Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66753 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66753 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
So, I do, which at present translates to cutting right and walking as fast as I can toward the lobby, but just as I think I’ve escaped Tyler, he calls my name, “Bella!” and his tone is pure command.
The urge to carry onward and ignore him is strong, but so is my desire to retain my job. Therefore, I’m obligated by his role as my boss and mine as his apparent submissive, to obey. I stop dead in my tracks, draw in a breath, and will my heart to calm. Only then do I rotate to face him and curse in my mind as I discover the attorney Tyler was talking to is now stepping onto an elevator car. I’m now the sole victim of Tyler’s attention.
And boy, do I have his attention.
His piercing blue eyes pin me where I stand, and my heart does this insane pitter-patter thing against my breastbone. Worse, my nipples pucker with the idea that his mouth has been on them and about every other part of my body as has mine, his.
“My office,” he orders.
“I’d rather not,” I reply, and I’m frustrated to realize there’s a tremble vibrating in my words.
“It wasn’t a question,” he states.
With that, he rotates, and with his long, confident stride, walks toward the double glass doors of his private offices.
For a moment, I think I’ll stand my ground, but we both know I’m not going to deny him this meeting, not here, not at the office where I am truly his subordinate. Furthermore, hesitating only creates the opportunity for him to watch me walk toward him. I don’t want to be watched by Tyler Hawke right now, not when there’s too much for his overly perceptive attention to discover.
I double step, catching up to him, erasing the distance between me and him in steps, but nothing can erase the distance that contract he offered me created between us. If he doesn’t know that yet, he’s about to find out. It might as well be now, so we can both move on with our lives. I can find a real man. He can find his fake fiancée. We can both get back to work doing the only thing we do well together—making money.
Chapter Five
Bella
Tyler opens the double glass door and motions me forward, but those bluer-than-blue eyes of his are locked on me, studying me with an intensity that undoes me and allows zero room for escape. His energy is hungry, a wild animal, who’s found his next meal.
And that meal is me.
If I let it be me.
And I will not.
Self-respect, I tell myself. I’ve had none with Tyler, and that’s exactly why he felt it was okay to hand me that contract. He doesn’t respect me.
The very idea burns in my belly. My chin lifts and I fearlessly march right past him.
I’m instantly swimming in the brutally masculine scent of his cologne, memories of it and him all over me in that hotel room, working me over. Memories of him dominating me and me liking it. I don’t even know why I liked it, but denying the truth—that I did— isn’t going to serve me as well simply rejecting anything further between us.
At this point, I’ve passed him by and I’m standing in front of his secretary’s desk, feeling momentarily thankful she isn’t in her seat yet to witness whatever my face must reveal right now. Or maybe I should wish for someone, anyone, to place themself between me and Tyler to offer a buffer of some type. I rotate to face the door as Tyler joins me, his big body shrinking the already compact space to miniature.
He’s too close for comfort, towering over me with his six-foot-plus height, and doing so a few seconds too long to be comfortable. My mistake is the moment my eyes lift to his, my intent to press him to get this over with. Instead, our gazes lock, the air thickening between us, intimate memories ping-ponging between us.
I swallow hard, resisting the urge to fold my arms in front of my aching breasts, which he’d surely understand. And while I dread us alone in his office, it’s almost a relief when he breaks the tension between us and says, “Let’s take this to my office.”
“Whatever you think this is, it isn’t,” I promise him. “Whatever you think you can do to make me okay with anything that happened between us, Tyler, you won’t.”
In true Tyler alpha form, he replies with, “I’m not accepting that answer,” and motions me down the hallway.
In other words, he’ll prove me wrong in private.
And we’re both fully aware of the fact that once I walk down that hallway in front of him, I’m caged by his office in front of me and him behind, but refusing to do so only makes my rattled, emotional state more transparent. Rattled, emotional people cannot be successful agents. In the end, I have to perform, or I can’t continue to work here, and when this thing between us is put to rest—not to bed—we both need to know that’s not the case.