First Look: 'Beautiful Bastard' (Exclusive)

Editor's Note: The following excerpt contains mature language and adult situations.

One
My father always said the way to learn the job you want
is to spend every second watching someone do it.

“To get the job at the top, you’ve got to start at the bottom,” he told me.
“Become the person the CEO can’t live without. Be their right-hand man.
Learn their world, and they’ll snatch you up the second you finish your degree.”

I had become irreplaceable. And I’d definitely become
the Right Hand. It just so happened that in this
case, I was the right hand that most days wanted to slap
the damn face.

My boss, Mr. Bennett Ryan. Beautiful Bastard.

My stomach clenched tightly at the thought of him:
tall, gorgeous, and entirely evil. He was the most self-righteous,
pompous prick I’d ever met. I’d hear all of
the other women in the office gossip about his escapades
and wonder if a nice face was all it took. But my
father also said, “You realize early in life that beauty
is only skin-deep, and ugly goes straight to the bone.”
I’d had my fair share of unpleasant men in the past few
years, dated a few in high school and college. But this
one took the cake.

“Well, hello Miss Mills!” Mr. Ryan stood in the
doorway to my office that served as an anteroom
to his. His voice was laced with honey, but it was all
wrong . . . like honey left to freeze and crack on ice.

After spilling water on my phone, dropping my earrings
into the garbage disposal, being rear-ended on
the interstate, and having to wait for the cops to come
and tell us what we both already knew—that it was the
other guy’s fault—the last thing I needed this morning
was a grumpy Mr. Ryan.

Too bad for me he didn’t come in any other flavor.

I gave him my usual. “Good morning, Mr. Ryan,”
hoping he would give me his usual curt nod in return.

But when I tried to slip past him, he murmured,
“Indeed? ‘Morning,’ Miss Mills? What time is it in
your little world?”

I stopped and met his cold stare. He was a good
eight inches taller than me, and before working for
him I’d never felt so small. I’d worked for Ryan Media
Group for six years. But since his return to the family
business nine months ago, I’d taken to wearing heels I
used to consider circus height just so I could approach
him near eye level. Even so, I still had to tilt my head
to look up at him, and he clearly relished it, hazel eyes
flashing.