Page 1 of Badd B*tch

Chapter 1

Jax

The girl—woman, I should say—opposite me, was staring up at me with the most mesmerizing eyes I've ever seen.

Now, listen, my dad is a former Navy SEAL. His old squadmates and other downrange buddies come by the bar once in a while, so it's safe to say I've met my fair share of hard-eyed motherfuckers.

But this woman?

The look she was giving me could sandblast paint off the side of an aircraft carrier. I literally just met her, as in this very instant, but if I didn't know any better, I'd say she outright fucking hates me. Which is weird.

I mean, look, I know I'm not exactly ugly, okay? I've fielded enough compliments to know most women find me at least marginally attractive, some more than others. Which is whatever. But this girl? The daggers she's glaring at me? I've said maybe a dozen words to her. So what gives?

Problem is, she's wicked hot. She's wearing a flight suit or jumpsuit with an assortment of military patches and her military aviator wings—I don't know all the regulations, obviously, but I know enough to know that whatever she's got on that suit, her being a private pilot, is just what she's allowed by those regs to wear. She's got a lot of patches. Which means she's a hell of a pilot. And lemme tell you, there's not much sexier to me than excellence. But she's also just sexy.

The jumpsuit has obviously been tailored to fit her, since it hugged her hips, thighs, waist, and bust just right, accentuating her feminine figure without bunching, gapping, or riding; Uncle Brock says nothing is less comfortable than a jumpsuit that doesn't fit you right.

She's short, definitely under 5'5" but over five feet. Her tailored, fitted jumpsuit hugs a tight, hard, fit body, unzipped to just above her sternum, revealing a white crewneck tee. Her hair is jet black and razor-bobbed at her sharp jawline, falling straight and thick. High, pronounced cheekbones, smooth, flawless skin, and bright, pale green eyes flecked and streaked with touches of gold.

I was staring at her, helpless to tear my gaze away from those stunning, piercing, bold, confident, and bizarrely angry green eyes. I heard words buzzing around me, but it sounded like adults from Charlie Brown—wahWAHwahwahWAHWAH.

"Jax?" This was a male voice. A niggle in my brain told me I needed to tune in to him. "Jax? Hello?"

I scrubbed a hand over my face, breaking the eye contact so I could pull my attention back to the present and relevant. I forced my attention back to the speaker—Linus Magnus Thorvaldsen, a multibillionaire entrepreneur. He was almost good-looking enough that if he wanted, he could lay a reasonable claim to being a “genius billionaire playboy philanthropist,” although I admit I have no clue if he does any philanthropic work.

"Are you ready to sign on, Jax?" I felt his hand clap onto my shoulder.

Sign on?

Oh, right.

I've spent the last three months going through a truly weird interview process. For one, they reached out to me—or, one of this man's lackeys did, at least. Why, how, I don't know. Maybe they saw my work on Fiverr or something. Seeing as my uncle Xavier is a rich tech dude himself, I know he has a million creative ways to find the talent he wants for a specific project. AI headhunters, for one thing. Uncle Xavier has a very strong opinion on AI and how it should be used and regulated—mainly, he feels…well, there's no point in going down that divisive rabbit hole, is there?

The point is that for the last three months, Thorvaldsen's underlings have been emailing me questions at random. Sometimes, it's a single line asking a detailed question about some esoteric thing to do with coding. Or it'll be a dissertation defense sort of situation, where I have to defend a viewpoint of some kind. I don't know. All I know for sure is it’s an opportunity to work at LMT Technologies—I did my own independent verification that the emails were in fact coming from official LMT channels. My assumption, thus far, has been that they want me to help out with a minor coding project, probably replacing someone who burned out, which is a big issue in the industry: recent surveys say that somewhere between seventy and eighty percent of software engineers suffer burnout at some point, with around twenty percent facing active, critical burnout.

Anyway.

After a silly amount of answering weird questions at odd hours about the most random shit you can imagine…nothing. Crickets. I had sort of shrugged the whole thing off—it's a weird, often neurotic industry full of over-the-top characters who do bizarre things for unfathomable reasons, so I wasn't super thrown off by the abrupt ghosting. Annoyed, maybe a little disappointed. I mean, after all, I've been working my ass off to make my own way and establish my own career without any help or nepotism from my family, and a job at LMT would be a big step in the right direction for me.

Sometimes it feels like no one gets me.

Oh, your uncle is the Xavier Badd? The guy who makes those fun little robots? Yeah, that guy. The man who revolutionized robotics. The man who, along with Valentine Roth and Hunter Hawkins—my cousin-in-law, now—is revolutionizing the spaceflight and space tourism industry.

Easy in, obviously. One text message to Uncle X and I'd have a high six-figure job with endless avenues for advancement. I'd be head of a department within five years.

But I'd always wonder if I earned it or if it was merely given to me.

No thanks. I'll make my own way, one 18-hour day at a time.

Well, imagine my surprise when Linus Magnus Thorvaldsen—and yes, every time he's ever been referenced it's with all 3 names, so that's just how I think of him—appeared at the bar where I was getting some side-hustle work done before my shift at Best Buy.

As in, the man himself.

And a pilot.

I held up my finger to the man like he was my brother.

Smooth move, Ex-Lax.