Page 1 of Tamed

1

Isabel

“Ihave to say, Isabel, I’m very disappointed in you.” Caleb’s hard black stare bored steadily into mine. “I expected better.”

Caleb Cross. Certified asshole, well known slave driver, CEO of Cross International, a Fortune 500 investment company, with offices around the globe, head office currently based in New York.

Also, my boss.

Also, one of my dad’s closest friends.

I’d known him all my life and when Dad had asked him to give me a position interning at Cross International, I’d been thrilled. Cross was a prestige company and working there was going to give me great experience for when I finally took over as CEO of Fox Tech, my father’s company. Also, Caleb was a brilliant businessman, and even though he was reputed to be somewhat of a tyrant as a boss, he paid his staffextremelywell and apparently they all loved him.

To say I was pumped to start work there would have been to understate my excitement.

Then I actually started work, and it soon became rapidly clear that the rumors of Caleb being a tyrant were absolutely true. Hewasa tyrant, and the only question that remained was whether he was a prick to all his employees or whether he was just a prick to me.

Now I’d been there a whole month, I decided that he was just a prick to me.

He sat behind his desk in the massive corner office that overlooked Manhattan like the Death Star overlooking Alderaan, lounging in his CEO-registered black leather chair as if he was Darth Vader himself. And even though I was starting to resent him with all my being, even now I had to acknowledge once again my secret shame.

He was hot.

He was just. So.Hot.

Six foot five and built like a Greek god, he wasn’t typically handsome — his face was too rough-hewn for that — but he was so charismatic you literally couldn’t take your eyes off him.

He had this intense energy, something kinetic that set the air humming whenever he was in a room, that made everyone in it sit up and look around to see what the fuss was about.

It was him. He was the fuss. With short black hair, straight black brows, and eyes dark as midnight, the man put Lucifer himself to shame. His features were all hard angles and brutal planes, like someone had taken a chisel to him and hadn’t bothered to smooth out the edges. Not that Caleb needed smoothing. He was too much as he was.

Anyway, he was gorgeous and I had a crush on him a mile wide and needless to say I was angry about it. After all, he was nearly twenty years older than me, used to look after me when I was a kid, and still saw me that way if I wasn’t much mistaken.Andhe was also one of Dad’s best friends, so completely off limits.

I was also angry because he was still gorgeous even when he was being a complete asshole and calling me out for being late. By two minutes.

I glared at him. “Sorry,” I said, not sounding sorry at all.

Caleb looked at me with that intense, laser focus, as if he wasn’t just memorizing my face, but memorizing every cell of my being. It was disconcerting, mainly because I found it such a turn on.

Mentally I cursed my father for getting me this job and then I cursed myself for taking it. What the hell had I been thinking? I’d heard the rumors of his dictatorial management style, but I’d assumed that since I was a family friend, I wouldn’t have to deal with that bullshit.

How wrong I’d been.

“I don’t know that you are,” Caleb said. “Because if you were, you’d be on time.”

“The subway—”

“Don’t give me excuses.” His voice was deep, almost a subsonic rumble. “If you’re late tomorrow, you’re out. Understand me?”

I could feel my cheeks heating even as I fumed silently, and the blush didn’t help my temper.

There was no reason for me to feel ashamed, not over two minutes, and I hated that I did. I also hated how he made me feel like a naughty child called to the principal’s office for punishment.

Are you sure you hate that? Don’t say you wouldn’t love to be turned over his knee.

My hands clenched into fists as the thought popped into my head fully formed. Of me, face down and spread over Caleb’s powerful thighs, while he—

No.Hellno.

---