Page 1 of Devilish Bully (Steamy Latte Reads Collection #3)

THE CEO

LUCIAN

Welcome to Hell on Earth…

The digital screen in my executive lounge blazes fiery orange, my face burning at the center of the flames like a storybook villain.

I sip my coffee, waiting for the next insult.

Remember: NEVER make eye contact with Satan, our “beloved” CEO.

Now my face is slapped onto a serpent, above a collage of every person I’ve fired this year—all of them in matching T-shirts: Fuck Lucian Pearson.

On any other day, I’d probably find this amusing, but with a huge IPO looming, the last thing my staff should be doing is plastering this nonsense on every screen in my building.

I’m definitely firing whoever did this.

“You know…” My father stares at the screen, shaking his head. “When I was in charge of this company, I knew every employee by name. I knew when their kids’ birthdays were, and hell, I even got invited to all their weddings.”

“You had twenty employees—total, and your company was nothing like the one I’ve made it into today.”

“My employees loved coming to work, and they never compared me to Satan because I treated them like family.”

“Family on a payroll…”

“Your mom and I wanted them to be happy because happiness equals productivity. And when you add those things together, what do you get, son?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I’ve never believed in that equation.”

“Clearly.” He crumples his cup and tosses it toward the trash bin.

He misses it—as always—and my assistant Brian picks it up and re-shoots.

“That was a very nice shot, sir.” He lies. “You’ve still got it!”

“I know.” He smiles. “I would’ve been in the NBA if I didn’t get into business.”

Right… “Brian, can you give him a tour of the conference level I renovated last month?”

“Don’t bother.” My father huffs. “I’ve seen enough of what you’ve turned my business into, and I’m sure it’s just as soulless as everything else.”

I grit my teeth.

“Isn’t being worth one billion enough, son?” He looks at me. “Do you really need to go public with an IPO to strive for even more money?”

I don’t say a word.

We’ve traveled down this road of conversation too many times before and our final destination is always Misunderstanding Lane or Animosity Avenue.

Somehow, he’s forgotten that he begged me to take over his company when he was bleeding money, when his “family” employees were taking his kindness for weakness and stealing millions right in front of his eyes.

Within five years of me taking over—after putting a lot of distance between me and the growing staff and taking a far more ruthless approach to “business”—Pearson Industries grew from a small upstate paper supplier to the top supplier in the country.

I still pay him and my mother CEO-level salaries even though they’ll never have to lift a finger for the rest of their lives.

“I’m worried that you’ll never find true happiness in life, Lucian.” My father is still talking. Unfortunately. “You barely have any friends, I never hear about you dating anyone, and your mother is worried we’ll never get any grandkids from you.”

Okay, that’s enough for the day. “I need to get to work, Dad. It was nice seeing you here uninvited. Again.”

“You looked beyond handsome on the cover of GQ last month.” He ignores my wish for him to head for the exit, pulling a wrinkled magazine from his breast pocket. “I refuse to believe that you can’t pull a single woman in this city. Unless—are you bad in bed? Is something wrong with your dick?”

Jesus… “There’s nothing wrong down there. Trust me. I just don’t have time.”

“Well, you would if you reconsider the IPO,” he says, putting the paper away. “Rethink that for me and your mom, please.”

“Okay, Dad. I will.” I nod, even though I won’t.

I can’t… I’ve come too far.

He smiles and looks at Brian. “Before I leave, can you post a reminder in his schedule about his mother’s upcoming birthday celebration? It’s a multi-day event.”

“It’s already been done, sir.”

“Good.” My father walks to the hall where his personal driver is standing near the elevator bank.

As always, Brian and I wait until they descend out of view. Then we walk to the windows and make sure that they actually get inside the waiting town car. Sometimes, my dad will turn around and return to the building to chat with my employees.

We’re in the clear today, though.

His car pulls into Manhattan’s traffic, and I exhale.

One crisis down. On to the next.

“Okay.” I look at Brian. “Tell me that he hasn’t spoken to any media lately, and that he didn’t do any damage while he was here today.”

“He sent a mass email to every employee, encouraging them to fill out ‘Rate the CEO’ surveys ahead of the next all-hands meeting.”

“Okay.” I shrug. “It went straight to spam as always, right?”

“No.” He hands me his tablet, showing me the subject line of an email that came from my account.

Subject: Help Make this Company Better. (Help Me Be a Better CEO…& a Better Man)

“I see…” My blood simmers. “I refuse to read the message. Summarize it for me.”

“Apparently, you’ve been a very mean man who is obsessed with work, and you want to change things ahead of the IPO. You want to be a lot more transparent and make Pearson Industries the greatest and most fun place to work in the world.”

“Should I install a theme park in the basement?” I ask. “Would that make it more fun?”

“No.” He smiles. “I don’t think that’s what you meant from this message.”

“My father, you mean.”

“Yeah, him…”

“Reply to that message by saying it was fraudulent before anyone sees it.”

“Too late.” He avoids my gaze. “All your board members love it, and they’re looking forward to seeing your approval rating at the all-hands meeting.”

“I need you to hack the survey and make sure it’s ninety-eight percent.”

“Ten steps ahead of you, sir.”

Later that night, in between researching “Happiest Places to Work in Manhattan,” and “How to Punish Employees for Talking Shit About the Boss,” I run into the same issue on my financial forecast reports.

There’s a chunk of them missing, which makes no sense because I’ve requested these plenty of times.

What the hell is going on?

I open my email—searching for the words “quarterly report.” Within seconds, an entire page of emails from me to [email protected] appear.

Twenty-six. All sent. All unanswered.

Confused, I immediately call Brian.

“Yes, Mr. Pearson?” he answers on the first ring as always.

“Who’s the director of the auditing department?”

“Sean Garrett,” he says. “Oh, wait actually…You fired him for incompetence three months ago over not turning in some reports.”

Well, that checks out. “I still don’t have the reports, though.” I lean back in my chair. “Did I ever hire a new auditor?”

“No, sir. You, uh, told Human Resources to promote the next person in line.” He pauses, and I hear his keyboard clacking. “The current head of auditing is Miss Kendall Clarke.”

“Don’t tell me I’ve been emailing a dead account all this time.”

“Doubt it, since we no longer give out name emails,” he says. “Just position-based ones. Her address should be [email protected].”

I check my sent box again, double-checking my spelling.

It’s correct.

“How sure are you about her having access to this email account?”

“One thousand percent, sir,” he says. “She emailed me a few questions about a budget yesterday.”

“I see.” I tap my chin. “So, this woman is ignoring me…”

“The entire financial department is really overwhelmed and overworked, sir.” He always tries to take up for these people. “I’m pretty sure it’s not personal.”

“Okay then, Brian.”

“Would you like me to look into this for you tomorrow?”

“No.” I type a new email. “I’ll be nice and give Miss Clarke one last chance…”