Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 23854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 119(@200wpm)___ 95(@250wpm)___ 80(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 23854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 119(@200wpm)___ 95(@250wpm)___ 80(@300wpm)
“Close the door.”
I do as I’m told. My heart is hammering. The room smells of leather and designer cologne…and something else underneath. Something warm and alluring that might just be him.
“Sit.”
My body moves on reflex. I plonk down on the chair across from his desk and set the coffee in front of him. He looks at the smiley face, and something in his expression shifts, like a crack in concrete. But it’s gone in an instant.
“I apologize,” I blurt out. “I made some…mistakes this morning, and I know you’re going to fire me, but I just wanted to thank you for the opportunity.”
He stares at me.
“And I’m sorry for drawing on your coffee cup.”
Without breaking eye contact, he lifts the cup and drinks from it. It can’t be hot anymore. I wait for his eyes to narrow. For him to kill me.
But to my surprise, he doesn’t. He sets the cup down and almost smiles. “I’m not going to fire you, Hazel.”
Relief floods through me so fast my eyes start to water. “You’re not? Oh, thank God. Thank you, thank you.”
“But I do need to show you something.” He twists his monitor toward me and taps the screen. A document fills the display. Countless lines of legal language with my name at the bottom.
My signature.
The desperate, quickly-scrawled e-signature of a girl who didn’t read a word of what she was signing.
“You know what this is?” he asks.
“My contract?”
He looks briefly impressed. “Have you read it?”
Suddenly, I feel like the world’s biggest idiot. “Um, no. I didn’t read it.”
The corner of his lip twists up as he enlarges a section—two specific clauses that have been highlighted in yellow. I lean forward, and as I read them, the words seem to physically transform the structures of my brain.
Relief services…
Non-termination…
I read them again, thinking I might be hallucinating. But the words don’t change. Not even after reading them a third time.
My lips have gone dry. My hands start to tremble, so I stuff them between my knees and clamp tight.
I should probably run. Scream. Call the police, a lawyer, Cassi, anyone.
But instead, I just look up at Dominic. Really look at him for the first time since I stepped into his office.
He’s brutally handsome. His good looks are sharp but rugged, not like a fashion model or Hollywood star. His eyes are dark and carry the weight of power behind them.
I feel small before him, but in a good way. A way that has me buzzing inside.
He’s not smug or smirking. He’s not leaning back with the cocky confidence of a man who’s just cornered his prey.
In fact, like me, he’s barely breathing. His knuckles are white around the edge of his desk, and a vein is pulsing in his neck. His jaw is clenched so tightly I can see the muscles moving beneath his skin.
And his eyes are locked on me with something that doesn’t register as power.
It looks more like something I would never expect from a man like this. It looks like desperation.
The anxiety drains out of me. Not all of it but enough for something else to take its place. Something warm and fuzzy, like hot silk in my belly. It spreads out, heating my skin, causing my pulse to skip as my brain tries to process my new reality.
I can’t leave.
And he doesn’t want me just as his assistant. He wants more. A lot more.
“Why me?” I ask, my voice barely audible. “You could have any woman in the world. Why me?”
He lets go of his desk and comes around to me. He’s so tall that I feel like I’m looking up at a giant. His shoulders are broad, and beneath that thousand-dollar suit he’s wearing is a body painted with muscles.
I should feel tiny beneath him. But I don’t.
I feel found. I feel seen.
“When I first saw your face, Hazel,” he says, his voice raw and low, like he’s fighting to control himself, “I couldn’t breathe. And I haven’t been able to breathe since.”
He stops in front of my chair, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body. Close enough that I can smell his cologne and that other scent—the scent that must be him. It enters my nose and lights me up like a drug.
I think about the smiley face on his cup and my borrowed shoes and the blouse that barely fits me. I think about the thirty-seven job applications that went nowhere. About how I’ve felt invisible for my entire life, ignored and looked over by other men.
But this man, the king of all kings, chose me.
I should be terrified. I know that. I can hear Cassi’s voice in my head telling me to get the hell out.
Instead, I rise from my chair. My legs are quivering, but they hold. I stand in front of him and lift my chin.