Haze

by Deborah Bladon

  HAZE

  a novel

  New York Times Bestselling Author

  Deborah Bladon

  Also by Deborah Bladon

  THE OBSESSED SERIES

  THE EXPOSED SERIES

  THE PULSE SERIES

  THE VAIN SERIES

  THE RUIN SERIES

  IMPULSE

  SOLO

  THE GONE SERIES

  FUSE

  THE TRACE SERIES

  CHANCE

  THE EMBER SERIES

  THE RISE SERIES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  When I’m writing or releasing a book, it’s more than just me. I am thankful to have an incredible support system lifting and guiding me to the finish line, each and every single time. Here are a few of those amazing people:

  Thank you to my family, for the long nights, the busy days, knowing when I need a break and always ensuring I had a sugary concoction from Starbucks in my hands. You are all my whole life and thank you for supporting my dream.

  Thank you to M, for having more faith in me than I had in myself.

  Thank you to A.J. for helping me to close my eyes to make a wish. It came true.

  Thank you to my Amazon team, I rely on you more than you know.

  And the biggest thank you to the readers. The Bladon Babes. Without you, none of this is possible. It has been the utmost pleasure writing stories for you and if you’re reading this, thank you for investing in me one more time.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Epilogue

  Thank You

  Preview of TORN

  Preview of HEAT

  Deborah’s Mailing List

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  Isla

  "How long have you worked here?" His voice is cultured, deep and smooth. It's not uncommon to hear a voice like that in this boutique. I've worked here for six weeks now and at least twice a week a man with too much money and an insatiable need to see young women dressed in expensive lingerie will come waltzing through the doors.

  "Welcome to Liore," I say softly as I glance to my left to where he's standing.

  I have to look up. He's large, not just in height but in his shoulder's breadth. His eyes are a rich brown, his hair just as dark. His nose is sculptured and his strong jaw only adds to his exceptionally striking features. The suit he's wearing is dark blue, perhaps even black. It's hard to tell under the chandelier lights that decorate this opulent space.

  "Isla." His eyes hover over my chest before they settle on my name tag. "It's nice to meet you, Isla."

  "It's lovely to meet you…" I pause. It's not only because I've been instructed to grab the name of each customer to give them a personal shopping experience. I want to know his name.

  "Gabriel," he offers with a light touch of his hand on mine.

  The name is oddly familiar. As I work to place it, I see him peering across the boutique at my boss. "Is there something I can help you find, Gabriel? Are you purchasing something for a girlfriend, or perhaps, your wife?"

  His expression shifts slightly. "I have neither."

  That's a pity but it's not. This is exactly the type of man I envisioned in my mind's eye when I arrived in Manhattan. I graduated from high school less than two years ago and my dreams of attending Julliard on a scholarship had vanished as quickly as my clean record when I broke one too many rules in high school.

  "Is there something in particular that you're looking for?" I catch the faint wave of the hand of one of my co-workers across the aisle. I ignore it because when a customer is ready to buy, the store could be engulfed in flames, and I'm not moving an inch. The commissions here are the highest I've ever earned in retail and the secret to guarantee a big sale is to make the customer feel as though they're the only one in the boutique.

  His eyes scan the various bras we have displayed before they move to the lace panties and garters. "If I asked you to try something on for me, Isla, would you do that? Would you take me into one of the change rooms with you?"

  I've read the employee handbook. No, I skimmed it briefly while on my way to work that first day weeks ago. The number one rule is to never take a male customer into the rooms. Men who lead you into those quiet spaces are craving more than a private fashion show. I know that. "I'm sorry, Gabriel. That's against company policy."

  He studies my face carefully. The dark shadow around my blue eyes looks hideous in the alarming bright light of the morning, but in here it's sensual and alluring. My shoulder length blonde hair is straight today, a sharp contrast to my high cheekbones. I'm here to sell lingerie and the light pink wrap around dress I'm wearing accentuates everything it needs to. He hasn't walked away yet, so he's still primed to buy.

  He closes the short distance between us as he steps towards me. "You don't strike me as the type of young woman who follows all the rules."

  It's tempting. Not just because of the extra money I'd find in my pocket. "I don't follow rules, Gabriel. If you want a private show, I can come to your office after work."

  His brow cocks with the suggestion. "Is that something you offer to customers often?"

  I've never offered it before. "I only offer it to the ones who peak my interest."

  "I'll give you my card." His hand dips into the inner pocket of his suit jacket.

