Falling for My Bully: A Lesbian Romance Read online

  Falling for my Bully

  A Lesbian Romance

  Alexa Woods

  © 2021 Alexa Woods

  All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be

  reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express

  permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book

  review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or

  dead, or places, events or locations is purely coincidental. The characters

  are all productions of the author’s imagination.

  Please note that this work is intended only for adults over the age of 18 and

  all characters represented as 18 or over.

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Also by Alexa Woods

  About Alexa Woods

  About the Book:

  A powerful CEO. Her new employee, who once was her high-school

  bully. Fireworks soon ignite – but the question remains: Do people ever

  really change?

  June’s life is a dream come true. A confident, successful CEO of her

  own company, she’s so different from the bullied, scared girl she was in

  high school, sometimes she can’t believe those days were real.

  That’s until one day, she finds none other than Arabella, aka The Queen

  of Mean, working for her. Why in the world did her old tormentor take a

  position at June’s company of all places?

  And how come she’s so…different…too?

  Fallen from grace, formerly rich Arabella is reduced to a paycheck-to-

  paycheck lifestyle, and she wants June’s forgiveness – and soon, her love.

  June fights her suspicions and her growing attraction to the woman who

  once threatened to destroy her – until she can’t.

  Just as June gives in to her feelings, her company comes under attack,

  and there’s only one suspect: Arabella.

  As she struggles to find the truth, June can’t help but wonder. Did

  Arabella really change? Or did she just pretend so she could make good on

  her old threat to destroy June?

  Chapter 1

  June

  “There’s nothing worse than letting your ex-public enemy number one

  walk through the front door of the company you built from the ground up.

  You can’t let her work for you! She could wreck everything. Years and

  years of work, just gone because she’s a tactless, classless, mean-girl

  turdbag probably hell-bent on sabotage to make up for the fact that you

  succeeded, and she didn’t.”

  Summer Johnson, June’s best friend and often the only reason she’d been

  able to hold onto her sanity over the years, especially in high school, had a

  pained expression on her face. June felt every stab of that pain. She’d been

  feeling it for the past two hours, ever since Davis Sutherland walked into

  her office and gave her the files for the new hires.

  “Do you remember how people used to make fun of us because we were

  friends? Because we bonded over our names being Summer and June?”

  Summer rolled her eyes. “Now you’re trying to change the subject.”

  June wasn’t. She was trying to figure out how to approach the

  conversation when deep down, she had just as many misgivings as Summer

  did about her old nemesis breezing her way into her company.

  As CEO, June trusted her HR department to make the best possible

  choices. She’d learned years ago to relax and take a step back so she

  wouldn’t go completely insane because she couldn’t micromanage every

  single detail of her company.

  Things had started out slow. She’d been halfway through her business

  degree when, on her way to college, power walking down the sidewalk

  because she was late for a group presentation, she’d snapped the heel clean

  off her shoe. They weren’t a cheap pair either. She’d taken off both shoes

  and run in a freaking skirt suit the rest of the way. Once there, she’d begged

  a fellow classmate to exchange shoes with her so she didn’t have to go up

  on stage barefoot.

  She’d thought about what a waste it was that all those shoes out there,

  when they fell out of fashion, or someone fell out of love with them, or

  when they broke, just ended up in a landfill or taking up storage on thrift

  store shelves where no one would buy them. Plus, there was the whole

  problem with tons of flip-flops ending up in the ocean. She’d literally been

  in the middle of giving her presentation when it had come to her - the idea

  that would change her life.

  “June. Are you listening to me? You. Can’t. Hire. Her.” Summer crossed

  her arms and leaned against the kitchen counter.

  As soon as June realized who her HR department had hired for the

  director of marketing, she’d grabbed her things and made a fast getaway

  from her office before she could do something she regretted in places

  people could see. Like hurtle straight into a very real meltdown. Glass

  walls, while modern and pretty, were sometimes very, very inconvenient.

  She’d sped home, risking getting pulled over and slapped with a speeding

  ticket, and called June, who came over immediately, also probably breaking

  the law several times to get there as quickly as she did.

