A Bossy Affair

A Bossy Affair Ember Kelly Copyright © 2023 by Ember Kelly All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. A Bossy Affair Hunter Erickson is taking over the world, one business at a time. Making his name as one of the Billionaire elite in Boston, he revels in the game, and the victory of his spoils. But when his new assistant Julia absolutely rocks his world, he finds himself struggling to keep things professional. When it all explodes, will he lose everything? Or will he conquer like he always does? Julia McGrath came home under the worst circumstances. Her family’s pub half burned and her father died in the fire, leaving Julia, her sister, and her mother struggling to keep things afloat. But Julia doesn’t want to be behind a bar for the rest of her life, and after scoring a sweet administrative assistant gig, it looks like she might escape the life of monotony and help her family get back on their feet. The only issue is the devastatingly handsome and brutish boss she works for. When tensions boil over, and they fall into each other’s arms, will she be able to keep things cool and save her family’s pub? Or will her heart betray her and leave her stuck slinging drinks in a Southie bar for the rest of her life? Contents 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 Epilogue About the Author Also by Ember Kelly Chapter One Julia It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I sat down heavily on the ancient stool, which nearly gave way, and buried my head in my arms. I lay across the desk, exhausted, hungry, and smelling like stale beer. Definitely not like this. “Jules!” a voice from the other side of the office door called. “Julia!” Dammit. I couldn’t even get a minute just to rest my head. Just to shut my eyes and pretend everything was like it was a year ago. Before I came back home to Boston. Before I started frantically working in the bar in order to save it. Before Dad died. A year ago, I graduated Summa Cum Laude from Columbia. I had degrees in marketing and journalism. I was going to be somebody. I was going to write articles for the New York Times and start my own magazine. I was going to be one of the “top thirty under thirty.” I was going to live a lavish lifestyle of travel, but still be humble, eat street food in Tijuana and Mumbai, bathe in the waters of the Rocky Mountains, and sleep in a sleeping bag under the stars in the Appalachians. I’d be Hunter S. Thompson of Boston, just without the drugs and in a dress. I was going to be who I always thought I would be when I was eleven. A year later and I’m back here, back in the bar, back in the office trying to hide away from the nighttime responsibility of telling the drunks to go home and cleaning piss off the wall in the men’s room. Somehow, I was here. Home. Dirty, rotten, stinking home. Miserable, dumbass, backward, filthy home. It was my first day back in town, and I already wanted to throw myself off the Charleston. The door was thumping now, but I kept my head down. I was rocking it back and forth and muttering to myself. No. No. I don’t want to go back out there. “Jules!” the voice cried from the other side as the knob turned experimentally over and over. I had locked it, but it wouldn’t hold. I knew it wouldn’t hold. It never did. “No!” I called out, my voice muffled by my own shirt. “No, I don’t want to!” Thump, thump, thump. The banging on the door was loud and reverberating around me. My name was being shouted but I didn’t care. They couldn’t make me. They couldn’t. I would just stay here forever. I’d… Then I woke up. I pushed myself up on my elbows as I looked around wildly. I was in a hotel room, not the bar. I couldn’t be in the bar. The bar still wasn’t open yet. It was a dream. Thump, thump, thump. “Jules?” Ahh, that part wasn’t. I sat up fully, realizing that I had fallen asleep, face first, onto the bed without even changing my clothes. Without even getting under the covers. I had walked in, tossed my bag to the side of the mattress, and collapsed down on my face. I recognized the voice now that it wasn’t being filtered through the nightmare of escaping work. It was my sister, Lena. My fraternal twin, and the only person in my family I didn’t actively avoid. She was also the only person I told where I would be staying tonight. I didn’t want to put Lena out, didn’t want to do an all-night wine and whine marathon with my bestie Caroline, and couldn’t possibly imagine the awkwardness of staying with Mom, so I chose the hotel. It was down the street from the pub, had a bus stop right outside, and had the cleanest beds of any of the places anywhere close by in South Boston. I could rest here. “Just a sec,” I called out. I caught a vision of myself in the mirror. Total winner right there. Smeared lipstick, hair a tangled mess from the bun that fell out and then wound itself tighter