Total pages in book: 224
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1079(@200wpm)___ 863(@250wpm)___ 719(@300wpm)
Chapter four
Carrie
Iwake Monday morning to sunlight and the memory of Reid Maxwell between my legs that has me throwing aside the blanket and pressing my hands to my face. I hate that man. He took everything from me, even the damn orgasm I didn’t want him to have. I let out a very unladylike growl and climb out of bed, resolved to survive this day. Today will be my last day at West Enterprises, the company my father founded and took public. He’s already gone, in a Reid Maxwell driven hostile takeover. It’s all Reid. He did this, but in truth, this was coming anyway. I already knew from my father that I was going to be phased out and quickly. I already knew we were going to fumble the ball before we did. My father took risks that were out of character, and dangerous.
After my date with Reid Maxwell, I might be on a job hunt sooner than I might have been, but at least I leave on my terms, and after showing that man he was human. I will not go down a slave to Reid Maxwell and his investors.
I shower and dress in my lucky pale pink dress with a perfect pencil skirt, right along with the black Jimmy Choos my father bought me when I graduated Yale law school and then claimed my own office in his company. I was to be legal counsel for the company, overseeing the brokering of some of the biggest real estate investments our company booked. In the past ten years, I became so much more; he checked out on day-to-day operations. I ran this place, I brokered deals. I became, I am, the face of the company, when my father often was not.
I leave my apartment, which is mine, all mine, thanks to a huge real estate deal I brokered for a downtown Denver complex halfway across the country. It’s not big, only two thousand square feet, but it has a gorgeous city view, and the right payments for me on my own. Now, nothing is certain, and the payment feels large, so very large. I step onto the street, only a few blocks from the office, which was another reason I chose my apartment. There was never going to be a time that I wasn’t living my work at West Enterprises. Until today.
Overtaken by emotions I rarely allow myself to feel, I stop at a coffee shop just to slow down the day. I order two of my favorite hazelnut lattes and skip any food. I don’t know if I can even drink the coffee, let alone eat. The second latte is for my assistant, Sallie, who not only loves this drink as well, but who I adore. We aren’t really friends—work and friends don’t work—but maybe we will be now. I won’t be her boss.
I enter the offices and wave to the receptionist before walking down a long hallway to cut left and then right to the executive offices. Once I’m on the other side of the glass doors, Sallie, who is a beautiful blonde with an equally beautiful personality, gives me a beaming smile. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” I say, setting her cup on her desk. “Thank you for everything you do.”
“I love what I do,” she assures me. “Thank you.”
I head to my office door, but I pause just before entering to stare at my father’s dark office and the empty desk in front of it. Jessie, his assistant, is on a two-week vacation he granted her. I’m going to have to call her tonight. I enter my office and scan the photos on my desk; me with my father, me with the staff, me at Yale graduation when I felt this journey started. Me with Kiki, my dog, my best friend, who is gone now, and that’s still really raw. I want to scoop them all into the box next to my desk, but as I round it and set the box on top, I resist. I don’t want to scare the staff, but what is going to happen when I leave?
I need to do something, so I stuff my stapler into the box on my desk, preparing to be walked out any minute, and yeah, it’s a stapler, but Reid Maxwell doesn’t get my office supplies. He’s getting everything else and then some. I have a flashback of my dress hiked to my waist, that man on his knee, his hands on my hips, and his mouth—well, everywhere. I swallow hard with the memory as I’ve had too many times in the last few days. I never planned to actually have sex with the man, which technically I didn’t, but Lord help me, I might as well have. And the truth is, had he not given me the opportunity to cuff him when I did, I would have. I don’t know how I could want a man the way I wanted him when I hate him the way I do. He’s just so—