  June breezed past Summer, forcing a calm she didn’t feel. She went to

  the fridge and took out a pitcher of homemade sun tea. It was her absolute

  favorite, her mom’s recipe, and one of the only guilty pleasures she

  indulged in that included real sugar. She poured two tall glasses and passed

  one to Summer. June downed half her glass without tasting it, but the cold

  liquid wetting her parched throat was heaven. She hadn’t been able to

  swallow down the lump in her throat for the past two hours, but the tea

  helped. It hit her belly, cooling some of the acid burning there at the bitter

  memories that the name Arabella Ferguson evoked.

  “I-I know that,” June stammered.

  Sweat beaded at her hairline as though she’d just been powering through

  an intense workout. Spin class. God, she hated spin class. Her body burned

  like she’d just been peddling for her life. She reached up and smoothed her

  hand over her forehead, wiping away some of the dampness.

  Summer winc
ed. “Well, if you know that, do something about it.”

  “I can’t! She’s already been hired.”

  “You’re the CEO. That literally means that you can.”

  “Right,” June said dryly. “Because I can really just fire her for no reason.

  I can’t just pull a power trip and get rid of her. It’s really, really nice that

  people are nicer now. That they realize they should be held accountable for

  their actions. I wanted my company to be a safe place for people to work. I

  wanted everyone to be treated equally, to be given great opportunities and

  benefits, a good work environment that fosters positivity. In a woke world,

  how would it look if June Phillips, CEO, fired a perfectly capable, talented,

  educated woman without just cause?”

  “Duh, there’s good freaking cause. She’s a mean girl. A bi atch. A first-

  class bully.”

  “Is there any proof of that? Anything documented? Or could she spin

  things around, twist it to look like yes, we have a past. Yes, we went to

  school together, but I’m the one with the vendetta. She could tell whatever

  story she wants. If you ask anyone if she was a bully, they would say she

  was popular and that all popular girls can be mean, but you know what she

  looked like on the exterior. Smart. Pretty. Rich. Her family did tons of

  charity work and she always did her part with a smile.”

  “That’s what made it so much worse. She was disgustingly rotten on the

  inside. Ugh, it’s like getting your favorite chocolate bar only to find it’s full

  of maggots on the inside.”

  June nearly gagged. “God, that’s…that’s just wrong.”

  “I’m just saying. She’s definitely worm eaten under her pretty blonde

  exterior.”

  “We don’t even know if she’s blonde anymore.”

  “On the positive side, her hair could have burned off from all that dye.”

  June rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to say be nice, and I hate that I’m

  even thinking it. I’m a big believer in karma. I usually let that take its

  course. I can’t be mean, even when I should be mean. I can’t stand here and

  think bad things, even about my worst tormenter. It’s been ten years. If she

  hasn’t come around by now, she’s never going to, and that’s a shame. Being

  mean and nasty your whole life would just suck.”

  “It does suck,” Summer agreed. “It sucks for you, because now that

  turdbag is going to be in your office every single day. You think she was

  bad in high school? Think about all the trouble she could cause there. She

  probably did her research and found out you were CEO and decided to

  infiltrate and sabotage, sabotage, sabotage.”

  “She’s just part of a marketing team. Any decisions still have to go above

  her head.”

  “I’m not talking about her tanking marketing projects. I’m talking about

  her infiltrating and taking down the whole company.”

  “That would be hard for anyone, even Arabella.”

  Summer wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know. She had the whole school on

  her side way back when. She’s wily and crafty. Cunning like a fox. Or more

  like a snake in the grass. A pretty, blonde, blue-eyed, stacked, gorgeous

  snake. Does she still look the same?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see her.”

  June didn’t want to think about any of Arabella’s finer attributes. Her

  attitude had always ruined them in high school, but even back then, even

  when she was pulling pranks on June like putting stinky meat trays with

  congealed meat juice and blood in her locker, trapping her in the bathroom

  and forcing her to have a freaking clown makeover done by a little squad of

  popular girls eager and ready to follow any and all orders, or pushing her

  into a pool at a party they both attended, June always noticed that Arabella

  had a nice body. It was just there. In her face. All the time. It was there in

  everyone’s faces, all the time. It wasn’t June’s fault she had eyes and

  Arabella had nice breasts, a tiny waist, a curvy bottom, and long legs.

  Summer’s face puckered up. “She said you stank like poverty. Like, all

  the time. She’d wrinkle her nose, like this.” She demonstrated, pulling her

  best Arabella stench smelling face. June desperately tried not to laugh. It

  was pretty hilarious, seeing her best friend put on such an unappealing

  expression. “Anyway, you have to get rid of her.”

