No Excuses Read online

  NO EXCUSES

  Nikky Kaye

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, businesses and incidents are from the author’s imagination, or they are used fictitiously and are definitely fictionalized. Any trademarks or pictures herein are not authorized by the trademark owners and do not in any way mean the work is sponsored by or associated with the trademark owners. Any trademarks or pictures used are specifically in a descriptive capacity.

  Book Design & Formatting: Wicked Muse

  Cover Art Provided By: Book Cover Love

  Published by Butterfly Publishings

  No Excuses

  Nikky Kaye

  Copyright © Butterfly Publishings, 2018

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  CONTENTS

  NOTE FROM AUTHOR

  NO EXCUSES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BOUGHT BY THE BILLIONAIRE BROTHERS

  SAVED BY THE SINGLE DAD SEAL

  ABOUT NIKKY

  BUTTERFLY PUBLISHING HOUSE

  NOTE FROM AUTHOR

  This story came about after some late night Facebook Messenger conversations with my friend (and damn fine author) Maya Hughes. She dared me to write something combining a bunch of tropes and trends. Frankly, it began as a kind of pastiche parody, and actually turned into a story.

  I can’t seem to write characters that I don’t care about in some way, even as a joke. I envy authors who can create greater distance between themselves and their work, for I have to feel something connecting me to the people I create. However, for what it’s worth, this is entirely fictional!

  But it’s still all Maya’s fault.

  My deepest gratitude goes out to Bobby Kim, Leanore, NJ, Melissa and all the Butterflies. Bobby, you have been nothing but supportive and helpful. I’m still not sure why you believe in me so strongly, but your enthusiasm is humbling. Thanks for letting me come along on your ride.

  CHAPTER ONE

  MADDIE

  Well, there goes my weekend of binge-watching Netflix in my pajamas.

  “How long, exactly, is this retreat?” someone in the back of the boardroom asked.

  Brian Gage, our illustrious CEO, said, “We leave for the mountains next Friday at noon, and return Sunday evening. Exercises begin with dinner on Friday, go all day Saturday, then we regroup Sunday morning to discuss the retreat and its results. You can leave anytime after that. Any questions?”

  The head of Accounting raised his hand like a third-grader. “Is attendance mandatory?”

  Oh no, he didn’t. Over the long table, my gaze met with the almond-shaped eyes of the head of Human Resources. Susan and I rolled our eyes simultaneously. I shook my head in pity, already knowing enough about my new boss to know that everything about Brian Gage was mandatory.

  He was the first to arrive and the last to leave. Actually, he was the second last, since as his new executive assistant I didn’t dare go home before him. I kept trying to get the jump on him in the morning, but it was tough.

  It was getting to the point where I might as well just sleep under my desk and try to sneak in a shower in the steel and glass en suite bathroom connected to his steel and glass office.

  Right now, he seemed made of steel and glass himself as he stared at Mr. Accounting. The room was so quiet; you could hear his year-end bonus drop.

  Standing to my left at the head of the table, Gage put his hands on his hips. His sudden movement was enough to make my fingers tighten around the pen with which I was dutifully taking notes. At least he hadn’t elbowed me in the head. I rolled my chair to the side a few inches, not realizing how close he was.

  Note to self: manda-fucking-tory.

  After a long pause, he continued. “Spouses and significant others are not invited.”

  That wouldn’t be a problem. The closest thing I had to a significant other took double-A batteries.

  “At the retreat we will do some group and individual exercises in trust-building and communication,” Gage said.

  My eyes rolled again. Yeah, he could use some work on communication skills. I’d already noticed that in the few weeks that I’d been working there—not that I could say anything to him. I had a feeling that his previous assistant had left after recommending he remove the smartphone from his wealthy, tight, successful backside.

  “Don’t worry,” Susan added from her end of the table. “There will be no building of towers out of office furniture.”

  Everyone chuckled, sort of. Then she met my gaze again.

  “It’s worse,” she mouthed to me.

  Great. This being my first “retreat,” I had no idea what to expect. Usually retreat meant failure of some kind, or at least strategic withdrawal. Soldier retreated in battle, “exhausted” celebrities go to retreat clinics. Work retreats, I understood, were the worst of the worst—strategic withdrawal with a bunch of passive-aggressive blowhards, after which you all feel like exhausted failures. Yippee.

  Why had I taken this job again? Oh right, it turned out my college degree in Rhetoric was rhetorical, after all.

  I’d spent the past two years since graduating floating from one temporary job to another. The most useful skill I’d been able to apply was my ability to touch type one hundred and twenty-five words per minute. Thankfully, I’d developed some expertise in ghostwriting correspondence and internal communication, but it wasn’t my calling.

  I was still waiting for something to call me—or at least text. It was Susan who had phoned me for an interview.

  That fateful day still stuck out in my goldfish-like memory. I’d been as nervous as a teenage girl taking a pregnancy test—not that I’d know from experience. My formative years had been spent with my heart turned inward and my head in a Harry Potter book.

  But nervous I was. When I stood up from my seat in the waiting area, I had to make sure that my sweaty palms hadn’t left a mark on my pencil skirt when I smoothed the creases out of it.

