Maliciously Obedient (Obedient #1)

Maliciously Obedient (Obedient #1) Page 2

This guy looked just enough like him to make her recall the encounter she'd had, though the new guy looked much younger. Where Bournham was known as the “silver fox” for having gone completely silver sometime in his early thirties, this guy had dark brown hair, green eyes (unlike Bournham's famous sparkling sapphires) and a look of arrogance that was slightly watered-down compared to the CEO.

Same gorgeous bod, with that cobra-like back that can only come from hard manual labor or intensive personal training workouts. This guy was probably a laborer. He walked in like he owned the place, and yet the clothing was off the rack. More than off the rack, probably cheap T.J. Maxx or Marshalls cast-offs. Dark-blue dockers fit nicely in all the right places, a cheap white polo shirt. Shoes from Lands' End. The essence of business casual for the middle managers who worked like interchangeable drones in the corporation where she currently sat, in her own hive, and now was being stared at – no, make that stared down – by someone she'd never met before, but who acted like he was in charge.

“Excuse me?” he said, as if she had violated some sort of norm that she was unaware of. She was none-too-happy to be called out as if she had somehow broken a rule. Lydia put the book down, careful to make sure that the cover was facing away from him, and yet also noting the smirk on his face as he followed her movements and stared at the book's back.

“Excuse me,” she replied, hands on hips, standing as tall as she could considering her stockinged feet and her obvious surprise at being interrupted by him again. She squashed the impulse to say “Can I help you?” because right now she was not exactly feeling helpful and this guy was glaring her down as if she were the transgressor – and not he.

“It's my first day here, so I thought I'd come in early and get the lay of the land. Do you have a key to my office?” he asked, as if she had any idea what he was talking about. Parking spot stealer, job stealer, and now he expected her to help him through the first day on the job? Oh, hell no. HR wiped butts. Not her.

She stiffened, stared him down, working very hard to control the impulse to be friendly, and said, “How do I know you're the new Director of Social Media and not some guy who randomly tries to steal parking spots?”

He studied her, eyes roving across her face, down to her chest, taking in her curves with a look of possessiveness and a lazy, leisurely approach that made her body flush hot, heart race, and skin tingle in the most unprofessional of ways. Some nerve! Lydia stared at his eyes, willing him to give up and look at her anywhere but, oh, there. And there. And to stop making her think about her own –

He finally smiled, a grin of exasperation more than of openness or of acknowledgment that he was being evasive or confusing. “I told you. I'm Matt Jones. I'm the new Director of Social Media. Obviously my arrival hasn't been announced to all the employees. And who are you?”

“Anastasia Steele. Nice to meet you.” Her tone said it was anything but.

Oh, how he wished he were Christian Grey right now. Inside that woman's head, in her hands, the object of her rapt attention and her breathless sexual fantasies. Inside her head and inside her panties. Of all the times not to be a billionaire. He remembered her, alright. Lydia. Lydia something. He met her – when was it? Almost two years ago.

It was at some new employee orientation program, and Human Resources had told him it would be good for employee morale if he attended. Nothing more than some boring, corporate moment that endless workers and countless organizations over the years had participated in, at the orientation he had been bored to tears – with one exception. Her. A fresh faced, slightly-exotic-looking, cheerleader type, and Mike had been happy to attend if it meant he got to stare at her from across the room.

The woman he had been dating at the time made Snooki look like a genius, and he could tell from Lydia’s bored expression that the mindless, numbing procedures carefully outlined by the Human Resources professional who genuinely thought that if she spoke to everyone like Miss Molly from Romper Room they’d understand better, had driven the poor young woman to a point of complete and utter underwhelm.

Her lidded eyes, her obvious contempt for the presentation and more so for the treatment that she received at the hands of his own employees made him follow up, very briefly, after the session and chat with her. She looked like something out of a cliche, no – a stereotype – of a high school cheerleader combined with a plus-size, dark-haired Barbie. And yet this one was smart, so when he had asked her what her new position was at Bournham Industries, she paled and stammered, “I’m an administrative assistant here.”

“That’s it?” he had replied, shocked that someone so intelligent would be in such a low position in his company.

Wrong question. Her face changed instantly, and now he was the target of her contempt.

“Well, we can’t all be the CEO, now can we?” she’d answered, a tentative smirk on her face fighting with a look of horror at her own smart mouth.

He was taken aback but not offended. More amused than anything. Lately, he had found himself depressed by being surrounded by ‘yes men’ who seemed eager to please but also equally desperate to avoid conflict. This one – she had some bite. Why on earth had human resources hired her as some administrative assistant?

“No, you’re right, we can’t all be the CEO of Bournham Industries. Sorry, that job's already taken.” Big grin. “But what I’m asking is why someone obviously so intelligent, like you, is in an entry-level position.”

