Insufferable boss, p.1
Insufferable Boss, page 1
INSUFFERABLE BOSS
IONA ROSE
SOME BOOKS
CONTENTS
Untitled
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Epilogue
Coming Next - Sample Chapters
About the Author
Also by Iona Rose
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Insufferable Boss
Copyright © 2023 Iona Rose
The right of Iona Rose to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the copyright, designs and patent act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Publisher: SomeBooks
978-1-913990-71-8
PROLOGUE
Lena
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF JOHN MERCER
I, John Mercer, being of sound mind and memory, do hereby make, publish, and declare this to be my last will and testament, revoking all prior wills and codicils made by me.
FIRST: I give, devise, and bequeath all of my estate, both real and personal, to be divided equally between my two children, Lena and Dylan Mercer.
SECOND: In particular, I bequeath to my daughter, Lena Mercer, and my son, Dylan Mercer, each receiving an equal share of my 50% equity in the Standard Rock Company, as well as the following assets:
(a) my vacation home in Hawaii, to Dylan
(b) my personal art collection, to Lena
(c) my yacht, "The Pearl," to Dylan
(d) my beach house in the Hamptons, to Lena
(e) my townhouse in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Dylan
(f) my villa in Tuscany, Italy, to…
It went on and on… and my mind floated back to a time when he was still alive, the sun was in his eyes and he was laughing. The whole family was laughing with him. Not until my name was called out once again did my attention return to the words that were being read aloud.
“… Lena Mercer as the executor of this will. In the event that she is unable or unwilling to serve, I appoint my son, Dylan Mercer, as the alternate executor."
FOURTH: If any provision of this will is declared invalid…
I zoned out again. Not until the reading was over, did I look up again. I’d been dragged here, obliged to listen to how my father’s assets were to be distributed. However, it was the last thing I wanted to think about. I had been slated to see him in the winter, but I was too busy. “I’ll see you in spring,” I said. How was I to know it was his last winter? I never saw it coming.
I was still in shock, of course, but the torment was slowly beginning to set in.
“I’m growing my company, Dad. I just need a bit of time. Christmas is our busiest season. I’ll see you soon. I promise. Oh, and don’t foget I love you,’" I called gaily, as if we had all the time in the world.
It was more than two weeks since I last spoke to him, and now all I had from him were the words of this will.
Suddenly, I was aware of many eyes turned in my direction.
“Are we done?” I asked softly. I felt completely drained. I wanted to be on a flight and out of here as soon as possible. There was now a cloud over this city in my mind that I couldn’t wait to put behind me so that I could breathe again and begin to heal.
“Yes, Miss Mercer," my father’s lawyer said expressionlessly.
I rose to my feet.
He mentioned something about sending the documents my way and about the execution, but I didn’t care. Not now.
My brother was present too, but I didn’t look at him. There was nothing we had to say to each other. I just kept moving forward until I arrived at the lobby of the office building in Manhattan. I slipped on my sunglasses, but before I could exit the building, my name was called. I ignored the voice. There was some unpleasant memory attached to the voice and my first instinctive reaction was to ignore it, but the man was relentless.
“Lena,” he called again, his voice ringing out authoritatively across the vast space.
I stopped and turned around slowly. The breath slowly escaped from my chest as I watched him stride across the polished granite floor. Yes, he was exactly as I remembered. Tall, broad, and utterly delicious, but an undeniable asshole I would
“Yeah?” I asked affecting a bored manner, when he stood in front of me.
His nostrils flared with annoyance at my tone, but his voice was even. “Can I have a few minutes of your time? There is something extremely important that we must talk about.”
Vaguely, I recalled the particular detail of my father’s will where he had assigned his 50% equity in Standard Rock to my brother and me. Given that this man was the CEO and one of the other owners of the company, I wasn't surprised he was on the warpath.
“I’m going to assume your sudden desire to speak to me is about my share of Standard Rock, but I’m afraid I'm not in the mood to talk about any of it, so speak to my brother or something. I don't give a damn.”
His piercing gray eyes narrowed with displeasure, but I didn’t care. I started to walk away. To my surprise though, his hand closed around my arm, and the very strength of it stopped me in my tracks. I looked down at his tanned hand. It was a beautiful hand, sculptured like some Greek marble statue, but warm on my skin. For some reason the impeccable beauty and wonderful warmth of it irritated me even more. The hand of an jerk should be cold and claw-like.
“Excuse me?” I muttered between gritted teeth.
“I understand you want to leave the city immediately, but this will only take a few minutes,” he said calmly, as he removed his hand.
The fact that he was forcefully demanding my attention did nothing to make me more tolerant of him, but he did run the company, and as an equity owner myself and to be respectful of my father and his life's work, I forced myself to calm down.
“Go ahead,” I instructed coldly.
“I'll get straight to the point then,” he said. “I want to buy you out. I don’t think you have much interest in running the company, so I’m more than willing to take it off your hands. You're not allowed to sell now, not until two years after you've worked at the company, but…."
His words faded into the background as I stared at him, angry he was bringing this up now. Even so, I understood him since I ran a company myself. Plus, the company was worth over a billion dollars, so of course, he couldn't be considerate of my current emotional state.
Given my past experience with him, though, I didn't expect him to behave any better, so this immediately drained whatever patience I might have had for him.
"I've not read the will,” I said impatiently. “So I can't make a decision yet.”
I turned away to leave, but he stopped me again. “Can I contact you in the future for an update?”
“No,” I replied. “My father just passed away. Please leave me alone. When and if I'm interested, I'll give you a call.” My words sounded relatively calm, but I felt as if I was screaming into the wind.
Thankfully, this time he didn't try to stop me. I couldn't wait to get out of New York for all the pain, shock, and hurt it had brought me the past few days. Maybe things would change for the better soon.
