Her Intern

by Anne Marsh

  I flip through the pages of the book I’m holding. “You were going to crash a ballroom and realize you were in love with me but you weren’t worthy while I’m wearing a Cinderella-worthy dress and millions of pounds of diamonds?”

  “That’s the problem,” he says. “Those were someone else’s stories. They’re not us and I like our story. I like us.”

  His arms tighten around me as if he’s thinking about never letting go, but it’s hard to forget the past few weeks. Or the summer. I knew because I’d tried.

  “You lied to me. How do we just start over?”

  “We take a chance,” he says quietly. “I am sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I spoiled what we had. I’m angry at myself for pushing you away when I started to fall for you and then didn’t tell you the truth. I should have done a lot of things differently, but what I need right now is a chance. Let me make it up to you.”

  I stare down at the cover of the book. I want to ask him if he really means it, if I can trust him, how I can trust him. But the truth is, I already opened the window. I let him in. All the way in.

  “I love you,” he says. “And so these books weren’t going to work anyhow. Those aren’t our story.”

  “We have a story?” I pull back enough to see his face. “Because I hate to break it to you, but a handful of texts don’t constitute a story. That’s more of an outline.”

  He wraps an arm around me tightly while he pulls out his phone with the other. “That’s why I wrote this.”

  My phone dings. He’s sent me a file.

  “I’m hoping we can write the next chapter together and then the next chapter after that.”

  I open the file. It’s written in code.

  Chapter One

  class TrueLove

  {

  public static void main(String[] args)

  {

  System.out.println(“I love Lola”);

  }

  }

  “Chapter one?”

  He cups my face. “I thought we could work on the next chapter together. And then the next one after that. I love you and I want to make this work. Tell me yes?”

  “I may have a few ideas for chapter two.” My hand finds his face.

  “Is that a yes?”

  I press a kiss against the hand cupping my face. “Yes.”

  Another kiss against his jaw. “Yes.”

  A kiss against the corner of his mouth. “Still yes.”

  “I’d be happy to make suggestions if you need a list of places to kiss next,” he whispers.

  “I’m crazy for you,” I admit. “I love you, too. And this is more than a chapter. It’s a book. Definitely a book.”

  * * *

  Dare to read more sexy stories!

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  by Cara Lockwood

  The Proposition

  by JC Harroway

  Her Every Fantasy

  by Zara Cox

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  Her Every Fantasy

  by Zara Cox

  CHAPTER ONE

  Bryce

  TWO DAYS, THREE HOURS and...seven minutes.

  That was how long the email had been sitting in my inbox unopened. I detested that I was reduced to even knowing how long it’d parked itself in my consciousness, taunting me with its presence. Taunting me with that gut-twisting mix of hope and bitterness I thought I was finally rid of.

  How I wished it were one of those mundane work emails I’d become so adept at passing to my assistant to deal with. Then, from a safe distance, it would’ve been so easy to tell her to handle it. Or, better yet, delete it.

  But here it was. Not handled. Not deleted. And about as far from mundane as it could get.

  Not when her name was blaring from the ‘sender’ line: Savannah Knight.

  Not when the subject matter stated three simple words: I Need You.

  I tossed my pen onto the desk in disgust and shoved my chair backwards, swivelling away from the offensive email for good measure.

  Fuck this.

  Who the hell did she think she was? Not a single word in three and a half years. Then this?

  I’d held out for over two days. Long enough for her to know I wasn’t going to jump.

  A fragile but welcome burst of satisfaction settled my ire a little. She needed to know I wasn’t the same person who’d stumbled away from that quaint little chapel in sunny Sittingbourne, Kent, three summers ago a pathetic, emotional wreck.

  That man was long gone, after years of living on the edge of ‘Will we? Won’t we?’ was definitively answered once and for all: We won’t. We never will.

  In his place was someone I respected better but didn’t always like. A man whose future and focus were as steadfast as a striking sledgehammer.

  I might have deluded myself into thinking I was different once upon a time, that I could be softer, less... Mortimer, more...something else, but that time had long passed. For better and, I suspected, worse I was a bloody Mortimer down to my last cell. It’d just taken a little longer, and ironically her help, to make me accept my true self.

  Ruthless. Competitive. Take no prisoners. Crazy ambitious. And yes, sometimes, utterly selfish in my quest to achieve all the above.

