Page 31 of Coming for Her Grumpy Boss

“Which you obviously know how to do.”

“Ahh, but here’s the stinker. I don’t like beer,” I admit, like it’s my deepest, darkest secret.

“I know you don’t like beer. It’s why we’re developing a cider line.”

I sit up abruptly, displacing my eye pillow and finding Ford in the darkness next to me. “It’s not good business to make decisions like that.”

“See, you’re already a better CEO than me,” he says.

“I don’t want to be CEO.”

“Then what do you want to be?”

“Yours, Ford. I just want to be yours.”

“I’m so relieved to hear that because I’m not letting you walk away from me because someone with good cheekbones called you simple.”

I choke on a laugh. “She said a lot more than that.”

“I heard enough,” he says, eyes dark. He pulls me down so I’m lying on his chest. Then resettles the eye pillow back over my face. “I hate that her words found purchase. But they’re lies. You’re not simple. You’re not less than. You and I definitely belong in the same world because you are my world. My whole goddamn world, Mia.

“So if you don’t like this world, let me know what to change so you do. I want you, present tense. I love you, present tense. Not because it’s easy or because I’m bored or because I have a kink for office supplies. Because you’re it. Because the moment you showed up in my life, I finally started living. I love you.”

“Say it again,” I whisper, because I’m greedy.

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you too,” I say. “Though I do have a confession.”

“What’s that?”

“I do have a kink for office supplies. Sticky notes and highlighters and colored pens, oh yeah!”

He chuckles against the top of my head. Then, kisses my forehead like a promise. “And for the record, if you ever want to leave the Limestone Brewery, it won’t be because someone else decided you don’t fit. It’ll be because you decided you wanted something bigger, and then I’ll help you build it.”

“Don’t make me cry. Crying makes headaches so much worse,” I say.

“Shit, I’m sorry. What do you want me to do?”

“Stop being so nice to me.”

“Never.”