1
Lena
"So let me get this straight," Diana said. "You're going to sell your company to t
"Yes," I replied as I brought out two blazers from my closet and held them up before her. She considered the choices between the stripe and pattern and went with the pattern.
"I don't know," she said. "That seems... extremely favorable?"
"Yes," I said, smiling.
“Hm,” she said. “And if I feel this way, then there's no way the other equity owners will feel any different right? Especially since you all aren't close, right?"
"Yeah," I replied, all the worries that had plagued me earlier now coming to mind.
“Hm,” she said again, and I sighed.
"We have to figure it out. At least I have to figure it out. It's my dad's company, after all, and I don't want to ignore it the way I ignored our relationship."
"That's unfair to yourself," she said. "He understood you. He was a businessman himself, and you both were constantly busy and didn't always find the time to spend together."
"Yeah," I said and tried to focus on packing, but she kept going.
"So now since you can't sell your equity before two years lapse, you're going to work there till then?"
"Don't know if I'm going to sell or not even after the two years elapses," I told her. "My original plan was to remain as uninvolved as possible, and since I never had the intention to sell, then I didn't need to work there, but now that he's made this offer to buy my company, I have a reason to consider moving to New York."
"Ah," she nodded. "It's clear to me now."
"Hm," I replied. "What will forever be unclear to me, though, is why my dad gave equity to my brother as well. I mean, he could have just handed the properties over to him instead. He knows Dylan has no interest in it or the ability to run a business. Or even contributing for that matter."
"He's graduated college, right?" Diana asked, and I nodded.
"Yeah, he's been wasting away his time since then, but my dad hasn't had the heart to cut him off."
She laughed. "But you've said that you might be the bigger disappointment to your dad since at least Dylan finished college while you did not."
I sighed as she pointed this out.
"You're right. That's why I worked so hard, but at the same time, it kept me away from him because I always felt that no matter how well I did, he wouldn't get over that disappointment.
Anyway, let's not talk about these anymore. I'm running late."
"When does your flight leave again?"
"10 am."
"Hm, we have four hours more," she yawned.
She continued helping to select and fold items into my suitcase. However, my mind remained in turmoil, so I stopped and laid down beside her on the bed.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I need to clear my head," I said. "It's too cloudy. I feel like I'm not thinking straight."
"Alright," she said, giving me her full attention. "What exactly is the problem?"
I briefly went silent as I tried to sort through my thoughts, but she came up with her own topic before I could.
"Does your cloudiness have anything to do with that... person who's going to be in the picture?"
"Who?" I asked.
"The CEO," she replied, and I frowned at her reminder, and then I sighed.
"Kane goddamn motherfucking Lazarus. He’s one of the reasons this move is making me anxious. He was the one who told me about the offer to buy me out, but he can’t exactly be trusted.”
“You’ve called him a slime and sleaze ball every single time you’ve mentioned him over the past few months. Are you still not going to tell me why you detest him so much? I mean, has he done anything so far to cheat you beyond the fact that he offered to completely buy you out?”
“Also, did he make the same offer to your brother? Why didn’t he take it?”
“I don't know if he made the same offer to Dylan, but even if he did, why would Dylan sell?” I asked. “Dylan’s lazy, but he’s not an idiot. Staying connected to the company assures he keeps his wealth and access to resources. If he leaves with a buyout, then he has to manage it himself and grow it. Why the fuck would he want to do that when he can keep doing the bare minimum and ride on the backs of others?”
“Okay, well, he doesn’t sound like he’s going to be your ally in this.”
“I’m not going there to fight,” I said. “I’m just there to consider my options with Standard Rock. My father gave almost his whole life to building that, so it’s the least I can do.”
She nodded. “That’s great and all, but can we please go back to Kane? You two knew each other when you were younger, right? I mean, his father owned the company along with yours, so there must have been meetups and gatherings or something?”
I didn’t respond.
“Lena,” she called. “I need to know why he, amongst everyone else, grates on you. I mean, his sister owns equity, and you’ve mentioned that she’s nasty. Then you’re not close to your brother. In all of these, Kane seems to be neutral and maybe even an advocate in your favor, yet you can’t stand even the mention of his name.”
“It’s not that bad,” I said, and she laughed.
“I’ll hold up a mirror so you can see how your expression changes when he’s brought up. Like now.”
She began to search for a mirror in the bedside drawer, and I shook my head.
“You’re so fucking nosy.”
“Of course I am. You’re a generally peaceful person, so it makes no sense. There has to be something else that makes you antagonistic towards him, and I need to know what it is.”
Sighing, I considered her words, and then I gave in.
“It wasn’t a big deal, or anything too serious,” I said. “It was just annoying.”
“Of course, it’s not serious; you wouldn’t be so emotional otherwise. What I’m sure of is that it was embarrassing for you, and this is why I have to hear about it, or else you’re going to miss your flight today. I'm not letting you leave.”
Amused, I continued to stare at the ceiling as I conjured the memory to mind, and she came over to poke me.
“Speak,” she said. “You’re going to be late.”
“Fine,” I conceded. “There were many of those… joint festivities you mentioned since our fathers owned the company together.”
“Okay,” she said.
“So,” I continued. “During one of those, I was in the library trying to get away from all the noise when I heard someone come in, so I hid. I thought it was the housekeeper trying to get me to come downstairs to meet the other guests.”
“However, I later found out that it was Kane and some woman.”
“Oh?” she asked. “And?”
“Well, what else could have happened? He had sex with her right there?”
She gasped.
“In front of you?”
“No,” I replied. “There was an inner reading room and he took her there. Took her on my bloody reading daybed! At first, I wasn’t even sure what was going on, so I went to take a look.”
