Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
I watched her sitting there holding my gaze while I said nothing. She was undeniably gorgeous with that upturned nose, full lips, and the cheeks reddened from a weekend probably spent in the sun. Then I imagined how incredible she’d look in a bikini and had to pinch the bridge of my nose, willing the image to flee from my mind.
This was why I needed Darcy McClain gone. Maybe it wasn’t fair. It definitely wasn’t her fault–other than the mouth she seemed unable to stop running at the wrong times. But it was the truth. So I kept my mouth shut and continued to wait until she finally broke the silence.
“Before you took over,” she said. “I was supposed to pitch this to Jasmine. She was going to give me my own weekly article. Actually, the day she quit was the day I was going to make the pitch. I just thought you could maybe take a look. It might fit with what you’re wanting to do with the magazine, or I could take feedback and try to tweak it for the new direction. It’d just mean a lot if you looked at it.”
I stared. Every impulse in me was screaming to be an asshole. Dismiss her. Say something so unforgivable that she storms out and can’t keep up the act. Make her crack.
But I was an asshole, not a monster. I clenched the armrest of my chair. She’d kept her head down all week. She hadn’t so much as crossed me or looked my way. Maybe there was a world where we could have some sort of cease fire agreement. Of course, I’d have to learn to stop eye-fucking her every chance I got, but that was my problem. That was the truth, wasn’t it? If I really cared about sticking it to my father and proving I could turn this place around, I should at least look at the pitch, shouldn’t I?
I sighed from what felt like the depths of my soul. I knew I was making a dangerous choice, but I could feel something deep inside pulling me to do it anyway. “I’ll take a look. Is that all?”
Darcy brightened so quickly it was like rain clouds parting to reveal the sun. She smiled and took a few quick steps toward my desk, bounced on her feet, then rushed over to my chair and actually hugged me.
I sat there frozen, trying and failing not to notice how fucking good she smelled or how her short brown hair was tickling my chin as she leaned into the hug.
“Alright, alright,” I stammered, clearing my throat. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“Thank you!” she said, bouncing once more before practically running out of the office.
I smiled, then realized I was smiling and forced myself to frown. When I looked down, I made a sound of disgust. Jesus Christ. I needed to have a serious sit down with my cock at some point and explain this was not going to go the way it was hoping. We were not going to fuck Darcy McClain, little c, big C. She was an employee, and I was going to get my shit together and act like an adult,not a hormonal teen who can’t keep it in his pants.
She caught me looking at her through the window and smiled, waving.
My stupid cock twitched again in excitement and it was all I could do not to bury my face in my hands.
7
DARCY
Day Fourteen since the Dominocolypse, the dawn of Lamewood’s takeover.
Little by little, things were changing. It started when Lonnie got fired last week. He’d apparently been a serial violator of the no slacking policy. From the sounds of it, Dominic had caught him working on some weird blog about cat training several times and let him go. Lonnie had been our graphic design guy. His work was never exactly my cup of tea, but I still felt an instinctive negative reaction to Dominic making changes.
Lonnie’s replacement had showed up the following day. Her name was Pollie. She was in her early twenties, offensively pretty with bouncy blonde curls and ridiculously seductive, slitted blue eyes. My first thought was that she couldn’t possibly design anything because her boobs were too big to see the keyboard, but the damn woman didn’t even need to look when she used the keys. Worse, her first revamps of some of our designs were actually good. Really good. And even more frustrating, she was super nice, too.
You get credit for making a good business decision just this once, asshole, I’d thought.
Then he fired Alek, who had been one of my favorites. He wrote a kind of silly crime piece every week that was a fan favorite. It was usually more bullshit than truth, but that wasn’t the point. It was a fun piece that I was going to miss, and he’d brought in some slick guy in his forties who was a political science major. Apparently, he’d be working with Farhad on the new politics section.