Page 25 of The Firefighter's Fate

“Is that true, Ember Mortensen?”

“No...”

“You’re just another hungry leech, here to cause trouble...”

“That’s not who...”

“Just here for a quick buck and to ruin lives.”

“I’m not...”

“How about you stick whatever you’re writing up your uptight ass...”

“Connor...”

RING!

There’s a sudden alarm that blares throughout the entire building. Along with the pressure I’m feeling from the burly firefighter in front of me, it makes me jump.

I was so desperately involved in trying to persuade the man that I’m not a leech...

I bet the alarm is a signal to alert the firefighters to a new job.

It certainly seems that way when both Eric and Connor react nonchalantly to it. They don’t jump out of my bones like I do. Instead, Eric calmly turns around and walks into the back of the fire station, and Connor remains impassive.

“I have to go,” Connor growls at me. “Good luck with whatever you’re doing. I hope I never see you again.”

And then he’s gone too, following Eric through that back door.

He said I’m here to ruin lives.

He wants me to stick my article up my ass.

He seems like the kind of man who won’t budge. On anything - let alone an out-of-town journalist with her job on the line.

Oh shit. This really is going to be harder than I thought.

11

CONNOR

Well, that was fucking hilarious.

Not.

That journalist was pretty, I have to admit. But I don’t fuck around with journalists. And I certainly don’t talk to them. I’ve had such journalists sniff around my fire station and Crystal River before – looking for the scoop on my family, hoping that their little article will project them to the big time on network talk shows and front page opinion columns. This girl wasn’t the first to snoop around, and she certainly won’t be the last. I’ve been offered a lot of money to rat out the dealings of my family, and I have flatly rejected every single one without hesitation.

But I certainly have never found them pretty before...

I don’t like journalists. I don’t like their questions. I don’t like my father’s media empire. The last thing I would want to be is famous. Fuck that.

But she was pretty. Goddamnit. I’d give her that.

Those emerald-green eyes. That silky blonde hair. The way she tried to charm me. She had none of that fakeness other journalists possess – she instead seemed genuinely interested in me.

She seemed like a good person, despite being a journalist leech.

I even was tickled by her breezy attitude. Her optimism in the face of my bluntness. Her spark.

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