Beneath the Boss: Omnibus (The Complete Collection) Read Online Free PDF Page B

sharp look of reprimand.
    Marla’s brown eyes softened and took on a wistful look.
    “I love you, Layla,” she said. “I love you like you’re my own, promised to look after you, and we both know if Francis was here, she’d tell you the same thing.”
    Layla’s heart dropped a bit at the mention of her mother. It’d been a couple of years, but the hurt was still fresh. She could see the same was true for Marla as well, her brown eyes slightly watering and a flush creeping up her cheeks. Marla and her mother Francis has been friends long before Layla had been born. No easy feat for a black woman and a white woman in Texas back then, but they’d stuck together through everything: marriages, divorces, kids, work. And after, Marla had refused to let Layla go, had stepped right in, not ever attempting to replace her mother, but always providing shoulder she could cry on, someone she could turn to. Marla, her daughter Lisa, or Squeak as she was most often called, and Marla’s three sons were the closest thing to family Layla had.
    And Marla was a damned good baker too, which was why Layla was currently leaning against the cash register at her shop scarfing down a chocolate croissant while Marla extolled the virtues of “smutty office sex”—she’d need to bleach her brain to erase the imagine of the sixty-five-year-old grandmother saying those words—and attacked her choice of employment.
    “I’m not attacking you, sweetie” Marla said.
    “I didn’t say that!”
    “Layla Grayson, I’ve known you longer than you’ve known yourself. I think I can tell when you’re feeling attacked. Don’t, baby. I want you to have everything you want and deserve, so don’t be embarrassed about taking a little pleasure where you can find it.”
    “Oh, God, Marla, he’s my boss. Well, sorta ex-boss, maybe.”
    “What?” Marla raised a brow. “What is this about ex?”
    Layla sighed heavily and discarded the remains of her croissant.
    “Well, right before our...tryst, I kinda told Leighton I was taking another job.”
    “Ooh! The plot thickens. These old bones need to sit for this,” Marla said, glee animating her entire body.
    “So dramatic!” Layla rolled her eyes. “Anyway, one of Leighton’s competitors offered me a job running his micro-finance fund.”
    “That’s amazing! You’ve been talking about doing more community-focused work for years. Oh, but let me guess, Meanie doesn’t like the idea.”
    “Don’t call him that. And no, he was displeased.”
    “He’s a bigger bastard than I thought.” Marla shot up from her seat.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “That fucker—excuse my language—took advantage of your feelings to keep you from leaving. Oh, what an asshole. You should sue his pants off.”
    “No one’s suing anyone, Marla. And what feelings? I don’t have feelings for Leighton.” Layla said the words with a confidence she didn’t feel, and Marla’s skeptical expression made it clear she wasn’t buying it either.
    “Of course you don’t, dear. You just give yourself to any old swinging Richard that happens by, right?”
    “Well, no, but there were extenuating circumstances. Things were tense and just got out of hand.”
    “Layla, you don’t believe that, and I know that putz doesn’t either. You know what I think? I think, on some level, that”— Marla paused at Layla’s sharp look— “nice young man believes if he gives you a few crumbs, it’ll be enough to keep you right where you are, right under his thumb.”
    “But that doesn’t make sense. I’m really good at my job, but so are lots of people. Leighton doesn’t need me, certainly not enough to go to those lengths.”
    “You see what you want, sweetie, but from over here, he’s got a nice setup. A dedicated, loyal employee who feels indebted to him and ain’t too hard on the eyes either. What’s not to like?”
    She tried to smile, but it fell flat. “You just love me. It’s clouding your opinion. As far