Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 102781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
We were the bigger company, so that’s what I’d been reminding people. Today was the physical consolidation into the San Francisco office where I worked. People carrying boxes had infiltrated our space, and we were supposed to smile and greet them. It wasn’t fucking easy—especially when my own job could be at stake. This company didn’t need two creative directors, and Wren had its own marketing team, which was moving into our space right at this very moment.
While Jonas had assured me my job with the company was safe, he hadn’t yet said that any of us wouldn’t be transferred. The Dallas office was larger, and a recent rumor had floated around that more transfers were in the cards.
I had no plans on moving anywhere.
“So, tell me about the woman I’m going to crush. I asked around. Jim Falcon worked at Wren for a few years and said she was pretty close to retirement anyway. Hope I’m not going to make some blue-haired woman cry.”
Jonas’s brows drew down. “Retirement? Annalise?”
“Jim told me she uses a walker sometimes—trouble with her knees or some shit. I had to get maintenance to widen the aisle between the cubicles where the staff sits so she can get through. But I refuse to feel guilty for whipping the ass of this woman just because she’s older and has some health problems. I’m sending her packing to Texas, if it comes down to it.”
“Bennett…I think maybe Jim is confused. Annalise doesn’t have a walker.”
I shook my head. “Are you kidding? Don’t even tell me that. It cost me a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label to get my work order moved up to the top of the list with the maintenance department.”
Jonas shook his head. “Annalise isn’t—” He stopped mid-sentence and looked up over my head toward the door. “Good timing. Here she is now. Come on in, Annalise. I want you to meet Bennett Fox.”
I turned in my chair to see my new competition—the old biddy I was about to annihilate—and nearly fell over. My head swung back to Jonas.
“Who is this?”
“This is Annalise O’Neil, your counterpart over at Wren. I guess Jim Falcon confused her with someone else.”
I turned back to the woman walking toward me. Annalise O’Neil certainly wasn’t the old woman I had pictured in my head. Not in the fucking slightest. She was late twenties, at best. And gorgeous—drop-dead gorgeous. Killer long, tanned legs, curves that could cause a man to drive off a cliff, and a wild mane of wavy blonde hair that framed a seriously model-worthy face. Without warning, my body reacted—my dick, which had been floundering around disinterested for the last month since news of the merger broke, suddenly perked up. Testosterone squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. If I were a peacock, my colorful feathers would’ve fanned wide.
My competition was a fucking knockout.
I shook my head and laughed. Jim Falcon hadn’t made any mistake. The fucker did it to screw with me. The guy was a wiseass. I should’ve known. He must’ve been laughing his ass off when I had the guys from maintenance disassembling and reassembling the cubicles to make room for her walker.
What a dick. Although it was pretty funny. He got me, that’s for sure.
But that wasn’t what had me smiling from ear to ear.
Nope. Not at all.
Shit was about to get interesting, and it had nothing to do with my kicking the ass of a woman who walked just fine.
My competition—Annalise O’Neil, the beautiful woman standing right in front of me inside my boss’s office, the woman I was about to go head to head with…
…was also the woman from this morning, the one who had ripped my wiper blade off and left me a damn parking ticket in its place, the smiling woman from the elevator.
“Annalise, is it?” I stood, straightening my tie with a nod. “Bennett Fox.”
“Nice to meet you, Bennett.”
“Oh, trust me, the pleasure is all mine.”
Chapter 2
* * *
Annalise
Figures.
It was the gorgeous guy I’d seen in the elevator. And here I thought we’d had a little spark.
Bennett Fox grinned like he’d already been named my boss and extended his hand. “Welcome to Foster Burnett.”
Ugh. He wasn’t just good looking; he knew it, too.
“That would be Foster, Burnett and Wren, as of a few weeks ago, right?” I iced my subtle reminder that this was now our place of employment with a smile, suddenly thankful my parents had made me wear braces until I was nearly sixteen.
“Of course.” My new nemesis smiled just as brightly. Apparently his parents had sprung for orthodontic care, too.
Bennett Fox was also tall. I once read an article that said the average height of a man in the US was five-foot-nine-and-a-half inches; less than fifteen percent of men stood taller than six feet. Yet the average height of more than sixty-eight percent of Fortune 500 CEOs was over six feet. Subconsciously, we related size to power in more ways than just brawn.