The Mix-Up (Southern Hearts Club #3) - Melanie Munton Page 0,1

raised his hackles ever since I started working for him ten months ago. I actually speak up and throw out my opinion even when he doesn’t ask for it, which he rarely does. But I’m one of the best employees he’s got.

And he damn well knows it.

Although he acts like he’ll burst into flames if he ever admits it out loud.

If I didn’t work so hard, he probably would have fired my insubordinate ass a long time ago out of spite. And if I wasn’t so foolishly in love with my job, I would have quit after the first torturous week in his insufferable presence. Toward me, he’s nothing but a condescending, swaggering, egotistical jerkweed who’s a wee bit too big for his britches.

But if I can take a cue from Kennedy and get a little real here…I was the one who started our feud. Sort of. Looking back, I can admit I was the first to ring my bitch bell and declare war. True, he was quick to bang his dickwad gong in retaliation, but it was me who threw the first punch.

You would have, too, though.

You see, Ryder and I may have—inward cringe—slept together. Once.

It was before I started working at The Colson Group. Before I ever even knew who the man was. It was pure coincidence, or a perverse twist of fate, that we happened to bump into each other at a random bar one night. Flirtation ensued, we went back to his place, had sex, I snuck out the next morning while he was still asleep—because I’m respectful and classy like that—and we never saw each other again.

Until my first day of work two weeks later.

He called me into his office to welcome me to the firm. Since his HR Director does all of the hiring, he never interviewed me. I froze in the middle of his corner office, like Hermione Granger had just waved her wand and cast the “Petrificus totalus!” spell on me.

But him?

Oh, that bastard had the nerve to look right through me.

Like he’d never seen me before in his life. Like I hadn’t been writhing nakedly beneath him, squirming on the end of his dick like a worm on a hook, just two weeks prior.

I was so outraged that I fantasized about plucking his too-long eyelashes out with a pair of tweezers.

One. By. One.

Sure, I was tipsy that night and parts of the evening are a blur. But I wasn’t so far gone to not remember the face of the man I slept with. To not remember the actual sex. He, on the other hand, must have bedded so many women in his time that he’s unable to pick my face out of the lineup. Or he masked how wasted he really was that night—extraordinarily well—and he honestly doesn’t remember me.

And even if he did remember me, Ryder has a firmly established, strict rule of never dating employees or clients. It’s a well-known fact in our company that Ryder Colson never mixes business with pleasure. No exceptions.

Not that I’m interested in any inter-office philandering. Frankly, I don’t give two rats’ behinds whether or not Ryder Colson remembers doing the naked bump and grind with me ten months ago. In the beginning, yes, my ego did take a serious blow and plunged to the bottom of the ocean, like a submarine after getting hit by an enemy missile.

But I’m over it.

And after that first day in his office, enemy is exactly what my one-night-stand-turned-boss became.

It’s a daily battle to remind myself that it doesn’t matter—that he never mattered. I’m a big girl who buys her panties from the big girls section of the store. After all, that wasn’t the first time I’ve ever had casual sex and it won’t be the last.

But here’s the part that really chaps my ass. Just straight-up irks the bejesus out of me. Ready for it?

That infuriating man gave me the best sex of my life.

I’m pretty sure anyway.

Again, parts of the night are a tad fuzzy. But overall, it was good for me and I thought for him, too.

I guess the former Duchess of Charleston is just that forgettable.

Yes, I named my vagina. She’s made enough decisions in my life and given me some of the best nights ever that she deserves a name. But for reasons soon to be revealed, I had to remove the title of duchess from her nameplate. The down south missus is now and will forever be known as the Countess of