Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 23753 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 119(@200wpm)___ 95(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 23753 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 119(@200wpm)___ 95(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
My phone vibrates in my pocket when I’m halfway there. Pulling it out, I glance at the screen and see it’s a call from my favorite coworker and confidant, Mindy.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Oh my god! I’ve been trying to reach you all morning!” she screams. “Where the hell are you?”
“Down the street. Why?”
“Try to teleport the rest of the way. Okay, bye!”
She hangs up without any further explanation and I pick up my pace.
When I arrive to the building, I make a beeline for our department, but it’s eerily quiet. No Mindy humming eighties songs. No Craig reciting Jeopardy! trivia.
“Hello?” I call out. “Why did I need to teleport here?”
No answer.
“Is today ‘Abandon Kendall at Work Day’ and nobody told me?”
“Hello, Miss Clarke.” A deep voice startles me from behind. “How nice of you to finally show up to work.”
The words cut straight through the eerie silence, sliding over my skin before my brain can catch up.
I turn slowly, pulse kicking hard, and find myself face to face with Lucian Pearson.
He’s sitting in my chair, his Italian leather shoes propped up on my desk like he owns it. Well, I guess he technically does…
I’ve never seen him in person before now, never this close. His perfectly cut face is usually plastered on a BS marketing brochure—or safe behind the glow of a digital meeting. And it’s clear those don’t do him justice.
Up close, he’s even more dangerous—sharper features, hotter in a way that unsettles me, every angle of his jaw designed to make women lose their place in conversation, every curve of his mouth hinting at things I have no business imagining. The attraction hits all at once, low in my stomach, curling there before I can push it away.
His eyes roam over me, slow and deliberate, as if he’s cataloging every detail one unhurried glance at a time. Heat slides across my skin in response, and for a split second it feels like he’s already undressing me right here in the office, even if I know that has to be in my head.
“How long have you been working under me, Miss Clarke?” he asks. His tone is calm, but it lands like a challenge.
“Far too long.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, for two years.”
“I don’t think that’s what you said at all.”
“It was.”
His lips curve into a slow smirk, though he doesn’t let it stay.
“When I send an email, I expect one of two things,” he says. “One, an immediate response or the completed work. So tell me why I don’t have six months’ worth of reports on my desk.”
“Yes, there is.”
“Care to share it?”
“It’s…complicated.”
“I think I’m intelligent enough to understand.” He rises to his feet, and the shift in height forces me to tip my chin up. “Start talking.”
“The last manager didn’t keep the best records and the guy before him was worse.” I pause as he steps closer, his cologne drifting between us—spicy, dark, and impossible to ignore. My throat tightens at how close he is. “Even though I’ve been here two years, I’ve got six years behind on records, because I’m trying to make sure everything is in perfect condition ahead of the IPO.”
“So you do realize I need this in three weeks, not three years?”
“I’m aware that I’m trying my best to get it done.”
“Let me rephrase.” His voice drops, sharper now, but the edge makes my pulse race. “In three weeks, the reports will be in my inbox. Yes or no?”
“I can’t predict the future, Mr. Pearson.”
“Well, I can predict a firing.” His gaze drags down, then back up, lingering for a beat too long before meeting my eyes again. “Twenty-one days. Reports in my inbox. Or you’re gone.”
I nod, not wanting to press my luck any further.
He steps back and pushes aside the “Hell on Earth” picture on my desk, revealing a private staff game: Pin the Horns on Satan.
He picks up the heavily pinned cork board that features his face, his jaw tightening as he studies it.
“I’ll hold onto this,” he says. “You clearly have too much free time.”
Stay still, Kendall. Don’t let him see the See You in Hell game on the far wall… Stay still.
His green eyes linger on mine a moment longer, heavy and unreadable, his lips parting as if he’s about to say something else—something he shouldn’t. But instead, he turns on his heel and walks away.
The moment the glass doors slide shut, my coworkers slowly return to the room—one by one—as if their blatant abandonment wasn’t on purpose.
“So…” Mindy hands me a cup of coffee. “How did it go?”
“He really is Satan.”
“What do we need to do?”
“Prepare for some serious overtime.”
“For every night this week?”
“Yeah, including tonight…”
THE CEO
LUCIAN
I don’t regret much about how I run this company. But if I’d done things my father’s way, I would’ve met Kendall Clarke years ago—and I wouldn’t still be thinking about her now.