Bound to the Billionaire Boss

Chapter 4

"I hit you because I felt like hitting you. Since when do I need to circle a date on the calendar first?"

"The Priest's" expression turned ugly. He slammed the file down hard on the desk. "That's enough! This is a place of business. If you want to fight, take it outside."

Ivy didn't so much as blink. She casually landed two more slaps across Derek's face. The sharp crack of each slap rang out clearly in the dead-silent office, and "The Priest's" face grew even uglier, as if those slaps had landed on his own cheek instead.

"Ms. Hale! You're going too far!"

Derek gagged twice and spat out a molar, clutching his mouth and mumbling out a threat. "I'm calling — calling the police. You crazy woman, I'm having you committed to Bellevue!"

Ivy took in the expressions of everyone around her, one by one, then let a gentle little smile curve at the corner of her mouth. "Honestly, Derek, I've lived my whole life and never once been pursued by someone as ugly as you. This isn't me venting — this is genuinely, sincerely how I feel. Being courted by you has actually made me start to feel a little insecure about myself."

"Pfft." Someone couldn't hold back a laugh, and it set off a chain reaction. Within moments, the office — on a Monday, no less, gloomy enough to sustain ten vengeful spirits — was filled with barely contained laughter.

Derek's face flushed a deep red. "Don't laugh! Nobody laugh! Ivy, you insulted me and assaulted me — I'm calling the police!"

"Call them, then. Go ahead." Ivy backhanded him with two more slaps, then pulled out her phone and dialed 911. "Hello, I'm currently on the 26th floor of Vantage Group's midtown headquarters, and I'd like to report an incident." She spoke with a smile. "Someone has been slandering me. Yes, as it happens, I have the entire thing recorded."

The atmosphere in the office froze over completely, and every single gaze shifted — from sympathy, suspicion, and envy, to fear, admiration, and wariness. This was exactly the effect Ivy had been going for. The world naturally viewed attractive women through a distorted lens: a handsome male boss was a "diamond bachelor"; a beautiful female boss must have slept her way to the top. Fine — she'd been born with this face, and if the whispers never reached her ears, she'd let it slide. But if someone let their mouth run so far it started cutting into her earnings, then they'd have no one to blame but themselves for what came next.

While they waited for the police to arrive, an empty perimeter formed around Ivy, no one daring to step close enough to speak to her. Chloe hesitated, pacing in and out several times, before finally making up her mind and sitting down right beside Ivy.

"It's completely understandable that you're angry, Ivy," Chloe said, trying to comfort her. "They're just scared of getting dragged into it. You didn't do anything wrong. I've got your back."

A flicker of surprise crossed Ivy's eyes — she hadn't expected Chloe to willingly come sit beside her. "Why?" she asked.

"No particular reason. You're the one who got wronged here, and you're a woman." Chloe's tone stayed matter-of-fact. "This kind of thing happens more often than you'd think. You'll see, the longer you're here." She quickly changed the subject. "Don't stay mad, okay? Someone as pretty as you shouldn't frown too much — ages you faster. How about we celebrate tonight with something to eat instead?"

"I'm not angry."

"Sure, sure, not angry. Not upset either." Chloe didn't push back. "Sushi tonight, how about it?"

Honestly, Ivy had never actually been angry over Derek's crude provocations, not from the very start. People don't act because of their emotions — quite the opposite, people use emotions as tools to achieve their goals: anger is deployed to force the other side into concession, disappointment to stir up guilt, tears to lower someone's guard, and public statements to draw clear battle lines and defend one's interests.

How other people treat you, in the end, comes down to what you allow. So making an example of someone in front of the largest possible audience of executives and fellow trainees accomplished two things at once — it dealt a blow to her opponent, and it demonstrated exactly what she was capable of and exactly where her limits sat. Position, interests, methods, boundaries — all made unmistakably clear.

She'd studied Vantage Group's investment history over the past five years closely. Its style was distinctive — a wolf that could never be fed enough. And what a wolf like that lacked was never worker bees content to keep the machine running; what it lacked was another wolf, one just as sharp and just as capable.

Once all this was done, Weston was bound to notice her.

...

Weston had just arrived at the hospital parking garage when his phone rang.

"So you're telling me one rotten apple slipped through, among all the Ivy League talent I hand-picked myself?"

"Yes, yes, exactly — that girl Ivy, honestly, she's completely out of line."

The corner of Weston's mouth curved slightly. "What did she do?" he asked, unhurried.

"Right, right! You wouldn't believe it — she was throwing her weight around at the office today like you wouldn't believe, beat another trainee from the same cohort black and blue, and it escalated all the way to the police. Officers actually showed up! Do you have any idea how badly this reflects on the company's image and our stock price?"