Her eyes flashed with an emotion he couldn’t discern. “Why don’t you ask your own HR department that question, Mr. Bournham?” And with that she turned on her heel and walked away, her brown locks bouncing behind her against the middle of her back, her pencil skirt flapping at the backs of her knees, her long, thick calves tight in her perfectly professional high heels.

That ass. Shapely and lush, all curves and softness, he'd been mesmerized as she strode away, temporarily oblivious to the fact that she'd bested him.

Lydia. Lydia...Carson? Cranston? Chapman? What? What had been her last name? Now he sat here, in his new middle management office after getting a sour look and a set of keys tossed at his head, a job that HR had been trying to create for the corporation for years and that he had stonewalled, because social media didn't need a dedicated full-time employee.

Besides, his company was bloated enough. He had already cut half of his executive staff, much to the shock of the financial pages, and to the joy of investors who very much appreciated having profits rise six percent after that measure. Creating new jobs was an important function of Bournham Industries, but right now the director of social media was not an integral position.

Yet here he was “Matt Jones,” the new director of a job he never intended to create and certainly never intended to fill with his own shoes.

His new office smelt like Pledge and mildew. How was that possible on the thirty-whatever floor? His fingers splayed out on the desk in front of him, he felt the cheap laminate and was transported back twelve years ago, when he took over Bournham Industries from his dad, then located in a tiny little strip mall back in his home town. Who knew that information management and websites would turn into a media conglomerate so big that he rivaled the size of corporation in the Fortune 500 three years ago?

Ever since then everything had skyrocketed, from his company’s potential IPO, to his love life, to this social media viral push that seemed to dominate everything in his personal life, from tracking what he ate to tweeting who he fucked.

Even this venture, pretending to be “Matt Jones,” was all part of a media strategy. When the producers of “Meet the Hidden Boss” came to visit him two months ago he waved them away, telling his own administrative assistant, Joanie, to tell them he was busy. Persistent, the producers called, emailed, somehow got a hold of his personal cell phone number and began calling and texting, tweeting, Facebooking, and pretty much did everything they could to get their hands on him. So he gave them five minutes.

In those five minutes, he reluctantly had to admit to himself, they convinced him. With one phrase: twenty percent increase in sales.

“It really is that simple, Mike,” Jonah Moore had told him. Jonah was one of those scrabbling young Hollywood filmmaker types, the kind of guy you might apply the word “hipster” to if he were fifteen years older, but now he was just someone who had Steven Spielberg ambitions – with infomercial reality. Mike imagined that being a producer for “Meet the Hidden Boss” was a step up for Jonah, and the guy spoke with such a rapid fire cadence that Mike found himself thinking the producer was part hummingbird.

“The premise is simple, Mike,” Jonah had explained. “We hide cameras in your company for six weeks, we document every single move you make as the ‘hidden boss’ in the episode. You’re the real CEO of Bournham Industries and now you’re going to create some middle management job, and disguise yourself, for those six weeks. We film everything, and then we put together solid footage for the forty-three minutes of the television episode that your company is featured in.”

Mike shook his head and already started ignoring them until Jonah said the magic words. “And our analysis shows that companies who participate in 'Meet the Hidden Boss' see sales increase by twenty percent or more within the month after the episode first airs.”

Ding! That did it. The magic words. Mike had reached forward to press a button on his telephone. “Joanie, please call ahead and tell the pilot to hold the jet for me. This meeting's going to take longer than I expected.” The look on Jonah’s face had been priceless.

“We're glad to have you on board, Mike,” Jonah had answered, small, dark eyes narrow as his face expanded with a grin that didn't make its way to those eyes, the calculation cold and obvious. The younger man didn't care, and Mike knew he didn't care that it was laid out for him to see. Jonah's coup was in getting a “yes,” and nothing else mattered. Mike knew exactly how that felt, because he had been like Jonah more than a decade ago, and now he was sitting exactly where Jonah wanted to be.

Atop a fortune. Soon to be $1.1 billion in personal assets, to be specific.

Specificity was key. He knew Jonah knew everything about his assets, his business moves, his plans. Hell, the man probably knew how much he could dead lift and the exact weight of his morning shit, down to the ounce. Admirable, really – luring him in with that comment about the twenty percent increase in sales. Right now, Bournham Industries needed the revenue, of course, but more than anything Mike wanted to take control of the relentless social media buzz that swirled around him. People tweeted and tumblred and Facebooked and videos about him went viral, the whole world gone mad inside the little boxes, from mobile phones to laptops, that seemed to dominate everything.

While he couldn't control whether people talked about him, he could massage the message. Give them something big, like an episode of “Meet the Hidden Boss,” and at least he was the one spoon-feeding what he wanted them to have.

Being a victim wasn't part of his repertoire.