Bound to the Billionaire Boss

Chapter 3

Ivy sneezed.

Monday.

Office workers held grudges scarier than actual ghosts.

The final results of the management trainee program would be announced today — whether she'd be sent off to a branch office or kept at headquarters, it all came down to today. The entire floor had spent the whole morning locked in that particular tension of waiting for results to be posted, and even Ivy found herself, inexplicably, a little on edge.

Derek Vaughn let out a laugh and leaned in close to Ivy. "Ivy, what were you up to last night? You look pretty worn out."

"Caught a cold. Run down."

"You didn't stay up half the night sweet-talking some higher-up just to snag first place in the trainee program, did you?" He set his tablet down on the desk, screen open to his own submitted proposal — well, "his," meaning a copy of hers. Ivy rolled her eyes internally at this particular brand of lowlife behavior: unable to win fair and square, so he resorted to spreading malicious rumors instead. No rush. The timing just wasn't right yet.

Derek stared at her face for a long moment. Vantage spared no expense — every light fixture in the office was custom-designed for shadowless, flattering illumination, and it cast a natural soft glow over any beautiful face beneath it. If not for the fine, visible hairs at her temples, one might have mistaken her, for a moment, for a piece of porcelain. He'd always known Ivy was stunning — one shade darker and she'd be too much, one shade lighter and not enough; she had that rare, ethereal kind of beauty. If Ivy ever entered a beauty pageant, he'd vote for her without hesitation.

Lost in thought, Derek's mind started to wander, two faint blotches of red creeping across his cheeks. "Hey, Ivy, you ever had a boyfriend?" Catching the faint scent of her perfume, he began imagining what it might be like if Ivy married him — his thick lips stretched into a wider grin, making him look uncannily like a roasted turkey.

"Wouldn't bother me if you had." He puffed out a chest that showed no evidence of ever having seen a gym, brimming with confidence. "Ivy, a girl as pretty as you — why work yourself to the bone day and night for pocket change like the rest of us guys? I'm guessing you're after a rich catch, hoping to land our President Shaw?"

Ivy let it go in one ear and out the other, not bothering to respond.

Derek carried on regardless. "The Shaws are old money, through and through — they care a lot about marrying within their own class. Besides, have you seen the news? This morning our President Shaw was in a hotel room with some woman wrapped around him. A naive little country girl like you should be careful — get used and tossed aside, and a secondhand woman isn't worth much." He added the last part with exaggerated regret, as if truly concerned for her.

Ivy snapped back to attention, a flicker of mockery crossing her eyes. God, and here she'd heard Vantage's trainee program was supposedly brutally selective — how had they let an i***t like this slip through?

Seeing the sideways glance she shot him only seemed to fire Derek up more. "Ivy, you only came to Vantage looking to land a rich husband, didn't you? So how about me instead? My family's got a two-thousand-square-foot place on the Upper East Side, plus a little rental unit near Columbia bringing in extra income. And you know my brother-in-law — he's the HR director here at Vantage. I'll be straight with you: my family's already got everything arranged. First place in the trainee program is mine, no question, and that spot right next to President Shaw is mine too."

He gave a light chuckle. "Ivy, I'm a considerate man. Marry me, and right after the wedding, I'll transfer the deed to that apartment straight into your name. I'll bring home the money, you stay pretty and enjoy yourself — shopping with the girls at Bergdorf's, picking up a few Chanel bags, maybe a day at the races. That's the kind of life a woman's supposed to have."

Ivy kept her long lashes lowered, so no one could read the irritation in her eyes, her fingers tapping an irregular rhythm against the desk — tap, tap, tap. God, this was unbearable. For the first time in her life, she felt time crawling by at an agonizing pace. She glanced at her watch — two minutes left. She opened her drawer and slowly slid a ring onto each of her ten fingers, and while no one was paying attention, pressed the hidden switch on one of them to activate the tiny recorder concealed inside.

"Is that so?" she said. "Funny, I could've sworn first place was going to be me."

The next second, the executive director nicknamed "The Priest" — so called because of his monk-like hairline, a perfect ring of hair with nothing but bare scalp in the center — walked into the office holding the final list.

Ivy gave a faint smile. "Well. Time's up."

"What?" Derek looked utterly confused.

"The countdown to you and him both packing up and getting out of Vantage."

Expressionless, "The Priest" began reading out the placement list. "First place: Ivy, assigned to the Administrative Assistant department. Second place: Chloe Reyes, assigned to Marketing. ..."

As the list went on, Derek's face slowly drained from smug certainty to ashen shock. By the time the reading finished, he couldn't hold it in any longer. "Where's my name?! Why isn't my name on there?!"

The room went dead silent for a beat, then broke into scattered murmurs — someone was laughing.

"Well, that answers that — guess his little backdoor deal got caught."

"Looks like 'The Priest' couldn't cover for his brother-in-law this time, huh?"

"Letting him steal credit for other people's work every single day while doing nothing himself — sure, that worked out fine for a while. But now, whoever he's crossed, 'The Priest' clearly can't protect him from them either."

Whoever was talking wasn't bothering to keep their voice down — they were saying it loud enough, deliberately, for both Derek and "The Priest" to hear.

"You... what nonsense are you all talking?! There must be a mistake with the list — HR must have missed writing my name down, right?" Derek looked around wildly, then grabbed Ivy's arm, his face twisted with fury. "It's you! It's got to be you! The list hadn't even been announced and you already told me to my face you'd come in first! That's it, isn't it, Ivy — with that fox-eyed face of yours, you slept your way to the top and knocked me out of first place, didn't you? Was it the day before yesterday? Yesterday? Or did you start seducing someone the very day you walked in the door?"

Chloe slammed her hand down on the desk and stood up. "Derek, what garbage are you spouting? Ugly on the inside, so everything looks dirty to you."

One of the managers overseeing the evaluations had clearly had enough and cut in. "That's enough, Derek. She earned this on merit. The scoring was based entirely on the proposals you all submitted beforehand. Ivy's work covered every angle — market research, cost control, government and business relations, brand positioning, all of it. She earned first place, fair and square."

Another manager added, "Derek, you know exactly what you did. There's no need for anyone to spell it out further."

Seeing management step in only seemed to fire Derek up even more, as if he'd found some kind of leverage. He jabbed a finger right in Ivy's face and started shouting. "I knew it — you slept your way up! Slept your way into two positions at once, how impressive! Working like an ox all day, and at night —"

Judging she'd gathered more than enough evidence by now, Ivy swung her hand and slapped him — hard. Ten ring-adorned fingers left ten precise streaks of blood across his face. Ivy was no delicate little damsel; she had plenty of strength and plenty of skill to back it up. Jiu-jitsu, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts — she held high-level certifications in every one of them.

The slap sent Derek spinning in place a full three times before he landed flat on his backside.

"You — you actually hit me?!"