  So why wasn’t that ruthless selfishness directing my finger to the delete button? One quick ta
p on the mouse and she would be erased as definitely as she’d erased me.

  Teeth gritted, I fought and irritatingly lost the fight, compulsion swivelling me back around to face my laptop. To the neat little blue rectangle of temptation taunting me with its secrets.

  Open me. Read me.

  With a tight curse, I clicked on it, my greedy eyes devouring the words.

  Bryce,

  I know this is out of the blue so...surprise! It’s a been a while, huh? Guess we’ve both been crazy busy.

  Anyway, a little bird told me you’re opening a brand spanking new building in Singapore. Congrats on all your awesome accomplishments, btw.

  But I’ll get to the point. I need you.

  I cursed that traitorous little flip in my gut when I lingered on those three words. Then forced myself to read on.

  More specifically, I need a space in your building for the launch of my flagship store.

  My team have researched several locations and they all agree your building will be perfect for my needs.

  Another little bird told me you haven’t yet accepted a bid for the ground and first floors. If that’s true—and I really hope it is!—I’d love to be considered for an initial five-year lease of the space.

  If my info is wildly inaccurate, then let me know.

  Look forward to hearing from you.

  Best,

  Savannah

  Anger blazed in my chest. Singeing. Devastating. So this was how she was going to play it? Act as if nothing had happened? As if we’d simply...fallen out of touch and she was initiating a reconnection while she had a few minutes to spare in her busy day?

  Well, I could do cool and impersonal. Hell, I was a master at it.

  I yanked my laptop closer and stabbed the keyboard with more force than was necessary.

  Savvie,

  No, scratch that. Best keep things formal.

  Savannah,

  It is a surprise. You’ll have to remind me how long it’s been if we meet in the future.

  Sadly, my schedule is atrociously tight, so these days I delegate requests like yours to my commercial leasing team. I’ve passed your request on to them—see cc above. They’ll be in touch at some point, I expect.

  Good luck with your launch, wherever that may be.

  Bryce Mortimer

  I hit ‘send’ with one last smug little stab at the button and lounged back in my seat.

  An hour later my glee had turned to ash. The button I’d clicked to let me know she’d read my reply had been activated almost immediately.

  She’d seen my email. Most likely read it.

  Anticipation had risen like an unstoppable tide inside me, only to crash back as the seconds ticked by without a further response. What did I expect? Contrition? Hell, an apology? A plea for me to grant her wish for old times’ sake despite my rightful disappointment in her?

  Delusion soured my mouth.

  We were both equally successful in our chosen fields. Why would she need a helping hand from me when she could reduce grown men into drooling schoolboys with a flick of her long, seductive eyelashes?

  Another sensation stabbed, this time the acrid jealousy I thought was long in my past.

  Fuck it. I rose from my desk, determined to put greater distance between me and my laptop before I did something foolish—like fruitlessly click ‘refresh’ on my email. The ping of an incoming message arrested my movement.

  Bryce,

  Sorry for taking up your precious time. But thank you for the good wishes and for passing me on to your team. I’ve emailed them directly.

  Excuse me for saying this, and perhaps it’s just in my imagination, but you sound...cold and distant.

  But...whatever. I’m around from tomorrow until the launch date in a little over a month’s time.

  I would like to see you again, Bryce, but I understand if your super-tight schedule doesn’t allow it. On the off-chance you haven’t turned into a robot and still like a good steak I’d love to buy you lunch.

  Let me know.

  Best wishes,

  Savvie

  PS Since you seem to need reminding, it’s been three years and four months since we last saw each other. Your memory used to be sharper than this. Guess some things do change!

  I was torn between grinning at her sheer nerve and cussing at her unsubtle hints that my response was in any way defective. But even as I vacillated between anger and amusement, my gaze remained riveted on the eighth line:

  I would like to see you again...

  A pulse of resentment sizzled beneath my skin, laced with abrasive disappointment I hadn’t been able to let go in over three long years. That inability to let go, to consign her to my past where she belonged, where I’d successfully archived a lot of emotional crap, was what pissed me off the most.

  Case in point: my parents.

  Another case in point: my crappy relationship with my siblings, in particular. My extended family, in general.

  But somehow, Savannah Knight remained a burr under my skin that wouldn’t be evicted.

