminal was here trying to rob all of us? Those guys, doing their jobs—albeit slowly and frustratingly—all of us, minding our own business. How dare he.

Adrenaline flooded my body. Anger heated my cheeks, and because in fight-or-flight circumstances, my mouth wanted to fight—and no one had a donut to shove in it to save me from myself—out the lecture came. “How dare you! Why don’t you work like the rest of us, or get online and steal like a civilized criminal? Who do you think you are, coming in here and waving a knife around? What would your mother say?” As if my day hadn’t been bad enough, this guy had to double down.

The rich woman next to me, who’d managed to pull her Louis Vuitton wallet from her handbag, gasped. Her eyes widened, and she gave me a small headshake, warning me to zip it. Maybe she had a point.

Mugger dude swung around and pointed the knife at me, hovering it a few inches from my face. “I said, give me your wallet and phone, and shut the fuck up. I’m not playing.”

Heart racing, pee leak threatening, and bluster fading, I took my phone and wallet from my bag. My wallet contained approximately five bucks fifty—after I’d paid for the hot chocolate and donut—and some discount cards. My debit card was on my phone, which reminded me—would I still be able to access it with the cracked screen?

He waved the knife at me, and a new customer who’d half entered the café saw and immediately left. Yeah, thanks for calling the police or helping, you inconsiderate bastard.

My heart pounded in my ears as the knife blade shone inches from my chest. Giving in pushed every principled button I had. I wanted to punch his stupid, thieving face. But I also didn’t want to die. Hating myself for doing it, I handed him my phone. Grrr.

He looked at the damaged screen. “This is bullshit.” He threw it across the room. It bounced off the wall and landed on the tile floor with a thwack, a piece of the phone protector shooting off. My mouth dropped open. Maybe I could’ve kept using it with only a couple of cracks, but there was no coming back from this. There was only so much that Scotch tape could do.

Fury pulsed loudly in my ears, overcoming my fear. First I couldn’t get a job, no matter how hard I tried, and now this. I would’ve achieved more by staying in bed—at least I still would’ve had my phone. “What the heck? I worked hard to buy that. Do you know how long I saved? I can’t afford—”

“I don’t care. Give me your wallet.” He held his hand out. When I hesitated, he leaned forward, nicking the point of the blade into the delicate skin at my throat. I jerked back, my hand springing up and slapping against the sting. I drew it away and looked at the tiny bloom of red smeared on my palm. It wasn’t fatal, but the next one might be.

I swallowed.

My breaths came faster.

A drop of pee escaped.

He shouted, “Give it to me. Now!”

I winced.

The front door opened with an accompanying tinkle. The mugger’s head turned toward the sound. In the second he was distracted, I braced myself, squeezed my pelvic floor, and kicked him good and hard in the balls—my Doc Martens might be holey, but they were mighty.

He grunted and doubled over, gripping his nether region with one hand while the knife dangled uselessly from his other hand. Shame he hadn’t used both hands and accidentally stabbed himself in the crotch.

Before I knew what was happening, whoever had come in the front door was on him—thank goodness they’d decided to help. Finally someone with some decency.

The newcomer—a tall, broad-shouldered businessman—tackled him, the knife clattering to the floor as they went down in a heap of testosterone and adrenaline. The lady next to me kicked the knife across the floor, away from the would-be mugger.

 I would’ve called the police, but my phone lay dead on the floor under a chair across the room, like my hope for a job and dry underwear. “Can someone call the police?” I pleaded.

The manager, who’d come to stand at the counter, said, “Already done.” Why he wasn’t helping the brave stranger, I had no idea. Come to think of it, there was another guy in here who could’ve helped, but he was currently sneaking out of the place with his female companion. People disgusted me. If you didn’t help when someone needed it, who would help you in your time of need?

Apparently only one person.

My gaze was drawn to the fight on the floor. The brave stranger who’d tackled the thug had thick, dark hair and wore an expensive black suit. Straddling black-beanie dude, he drew his arm back and punched his face, one, two, three times, the blows stunning the guy. Mr. Corporate jumped off him and turned him over so the man was face down on the floor. He yanked both arms behind the mugger’s back and knelt on him.

When he was sure he’d gotten the situation under control, our savior looked up, taking stock, his tie askew.

I gasped.

Sapphire-blue eyes met mine, their intensity dazzling me. His lips were closed, his square jaw set hard as he held onto the struggling man beneath him. With the hero’s broad shoulders and muscular build, that thief was going nowhere.

My blood thumped at the pulse point in my neck, and it wasn’t from fear. Our protector was hot. Way out of my league, but that never stopped me from staring.

“Curtis. Thank God you’re here.” The rich woman next to me hurried to his side, breaking our “moment,” which was probably just me drooling and him making sure a random stranger wasn’t hurt.

He looked her up and down before his gaze settled on her pale face. “Aunt Steph, are you okay?”

That’s when it hit me. This knight in shining armor was actually a knight—Curtis Knight, to be exact, CEO of Knight Advertising, one of the biggest firms in the world. And he was galaxies out of my league. If my mother had told me not to shoot for the stars, he was the sun of a distant galaxy, light years from my world. This was the one time I’d agree with her. He was successful, a god of great ideas in marketing circles, creative, gorgeous, fearless…, and I was a nobody with no job, no phone, and nothing except holey Docs and a steadfast bladder.

But he was also rich, and rich men were assholes. That fact was enough to douse my blazing attraction. There’d been chatter on socials about him being a real jerk to some woman who’d worked for him. It sounded like a similar story to me and Mark. They’d dated, he’d gotten sick of her, and she’d lost her job.

I averted my gaze to the mess on the floor, which used to be my phone, and felt my neck where the blade had pierced. It had already dried—I would live to job hunt another day. I had my wallet. And my life. For that, I was grateful.

I knelt on the floor and picked up my destroyed phone. I’d try to get the sim card out later. I felt Curtis’s eyes on me, probably judging me for being pathetic enough to crawl on the dirty floor for a broken electronic device. If he was in my situation, he’d probably get his secretary to buy him another one and get angry when it wasn’t the color he wanted. Dickhead.

At the counter, the manager, hair ruffled as if he’d been running a hand through it, flicked his gaze from Curtis and the crook to two cops, who were hurrying through the front door. Satisfied everything was under control, the manager grabbed a takeaway cup and brown paper bag from the counter. “Donut and hot chocolate.” The barista had continued working through the melee? Wow. That was some kind of work ethic, but maybe he was making up for the onion-discussion time-out.

There was no way someone as high class as Curtis’s aunt would order a donut and hot chocolate. Still on the floor, I put up my shaking hand. “That’s mine.”

I ignored the pinched, horrified expression on the server’s face, which probably had to do with me being on hands and knees on the filthy floor, scraping up bits of my phone, which were mixed with rock-hard crumbs, a solitary chocolate chip of indeterminant age, and something sticky in liquid form. Which was quite fitting, really. I’d finally hit rock bottom, and I’d done it in public and in front of the hottest guy I’d ever seen.

As I stood and nonchalantly brushed myself down, pretending I wasn’t shedding café-floor detritus like a shaken rug, I consoled myself. It could’ve been much worse, Faith. At least you didn’t wet yourself.

And if that didn’t sum up my day, nothing did.