Page 216 of Boss of the Year

Lea and Mike’s novella: Thief of my Heart

When a straight-A student meets the newest mechanic at her grandfather’s shock, she knows she should stay away. But the tattoed bad boy is somehow everythign she’s ever wanted.

FROM MORALLY BLACK BILLIONAIRES

A STRANGE OBSESSION WITH EPITAPHS

Simone

Billionaire Gone Bad

Pretty Girl or ‘Pretty Woman’?

IT’S ALL A LIE! FAKE FIANCÉE EXPOSED!

Everyone thinks about being famous. You grow up leafing throughTeen Vogueor browsing on Instagram. You see the celebrities and influencers pouting at the camera and everyone loving them for it, asking them questions, wanting tobethem in every little way.

And you want it. You’d never, under any circumstances, actually admit you want it. But at least some part of you does.

See, it’s not about fame. It’s about recognition. It’s about being seen in a world where most of us fade into the masses. Beingknownfor something. If not for being good, then at very least, for the things we are goodat.

You read the headlines and a part of you, even if it’s just a teeny, tiny little bit, asks the inevitable question:

Why them?

Why doesn’t anyone seemethat way?

Why hasn’t anyone seen me…ever?

Most of us only receive one headline, usually on a gravestone. The inscription on my mother’s was short, but loving:

Mary Ann Bishop

b. 1972 d. 2004

Beloved Wife and Mother

It was inadequate, I always thought. She was so much more than a wife and mother. Mama loved to read the comics every Sunday morning. She could draw birds perfectly, but was terrible with people. She would cry whenever she saw commercials about puppies, made the best banana muffins in all of Vermont, and was the proud owner of the Dandelion Sundries, one of Zagat’s top ten bakeries in Vermont, since she opened it the three months after I was born.

Wife and mother—she was those things. But it wasn’t fair to reduce her to that.

My epitaph would never look like that. This I’d always known. I suppose having your mom die when you’re only eight years old makes you think about things like gravestones from an early age.

Me, I’d always thought my inscription would read something like this:

Simone Bishop

Daughter, Baker, Lovingkindness Maker

“With bread, all sorrows are less.” —Miguel de Cervantes

I did not ever once think it would read “Simone Bishop, Liar, Cheat, Fake Fiancée.”

But judging from the Google Alerts that woke me up at four in the morning, thirty minutes before my usual alarm went off to check this morning’s rises, my legacy was sealed.

I rolled over in my childhood bed, shielding my eyes from the summer sun streaming from the skylight. I clicked on the largest article, the one that seemed to be referenced by the rest. The author’s name was familiar. Ivy Ink—the mysterious byline for The Scarlet Letters, otherwise known as the gossip column for theBoston Globe.

It was supposed to be wedding bells for Brendan Black and his whirlwind paramore, waitress and candy striper Simone Bishop, but can those bells even ring? Just days before he was rumored to be announced as the new CEO of the Blackguard Equity corporation, documents were leaked revealing the fact that Black and Bishop’s relationship appears to be a ruse.