  I was ushered into Gage’s office, and the butterflies in my stomach had babies. I wasn’t expecting the hottest smartphone application developer on the West Coast to be so, well, hot.

  He stood behind a glass and steel desk, his tanned arms a stark contrast to the rolled-up sleeves of his blindingly white shirt. My gaze followed the buttons of his shirt up to his square jaw, full lips, a slightly crooked nose, and piercing blue eyes. They were almost the same blue as the glints in his coal black hair under the fluorescent lights.

  His suit jacket was slung over the back of a massive black leather chair—presumably, his throne—and his hands rested on his lean hips.

  Easily, he gave off the impression of a man who was very successful, very driven, and who had a very large stick up his ass.

  His hands moved from his hips to rest on the desk as he leaned forward. “Madeline Jones.”

  It wasn’t a question. I already had the feeling that he made more statements than queries, as a whole.

  Propelling myself forward, I put my hand out. “Most people call me Maddie.” His grip was strong, and almost as hot as my face felt.

  I had the distinct feeling that he’d already assessed me from my auburn head to the high heels pinching my toes, without ever moving his eyeballs. And found me lacking.

  “I’ll get right to it,” he said, gesturing for me to sit in a clear Lucite chair in front of his desk. I wondered if having his guests look like they were sitting on nothing was a power tactic for him. With those X-ray eyes and demeanor, I didn’t think that Brian Gage needed any more power trip strategies.

  Appar
ently, he knew my previous contract employer, who had blabbed about my business communication skills over single malt scotch at some networking event. He told Mister Gage about not having to write his own bullshit letters, and how my letters generally got better results.

  Gage pulled out some of the letters that my ex-boss had shared with him and we discussed why and how I wrote what I did. I became more comfortable talking about my word choices and techniques of persuasion. Then he pushed some paper across the desk at me.

  “This is the kind of thing I send to venture capitalists and investors,” he said.

  My eyes widened as I read it out loud. “My company needs money. I will make you money in return. Give it to me.”

  “It’s not working.” He frowned.

  No shit. “Have you considered saying please?”

  “I’ve managed to attract a hundred million dollars to date,” he pointed out.

  “You’ve been lucky.”

  His expression was positively glacial. “I’m not lucky. I’m good.”

  That was Day One. Now I was on Day Forty of captivity, and the stick in his ass hadn’t bent yet. And we were going to do trust exercises at some resort in the mountains. On the plus side, there would be lots of sticks around in case anything was dislodged.

  “Maddie will send you the details,” he said now, effectively dismissing everyone in the boardroom. They shuffled out, a few people bitching to each other under their breath. I remained in my seat until Gage fell into his chair beside me.

  “This will be good,” he affirmed. I didn’t think he was looking for a challenge, and he wouldn’t get one from me right now.

  “Yes, sir. They seem, uh, enthusiastic. Gung ho.” Okay, even I couldn’t make that communication persuasive in the slightest. I used my toes to swivel myself in my chair from side to side. If I’d been alone, I probably would have spun myself like a little kid.

  “You can’t lie worth a damn, Madeline.”

  “No, Mister Gage.”

  “Never lie to me.”

  “Yes, Mister Gage.”

  “You’re lying to me now, aren’t you?”

  “No, Mister Gage.”

  “Maddie…” he growled.

  I looked at him. “Yes, Mister Gage?”

  The staring contest commenced. His gaze was opaque and penetrating, like a lizard waiting for the right moment to capture. Nope, wasn’t going to blink. I could play this game, and win. My eyes watering, I lasted two long, silent minutes before I blinked.

  A smug smile spread over the bosshole’s face. My cheeks grew hot.

  Retreat. Retreat!

  CHAPTER TWO

  GAGE

  “I hear you’re seeing Bobbie this weekend.”

  My mother was one of the few people who could make me pause my work. Then my irritation at being interrupted was accompanied by guilt over feeling annoyed. I reminded myself that both feelings were a colossal waste of time and energy, which was something I was loath to indulge in.

  “She called you?”

  “Of course! She’s so excited to see you! You really don’t call her enough, Brian.”

  I highly doubted that my sister Roberta, whom most people called Bobbie, was waiting for my arrival with breathless anticipation. Then again, she was helping to organize the retreat activities, so god only knew what I would be walking into.

  “Don’t forget to compliment her to her boss.”

  “Jesus, Mom, she’s not trying to get a Girl Scout badge. My opinion doesn’t mean anything.” Except for the fact that I was bringing thousands of dollars to the hotel and conference center this weekend, booking a dozen rooms and pre-paying for food and liquor.

  “And she’s supposed to be an adult now,” I added under my breath.

  “She still needs our support, Brian.”

  I bit my tongue—literally. Like I hadn’t supported her in the dozens of jobs she’d had and lost over the years? Like I hadn’t supported her by paying her rent more often than not?

  Somehow, at the age of twenty-eight, my younger sister was still flitting from job to job and from one loser live-in boyfriend to the next. She was habitually under-employed. Actually, she’d had an extremely successful career for a while as a sofa surfer and mooch—but our mother still thought she farted rainbow sparkles like a unicorn.