  Somehow, years ago she’d made it past the barricades I’d erected; somehow even set herself up in her own little bunker, immune from all the shit going on in my life. And every now and then...when I’d felt as if I were drowning, that bunker had been a godsend.

  My safe place...until it and she wasn’t.

  Maybe I hadn’t dug deep enough to evict her.

  Maybe it was time to confront it...her...head-on. Thrash it out once and for all and put it behind me. It’d been festering for long enough and I knew that corrosive wound, coupled with my feelings towards my own family, had contributed to keeping people at arm’s length.

  On the family front, I was more than okay with maintaining the status quo. Years of rebuffed advances and the eventual realisation that the Mortimers would never be a close-knit, happy unit like the ones I’d dreamed of had finally put paid to childish imaginings.

  Even my brother Gideon’s out-of-the-blue phone call that he’d met the one a few months ago hadn’t dented my cynicism. As for my parents, they’d never wanted me, hadn’t hung around even long enough to see my first day of school before cutting me out of their lives.

  But Savannah...

  She’d let me believe that, despite hard-learnt lessons, there was a possibility for more...for joy...long after I’d sworn never to let anyone close. Long after a confused eight-year-old had been summoned into a cold study of one relative accompanied by a nanny and informed that the mother who didn’t want him was never coming back, having died when her car went off some cliff in Switzerland. That his hopes of a Disney-style reconciliation were turned to dust for ever.

  That child had grown into a cynical teenager, fully steeped in the dysfunction that ruled his super-wealthy, super-emotionally-bankrupt family.

  Somewhere along that journey as a fully-fledged teenage malcontent, one Savannah Knight had illuminated my dark soul with grace, humour and a megawatt smile.

  And then taken it all away like a magician’s cruel trick.

  If nothing else, she deserved a piece of my mind before I relegated her to the past for good. I’d done it with my siblings. I’d achieved it with my parents. With Savannah, all it needed was some good old-fashioned face-to-face.

  My answer was shorter than the last. Straight to the point.

  Lunch tomorrow. One p.m. My office.

  Get your little birds to tell you where if you don’t know.

  Bryce

  She replied within seconds.

  I’ll be there.

  Savvie

  I wanted to resent the shortened nickname that reminded me so much of our past. Of laughter and secret angst. Of beauty and betrayal. Of daring to stretch the limits of friendship and ending up with nothing but broken promises. And yes, for reminding
me of giving in to uncontrollable urges in the privacy of my bedroom.

  I wanted to remain steadfast on formal ground. What did it matter, though? Savannah or Savvie, she remained the same person.

  The girl who’d been my best friend. My port in the storm. Who’d coaxed me with smiles and laughter to step onto the edge with her. Then left me there.

  The woman she’d turned into had betrayed me, shown me in no uncertain terms that our friendship meant nothing.

  The phone on my desk buzzed. I ignored it, my fingers creeping once more towards my mouse. The website I called up was one I was unwillingly familiar with, driven to all those years ago by that same crazy compulsion that fuelled everything to do with Savannah. That stuck onto my skin like an unwanted tattoo.

  The page had been created before she’d become famous. Before she’d exploded onto the world stage and into the fantasy of every red-blooded male who set eyes upon her.

  The Personal Fan Page of Savannah Knight: World’s Number One Plus-Size Lingerie Model.

  Her pictures were plastered all over the page, each one more breathtaking than the last. Each shot showing a profusion of her signature dark gold corkscrew curls. Every single picture drove a hot spike of lust through my groin, and even before I was halfway down the page I was as hard as fuck, torn between frustration that she still had this effect on me, a hunger I couldn’t contain and a compulsion to keep going. Keep devouring. Keep salivating. Perhaps even unzip my fly, take out my cock and masturbate like a randy teenager right here in my damn office.

  I resisted that last urge by pushing myself closer to my desk, as if shoving my lower half under my desk would kill the insane urge.

  Mentally rolling my eyes at myself, I scrolled faster. An addict seeking his sweet spot.

  Since launching her own lingerie brand, every runway show Savannah had staged had been a huge success. Every season had brought her more accolades until she now needed a couple of bodyguards for protection from sometimes overeager fans.

  At one picture, I just stopped...stared.

  Bloody hell, she was gorgeous.