Page 6 of Tempting All The Way

I’ve always been self-conscious of my body. I’m small. I don’t have the kind of curves that the opposite sex lusts over. I know this and I’m beginning to be okay with it. It’s only when I’m around men like Xavier that I feel more like a child than the woman I am.

“This is your desk. If there’s anything you need, ask someone else. Anyone but me,” Xavier says.

“Well, that won’t be hard, considering you’re probably the last person I want to talk to in this entire building. No, entire block—the entire country seems to cover it better. Don’t worry, Xavier, I will speak to you as little as humanly possible.” I smile.

“It’s Mr Christianson. I want a coffee: tall, black, one sugar.” He stomps back into his office.

I pull out my phone and search for the closest coffee shop. There’s a Starbucks a hundred metres down the street. Great, gives me an excuse to leave the office. As soon as I step out of the building, I call Lucy. I don’t care that she’ll still be sleeping. This deserves her being woken up over.

“Shar, everything okay?” she asks.

“No, everything’s not okay, Lucy. What the hell were you thinking? Your brother? Really?” I seethe.

“Calm down. It can’t be that bad, and I negotiated a good salary for that position.”

“Not that bad? I love you, Lucy, but you’re blind when it comes to your brother. He is the biggest freaking jerk on the planet. He’s self-centred, loves himself way too much, and the bastard already offered to have hate sex with me,” I scoff.

“He what?”

“Never mind, it’s not important. He gave me a list of rules—a typed-out, neat list of rules.”

Lucy laughs. “I’ll meet you at yours at six tonight. I’ll bring dinner and prosecco, and we can go through this list of his… and think of the most creative ways to break every single one of them.”

“Deal, I gotta go. I’m fetching Satan’s coffee. Did you know he likes it black? I guess it makes sense, seeing as it matches his soul.”

“I know.” She laughs again. “Have a great day. Love you.”

“I hate you right now. But I love you too.” I hang up and step in line to order the devil’s brew. I’d like to take my time walking back to the office but I don’t. No matter how much I can’t stand Xavier, I still want to be the best damn secretary he’s ever had. I have a strong work ethic, and I’m not afraid of putting in long hours.I thrive on it.

My steps falter when I walk into Xavier’s office. He’s not alone. The door was wide open, though, so I’m assuming this isn’t an important meeting. Both Xavier and the man occupying one of the two seats in front of his desk pause their conversation and stare at me. Recovering from my shock of a new pair of eyes glaring at me, I walk up to the desk and place the coffee cup in front of him.

“Black,” I say, leaving out thelike your soul partof the sentence. “Here, eat this.” I hand over the paper bag with the blueberry muffin I picked up for him.

“I didn’t ask for a muffin,” Xavier grunts.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t ask to be working for Satan today either. Eat the damn muffin. It’ll help soak up all that alcohol in your system.” I go to march towards the door when a hand reaches out and grabs my arm. I look from the palm wrapped around my wrist, up to the crystal-blue eyes of the man that same hand belongs to.

“Alistair,” Xavier growls.

“Sorry, I’m Alistair. It’s nice to meet you.” The handsome stranger releases his hold on me.

“Shardonnay,” I fill in for him.

“Welcome to the firm. I have a feeling you’re going to fit right in here.”

“Thank you,” I say before hightailing it out of the room. There is way too much testosterone in that office for me to handle right now.

Chapter Four

“That is most definitely not Lucy,” Alistair says as his eyes follow Shardonnay out of the room.

Picking up a pen, I hurl it at him. “Stop checking out my secretary,” I grunt.

“What happened to Lucy?”

“She’s probably gone into hiding, because I’m going to fucking kill her for doing this to me.”

“Doing what?” he asks.

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