His voice took on a faint chill. "Is that so? Sounds serious."

"It really is! And the one who got beaten up — his family's got some standing too. He's causing a scene in your office right now, actually. What would you like me to do?"

Interesting. It had been years since anyone dared make this much noise right under his nose. He hung up the phone and drove straight to Vantage headquarters. The moment he stepped into his office, he specifically requested that Ivy be the one to bring him a cup of coffee.

A few minutes later, Ivy walked in carrying the coffee and stopped a couple of steps in front of the desk. Weston's gaze stayed fixed on the Bloomberg Terminal screen in front of him. Ivy's supervisor — the unfortunate manager of the secretarial department, Margaret Holt — stood cautiously farther back in the room.

No one said a word.

Ivy understood perfectly well that Weston was clearly applying pressure, testing her.

She lifted her foot, her heels making no sound at all against the carpet. Only once she'd set the cup down beside his hand did he finally lift his gaze.

Ivy's clear, bright eyes collided with Weston's, without any warning at all.

It wasn't an exaggeration to say the entire office seemed to brighten in that instant.

Even the burnt-smelling coffee sitting beside his hand somehow took on an air of sudden refinement.

"Ms. Hale. A fresh Ivy League graduate from Long Island, first day on the job, and you send a coworker to the ER using ten ring-studded knuckles, then follow it up by calling 911." Weston leaned back into his leather chair, fingers laced together. "Do you think Vantage's stock price can absorb this kind of behavior? Or do you think my legal team simply doesn't have enough work to keep them busy?"

Ivy met his gaze without a hint of unease. "The story's accurate, but you're missing the part about Derek."

He leaned forward slightly. "Then tell me."

"Derek Vaughn's been here less than a month, and he's already engaged in workplace s****l harassment of female colleagues, defamation, gender discrimination, and document theft, among other violations. I simply resolved the matter for the company with one small confrontation, before he could turn it into a media headline."

"So I suppose I should thank you." Weston watched her with obvious interest.

"No need."

The office fell into dead silence.

Margaret opened her mouth, clearly wanting to say something in Ivy's defense, but swallowed the words back down before they came out — she knew far too well that speaking up now would only draw the fire onto herself.

Weston suddenly laughed.

Weston was the type of boss who, when directly challenged, actually mellowed rather than escalated — provided the other person had a valid point. He'd long since had his fill of being surrounded by people who did nothing but nod and agree with everything he said.

He picked up the coffee and took a sip, then frowned, not bothering to hide his distaste at all.

"You made this?"

Ivy, momentarily thrown by the sudden shift in subject, said, "...Yes."

"Drink some."

He pushed the cup back toward her.

"I don't drink after other people."

"I said, drink some."

Clearly, Weston wasn't accustomed to being told no.

Ivy cursed internally, picked up the cup, and took a small sip.

A thick, burnt smell hit her the moment it reached her nose — the taste of something like coffee grounds simmered together with coal for half an hour straight. A few loose strands of hair at her temple hid the way her ears had gone red. When it came to anything related to cooking, Ivy possessed a genuinely "remarkable" gift — for disaster.

Mortified, she lowered her head and murmured, "Sorry." Then she downed the entire cup of mysterious liquid, reeking of that bizarre burnt smell, in one go. Astonishingly fast. Weston didn't even have time to stop her.

Once she'd finished, Ivy even ran her tongue along the corner of her mouth to catch the last drops of coffee that had spilled there.

"I didn't tell you to do that." Weston stared at her, completely dumbfounded.

Whatever irritation had still been simmering in him vanished entirely in that moment. When it came down to it, this girl hadn't done anything wrong — she'd been publicly humiliated and had chosen the most direct means available to fight back. That was her right, not some favor she needed his approval to exercise.

If anything, he was the one who'd let a sudden, unrelated mess cloud his judgment badly enough to take out his own private frustrations on an employee.

"Fine," he said, his tone finally easing. "Don't let it happen again — I mean the hitting. And the coffee."

Off in the corner, Margaret listened, utterly stunned. She'd worked under Weston for four years and had never once seen him soften mid-reprimand like this, entirely of his own accord. She studied his expression carefully, trying to gauge whether this counted as her cue to finally speak up.

She looked up, just in time to catch his gaze land on her.

Weston turned to her. "Change her placement. Administrative Assistant — reporting directly to me."

"...I'm sorry?"

Whatever apology Margaret had been preparing to offer lodged itself in her throat, cut off entirely by that single sentence.