Page 96 of Bossy Wicked Prince

“And for you?” Brinley smiles at me.

Whoops. I should have looked at the menu instead of staring at the painting for so long. “Tea sounds good. Do you have any recommendations?”

“You can never go wrong with peppermint,” she says. “And I’ve got some fresh shortbread that tastes great with it.”

“Sounds great, thanks.” I shoot her a genuine smile. I feel bad that I was so short with her the first time we met. She didn’t really say anything that bad, and it’s not her fault I was feeling defensive.

When Brinley walks away, Pippa raises her brows at me. “Since when do you not knowexactlywhat you want to order? You’re always opening the menu the second you sit down.”

“I’ve been a little distracted.”

“By Nate?”

I can feel my face heating. “I really like him. We’ve been texting all the time—he even texts me good morning every day.”

Pippa gives me a knowing look. “That sounds like a relationship.”

“I don’t know about arelationship. We’re supposed to be cooling things off, not learning each others’ bucket lists.”

“Awe, that’s sort of cute. I didn’t think he had any aspirations outside of world domination.”

I snort. “The things is…I might actually be falling for him.”

Pippa squeaks, pressing her lips closed to hold the sound in but it does nothing to hide the shock on her face as she puts prayer hands in front of her lips. “Like, the big L word, falling?”

I bite my lip and she squeals again. “Are we happy about this?”

“I think so.”

“Then I’m happy for you, kitty Cat. But I’ll still fuck him up if he hurts you.”

I laugh. “That was never in doubt.”

Pippa’s phone pings, and she glances down at it. Her smile vanishes, and she looks back at it in horror.

I frown. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” she says quickly. “Just turned on my notifications for a stupid blog. Nothing you’d care about.”

She won’t meet my eyes, and she’s clearly skimming through the text onscreen. Pippa’s always been a terrible liar, but this is one of her worst attempts.

“Show me, Pippa,” I demand, my teeth gritted.

She sighs. “I guess you’ll see it eventually.”

She hands me her phone, and I instantly wish I were just looking at more pictures of Waffle.

Instead, it’s a blog post from the Toronto Tea with Nate’s official headshot from the UPS website on one side and an old picture of me that I don’t recognize. It must have been cropped from a friend’s social media post. The headline reads, “UPS Billionaire Promotes Assistant to New Girlfriend.”

My stomach turns. This is everything I was afraid would happen. I take a deep breath and steel myself to keep reading.

Nepo baby CEO Nathaniel Walsh let his eyes wander over to the secretarial pool, starting a relationship with his direct report, Caitlin Daniels. Rumors have been circulating about the pair for weeks, with one employee telling us their relationship may have begun before she was hired.

The employees we’ve spoken to describe Daniels as competent, professional, and friendly. Walsh, on the other hand, has been characterized as cold, controlling, ruthless, and obsessed with the bottom line. In other words, completely capable of manipulating Daniels to ignore her own best interests.

“The power dynamics in this kind of situation are extreme,” says Nancy Rothman, a psychologist specializing in abusive relationships. “Everyone in Nathaniel Walsh’s circle will be expected to give him whatever he wants. Any lower-level employee would know that her job depends on pleasing him, and she might feel she has no choice if he makes advances on her.”

We’ve been told that Walsh brought Daniels on a so-called business trip to New York City, where she stayed in his suite, though her presence wasn’t required. Reportedly, the deal that was supposed to be signed on the trip fell through after inappropriate comments were made about Daniels during a meeting. What was said and who said it remains unknown.