  “I can’t just get rid of her. I can see the headlines now.” She spread out

  her hands, mimicking newsprint. “CEO goes from victim to perpetrator,

  innocent woman fired before a single day worked in a jealous fit of

  retribution.”

  Summer snorted. “It would never happen. That’s way too long of a

  headline.”

  “Ugh, you get what I mean. Getting rid of her goes against everything I

  stand for.”

  “She goes against everything you stand for.”

  “If she got the job, then I have to give her the benefit of the doubt.”

  Summer waved her hands frantically, nearly sending her glass of sun tea

  flying off the counter. “She got hired because she looks good on paper and

  is all shiny and nicey-nice during interviews, but that’s not the real her.”

  “If she was hired by my HR team, it was because she was qualified,

  experienced, and talented.”

  “For gosh darn sakes, this is Arabella we’re talking about.”

  June ground her teeth as Summer’s face turned red. She thought that June

  wasn’t hearing her, but she was. She truly was. She didn’t want Arabella

  working at her company any more than she’d like to clean a public

  washroom. With her tongue. But she’d already been hired and that was

  freaking that.

  “I don’t want to be a hypocrite,” June protested.

  “You wouldn’t be.”

  “Yes, I would. I can’t give everyone else a fair shake and not her.”

  “You could give her a shake alright. It’s called karma and it’s about to be

  a real bitch for a bitch. I mean, what if she lets everyone know you were a

  loser in high school?”

  “What if she does? Then she’d have to confess how she came by that

  knowledge.”

  “You said she could spin anything. What if she makes you into the bad

  guy?”

  June considered that. She hated drama of any kind, and she loved having

  a workplace that was full of hard-working people who were enthusiastic,

  talented, driven, and kind. They took other people’s garbage and it turned it

  into literal, wearable works of art.

  “I think her true colors will shine through soon enough, if that’s how she

  wants to play things. She’s so self-centered she probably doesn’t even know

  it’s my company she applied to. Even if she does, she must be pretty

  desperate to consider working for me.”

  “Or pretty villainous.”

  June didn’t want to think the worst. It made her stomach sour and her

  blood feel like she was drenched in ice. She didn’t want to think about

  internal problems, about Arabella pulling the same shit she’d pulled in high

  school. She wanted to believe people changed and that her HR team hadn’t

  got suckered into making a huge mistake. Besides, wh
at could Arabella

  possibly want retribution for? She was always the aggressor, the bully, the

  one in charge, the one with the upper hand.

  “Her true colors,” Summer mused when June’s silence stretched on and it

  was obvious she wasn’t going to contribute anything else to the

  conversation. “Maybe that’s what you need to do. Get her to show them so

  you can fire her with good cause. I’d suggest making her life a living hell,

  but I know you aren’t going to do that, so I’m not even going to go there.

  Hey!” Summer slapped the countertop and June jumped. She watched her

  friend run a hand through her wild and untamed bright red hair while her

  green eyes shone with a spark that could only mean trouble. “The company

  barbeque. That’s it. I’m coming. You’re bringing me as your date.”

  “No, Summer, everyone knows you’re my best friend. And it would

  look…”

  “I don’t give two rat’s bottoms what it looks like. No one will think

  anything other than that you’re bringing your lovely bestie to your own

  company function. Everyone else gets to bring a date or their kids or

  whatnot. I need to come with you. I need to observe this d-bag up close and

  personal.”

  “This is exactly why you shouldn’t be there. Because you’ll end up

  calling her a d-bag just like now and things will get awkward, and she’ll file

  a freaking harassment suit against me and that will be the beginning of the

  end.”

  Summer shook her head. “Nope. Not going to give her any incentive to

  act like the victim. I just want to observe her. From afar, if I have to. I’ll

  hide in the bushes if you don’t give me an official invite.”

  “Good God,” June groaned.

  “How can you forget what she did that day? It still makes me furious

  when I think about it.”

  June’s throat was suddenly dry and scratchy again. Even though her

  stomach was churning worse than ever, she picked up her drink and downed

  the rest of it. “I haven’t forgotten anything.”

  Chapter 2

  High School

  June

  “Ewww, what’s that stench?” A pair of pink-clad shoulders hit the locker

  next to June’s so hard the metal rattled. She nearly groaned when she