One Night with her Boss Read Online Free

waiting for him. “Oh,” he said, “You wanted to talk
about something.”
    “Yeah. Thanks for the book, by the way.
Where did you find it?”
    He gave a shrug. “Some old bookstore.”
    “You didn’t have to.”
    “What else would I do with a book on
surfing?”
    “Put it in one of your shops,” she
suggested. Jake’s surf shops had been so successful because he’d designed them
for people to spend time in rather than just buy surf equipment and get surf
lessons. They sold snacks and beverages, offered clothes of all kinds, had large
book sections with comfortable chairs, and a variety of charming gifts. The one
in Malibu even had an art gallery above the shop. “Maybe you could add a
section of rare books to—”
    “It was for you.” For some reason, he
looked a little grumpy. He frowned at her.
    “Okay. Anyway. Thank you.”
    “You had something to talk about?”
    “Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “I need
to tell you something.”
    He must have heard something in her tone
because he put down his pen and leaned back in his chair, watching her closely.
    She tried to start talking, but no words
left her throat when she opened her mouth.
    After a moment, he said, “What did you
have to say?”
    “I got a job offer.”
    He stiffened visibly. “What?”
    “I got a job offer. A good one. A
marketing job.”
    “What are you they offering you?”
    It wasn’t the reaction she’d been hoping
for. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was hoping for—maybe for him to suddenly
see what he was about to lose and fall on his knees to propose to her—but it
wasn’t this. He sounded matter-of-fact. Business-like.
    “More than I’m making here, but that’s
not really the—”
    “I’ll match it,” he said, without
hesitation.
    “Jake, I’m really not—”
    “I’ll go five-thousand over whatever
they’re offering.”
    Again, he sounded like he was making a
deal. Not losing something he cared deeply about.
    Of course, he wasn’t. That wasn’t who
she was to him.
    She took a slow breath. “It’s not about
the salary. You’ve always been generous in that regard.”
    He had, although living in this area was
so expensive that she still didn’t have much money to spare.
    “You’re not even going to give me a
chance to give you a counter offer?” He was still stiff, although his voice now
had a rasp to it.
    “There’s no counter offer to make here.
It’s a marketing job. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve liked being
your assistant, but I don’t want to spend my entire career in this position.”
    He stared at her for a few moments with
gray eyes that looked strangely urgent. Then he said, “I’ve given you more
responsibilities. You have the ability to advance here. I hadn’t realized you’d
wanted to—”
    “I wasn’t expecting you to keep giving
me new job titles. You don’t seem to understand what the issue is. It’s not
that you haven’t treated me well. It’s that this is not the job I want.”
    For a moment, he stared at the empty air
just past her head. “You don’t…want it.”
    “I’ve always wanted to be in marketing.
You know that.”
    “I can give you marketing—”
    “To do in my spare time?” She was
starting to get annoyed because he didn’t seem to be hearing her and was thus
making this conversation harder than it had to be. “Let’s be serious. Even if
you changed my position, I’d still end up doing the marketing job on top of the
assistant’s job. I know exactly what would happen. You’d try. We’d try. But
you’re used to relying on me, so you’d still ask me to do most of what I’m
already doing, so I’d have two jobs instead of one. It would never work. I need
to move somewhere else.”
    “Marketing is not more important work
than what you’re doing now. If I’m willing to match your salary, then why—”
    She made a frustrated sound. “I already
said it’s not about the money. It’s that I want a job that will be