  Every time Bobbie and our mother got together, they talked about how nobody understood her, and that was her explanation as to why she still didn’t have her shit together. My mother, bless her gullible heart, always nodded and patted her hand in sympathy, then slipped her a hundred bucks to make sure she ate properly. I knew Bobbie was trying to turn her life around, but I would believe it when I saw it.

  Mom might be proud of my little sister for getting a guest services job at the small mountain resort, but I was tempted to remind her it was only the most recent in a long line of jobs she couldn’t keep.

  Movement outside my open office door drew my attention, and I looked up to see Madeline talking to Aaron, my marketing director. Their heads were bent over an oversized piece of cardboard. As she dropped the end she was holding in order to talk with her hands, Aaron had to make a quick save.

  He saw me through the doorway and raised an eyebrow. “You got a minute?” he called out.

  I nodded. He had to hold on to the mock-up firmly as Madeline poked at it to make a point. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but whatever it was, she was pretty adamant about it.

  She stretched while she spoke, as if she were trying to make her words taller than her petite frame. Her clingy green blouse snuck a fraction out of the waistband of her black pants every time she leaned over to point at something, getting ready to make a wrinkled escape.

  Her whole body was involved in her conversation with Aaron, which didn’t surprise me. She had a tendency to read a lot of her words out loud, playing with the language and form. I’d almost gotten used to her talking to herself at her desk in my outer office area.

  Madeline Jones was one of those people who seemed on the surface not to able to keep a serious thought in that wild red head of hers, but looks were deceiving. She was smarter than most people thought, including herself. I wouldn’t have hired her if I hadn’t believed that. Some people might have time to waste micromanaging fools, but I didn’t.

  But the way she rolled her big brown eyes at me drove me absolutely crazy. Most people deferred to me, or at least showed some respect. Her whole demeanor seemed almost flippant, from the way her hair bounced around to the way she took off her shoes and curled her feet under her while she worked. Her desk was a disaster area, and her handwriting impossible to read. She was good, however, at saying “please.” Just not to me.

  “Please?”

  I shook my head, remembering that my mother was still on the phone. Aaron threw me a pointed, questioning look, and I snapped back to reality.

  “Mom, I have to go. I’m really busy.”

  “Okay, if you see Bobbie tonight tell her I’ll call her tomorrow.”

  I bit back the reminder that I might not even see my sister that evening, because she probably wouldn’t remember. I’d been telling her for years that she should talk to her doctor about finding out if she was attention-deficit, but she always laughed and said she was just scatterbrained.

  If she were any more scatterbrained, she’d qualify as the first human clay pigeon in Olympic skeet shooting. It had only gotten worse since my dad died, and that had been ten years ago. It was like he had kept her brain organized, and now she was all over the place.

  It was one of the reasons I was anxious for our new app to launch. Happit was going to revolutionize the way people created and kept positive habits. I made a mental note to talk to Madeline about beta testing; I had the feeling she was a perfect candidate. The only thing she seemed to be consistent at was inconsistency.

  After an abrupt goodbye to my mother, I sat back in my chair and felt like shit about practically hanging up on her. Well, there wasn’t anything I could do
about it now, and it sure wasn’t the first time. Scrubbing my hand over my face, I sighed and stood up. My forehead creased as Aaron suddenly touched Maddie’s arm.

  “Aaron!”

  Both he and Madeline froze mid-conversation to turn to me.

  “I have a few minutes now,” I called out, raising an eyebrow at Madeline.

  When my eyes met hers, she blushed and tugged her arm away. The knot in my chest eased a little as Aaron made his way to my office and I watched Madeline return to her desk. Only then did I notice that her feet had been bare the whole time. The polish on her toenails was a soft pink.

  “Yo! Gage!” Aaron sat in the chair in front of my desk as I stood there staring into space. He snapped his fingers and I looked down at him.

  He slid a mock-up across the desk. “This is for the race sponsorship.” I could feel his gaze on me as I scanned the ad. “Maddie’s great,” he remarked.

  “Yes, she is.” I wasn’t sure about that color for the tagline.

  “Has a good eye.”

  “Uh huh.” I rolled back in my chair, assessing the ad from further away.

  “Smart girl,” Aaron added.

  “Mmmm.” Maybe if we moved the logo to the other corner…

  “Banging body.”

  “Phenomenal. Wait, what?”

  He sat there smirking at me with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “Madeline is under me, Aaron,” I reminded him as I wrote on a sticky note.

  “Oh, really?” His grin grew. That was the problem with hiring friends. It was a little harder to instill respect in someone who’d beaten you at beer pong once upon a time. But I’d be damned if I let him poach Madeline for his department.

  Aaron wasn’t just an employee; he was an old friend. We’d met in a business class that he’d taken after a knee injury derailed his college football career. He prided himself on an effortless Afro and easily had the most tattoos of anyone I knew. Usually they were covered up by a preppy button-down shirt, which never seemed to fit his broad frame.