Page 2 of Bossy Wicked Prince

He totally didn’t see me.

“Hey, Cat!”

Damn it.

I could just turn around, say hello, get my purse out of my locker, and leave. But I have a bad feeling low in my gut. It’s almost midnight, and there’s nobody else in the back of the restaurant.

Instead, I pretend I didn’t hear him and start speed-walking. Fortunately, the building has a few exits. The restaurant is on the terraced second floor, offering late-night diners a view of the scantily clad women and well-groomed men filtering into the nightclub on the first floor.

The upper floors of the building are filled with offices and apartments. I usually take the stairs down to the staff exit on the first floor, but Harry cut me off from that. So I’ll go to the main Queen Street exit, instead.

“Cat!” Harry yells, and I can tell right away that he isn’t sober. “I know you can hear me!Cat!”

I rush through the restaurant, nearly toppling the chairs that the bussers neatly stacked onto the tables.

Shoving through the door to the restaurant’s main entrance, I’m greeted by marble floors in an atrium color-drenched in chic dark green. The modern bronze chandelier hanging from the ceiling bathes the space in dim amber light.

There’s an escalator down to the front exit, and just beyond, the glass doors out to the street. All I have to do is get to the bus stop around the corner. I’m stepping off the escalator when I realize the flaw in my plan.

My purse, the thing with my wallet and apartment keys, is still locked away in the staff room.

Ugh.

I’m racking my brain for what to do next when I hear an elevator chime behind me. It’s not the main elevator bank over by the entrance. It’s the private elevator behind the escalator, the one you need a special stamped metal key card to use.

A man in a suit emerges from the elevator doors. He’s holding a cell phone to his ear and yelling something into it as he storms from the building without even noticing me.

The doors begin to close, and without thinking, I rush for them, slipping through right before they close.

I sag against a copper wall and take a few deep breaths. Without a key card, Harry can’t get in the elevator.

Granted, without a key card, I’m not sure I can getout, but that’s a problem for later.

My heart rate is just getting back to normal when the elevator jolts upward. Oh god. Someone must’ve called it up.

It’s drilled into our heads from the moment we’re hired—this elevator is strictly off-limits to restaurant staff. The only person with clearance is the head server, and only when he’s serving the private poker games the wealthy residents of the building host on the third floor.

I wince when I notice the number three is lit up in the bank of buttons.

Fuck, if I get fired, I definitely won’t be making rent on time.

My mind scrambles for some sort of excuse that’ll hold water, but I’m a shitty liar and even worse when I’m on the spot.

Before I can come up with anything even remotely plausible, the doors open.

To my utter mortification, there’s a man on the other side who may or may not be ranked in a list of the hottest men to ever breathe air.

“Don’t worry, Ry, there’s always next time,” he calls to a table of men further into the space, not seeing me yet.

None of them looks this way, each absorbed in their poker game.

“Keep telling yourself that, man. I’ll happily take your millions,” the one called ‘Ry’ replies, waving what looks like a pair of women’s lacey panties over his head in a mocking farewell.

“Fuck,” the one in front of me says, jerking to a standstill as his silver-gray eyes lock onto mine and a frown settles on his face.

I grimace and press myself tight against the elevator wall as if I can disappear into it if I try hard enough.

“Everything okay, bro?” another guy asks, and oh my god, I think it’s my boss. Scratch that, he’s my boss's boss. The guy who literally owns Velvet & Vice nightclubandthe Terrace Steakhouse.