Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 22067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 110(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 74(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 110(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 74(@300wpm)
I mean, have you ever met someone like that?
Someone who says they trust God to actually tell them what to do, and they, you know, actually mean it?
"Stop smiling at me like that," I grumble.
But this only makes my friend ask teasingly, "Dare I make a guess—"
"No. Don't you dare."
"But—"
My phone buzzes.
Oh, thank goodness.
But when I see who's sent me a message—
We need to get back to the office. Work emergency.
I take it back. This is nothing to be thankful about. At all.
Chapter Seven
SHAYLA
THE KONTIDES & PARTNERS boardroom is silent except for the hum of the air conditioning and the soft tap of my fingers on the keyboard. Floor-to-ceiling windows reflect our images against the night skyline—me at one end of the glass table, Adriano at the other.
It's also nearly midnight, and even though I still have so many cases to review, I'm still dangerously distracted by the sharp line of my boss's jaw as he reads his half of the workload.
Pathetic, right?
For almost nine years, I've prided myself for being immune to the great Adriano Kontides. I'm the only girl who's known him this long and still haven't fallen for him. But ever since he found that my marriage—and subsequent divorce—was fake?
Everything's changed.
For the better worse.
I catch him looking at me all the time now, and he doesn't even have the decency to pretend that he wasn't. Or act uncomfortable at being caught. He only stares back at me with those beautiful brilliant blasted silver eyes of his, just staring at me like I'm suddenly something he's found worth devouring—
I'm always the one who's forced to look away like a coward in the end, and it just makes me grit my teeth every time I remember this.
Like, seriously.
What is wrong with him?
And me?
For, like, thinking and speaking, like, I've been given a role in, like, a remake of Clueless?
This has to be Adriano's fault, darn it.
And Hope's, too.
For making me actually pray when I've never ever prayed—
And talking to God when I don't even know if I want Him to be real—
And worst of all, for making me actually try to imagine who God's choice is for my bridegroom.
Ugh, just ugh.
Just remembering who I saw in my mind makes me feel like slamming my head against the desk over and over.
I just have a hard time believing that my visions of my future husband—
"The notes you scribbled here," my boss suddenly says irritably. "They're completely wrong. Use a damn pencil next time so we don't need to cross anything out. It just complicates things unnecessarily."
—looked awfully like the billionaire ogre I'm stuck working overtime for at present.
"Understood, sir."
Silver eyes immediately narrow at my direction. "Don't take that tone with me."
Oh, does he think he's going to scare me with that?
I cross my arms over my chest. "You started it."
"Excuse me?"
In the almost-nine years I've known him, there's only one reason for my boss to suddenly speak with a noticeable Greek accent.
"You heard me."
And that reason is the anger I now see stamped over the chiseled features of his face, which I find even more annoyingly gorgeous at the moment.
What in the world is wrong with me?
He throws his case file on the desk.
And so I do, too.
Because I can be childish when I want to.
"You're picking a fight with me." His accent is awfully thicker. He's also speaking as if he's handing out a death sentence with each word, and all of them are for my wrongdoing.
"Of course not," I say demurely even though we both know I'm lying. "I'm just being honest—"
"You mean disrespectful," Adriano snaps.
"If it means so much to you, then alright. I was just being disrespectfully hon—"
"Enough."
I know right away I've pushed him too far.
I'm dead.
I make a run for it, but Adriano is so much faster, and the next thing I know he has me trapped against the wall, my hands captured over my head, and I'm torn between fear and excitement as my annoyingly gorgeous boss glares down at me.
"You say we have nothing to talk about," he bites out, "and yet the way you're acting makes it clear there is."
"I have no idea—"
"Do you know what I'm thinking of right now?"
"No." Yes. And it only makes me feel even more frightened and excited at the same time.
"I'm thinking I had it all wrong."
"Tell me more, please." Because Adriano Kontides admitting a mistake? Music to my ears, always.
But when his lips slowly form a smile, and I see how it doesn't reach his eyes at all—
Why do I have a feeling that I've just walked into a trap?
"Talking about what's changed between us is a waste of time."
It is?
"I should have just shown you instead."
What? Wait. No!
I'm not sure if it's his smoldering proximity that's dumbed me down or work that's fried my brain. Either way, it's too late by the time I realize what he's saying.