  I take it from his long, elegant fingers and look down at it. I don't have time to read the details before my boss, Cicely, is upon us.

  I turn to look at her but she's staring at Gabriel. Her hand leaps to his shoulder.

  "Mr. Foster," she says slowly. "I see that you've met our newest girl. Isla, you're explaining everything we offer to Mr. Foster, yes?"

  I look down at the card of Mr. Gabriel Foster, the CEO of Foster Enterprises and the man who owns this boutique.

  "Isla has been very cordial." He glides the tip of his index finger along my wrist. "She's coming by my office today. I'll expect you at four, Isla."

  "At four," I repeat back. "I'll be there at four, sir."

  His eyes skim slowly over my body before they stop on my face. "Don't be late and bring those samples we spoke of."

  I freeze as his hand runs up my arm before he brushes past me towards the front of the shop.

  ***

  "You didn't answer my question earlier." Cicely throws me an agitated look as she walks into the stockroom, her long dark curls bouncing against her back with each step she takes. "I need you to explain exactly what's going on."

  I need her to back o
ff.

  Once Gabriel Foster left, my boss had turned her attention solely to me. She can't be more than twenty-eight-years-old, but her strict, no-nonsense approach to managing the store ages her considerably. She scolded me like a child when I was precisely four minutes late to a shift last week and she's constantly schooling me on how to upsell every customer.

  I don't need her condescending attitude. I do my job well. I proved that in spades just ten minutes ago when my last customer left here with over eighteen hundred dollars of merchandise tucked into a signature pale peach shopping bag with the Liore logo emblazoned across it. Considering the fact that she came in looking for one pair of black panties, I'd call that a huge success.

  "What question is that?" I ask without looking up from the cardboard box I'm currently unpacking.

  Today is delivery day at the boutique which means every sales associate on duty has to put in an hour in the back sorting through the new merchandise to ready it before it can be displayed on the sales floor. I hate this part of my job because it means commissions that should be mine are instead being pocketed by one of my co-workers.

  "The question about what is going on between you and Mr. Foster." She reaches into the box to yank out a short, yellow, satin robe. "You need to steam these before you hang them up."

  I glance over to where the upright steamer is resting. I'd plugged it into the electrical socket immediately after I opened the box and saw how wrinkled everything was. I know how important impeccable presentation is to the Liore brand. "I'll take care of that, Cicely."

  "Answer my question. What was Mr. Foster talking about? Why are you going to his office with samples?"

  I make a frustrated noise under my breath. Confessing to her that I propositioned the owner of the company we both work for will cut my shift short, and it will essentially mean the end of my job. Cicely is definitely a 'by the book' type. It's just one of the many ways we are polar opposites. I take a step towards the steamer with a robe in my hand, hoping she'll jump off her current train of thought and launch into a long-winded tutorial about how to use it properly, even though she's already demonstrated that to me a handful of times since I started working here.

  "It's about the shipment of lace garter slips that arrived last week, isn't it?" The robe in her hand drops back into the box as she lets it fall from her grasp. "That must be why he was here today. I was personally supposed to verify the quality of that order and report back to him. It completely slipped my mind."

  I half-shrug my shoulder as I watch her scurry across the floor to an unopened box. This is the most flustered I've seen her and I have to admit, it's a good look for her.

  "Drop all of that." Her hands both wave in the air in my direction. "We need to get these ready so we can take them to his office at four o'clock."

  "We?" I cling tightly to the robe in my fist. "I think Mr. Foster just wanted to see me. He didn't say anything about you."

  Any semblance of vulnerability leaves her expression as her perfectly tweezed dark brows rise. "Have you forgotten that you work for me, Isla Lane? You don't know the first thing about these samples. They're one of the new products that Mr. Foster just approved. I'll go with you. You'll watch and learn."

  I don't say another word as I toss the robe I'm holding back into the box and walk across the room towards her. As frustrating as Cicely is and as much as I detest having her breathing over my shoulder on a daily basis, having her in this meeting may be my saving grace. I just might be able to salvage my job, if I play my cards right.

  -Uploaded by Em's Emporium ORD -VK-

  If you're not getting this book from Em's Emporium then the person who uploaded this book didn't care for this group. Such an ignorant person who gain benefit for her own purposes

  Why do you support this person?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Gabriel

  I see my mother through the open doors of my office before she turns to look at me. In that instant, I'm reminded that I arranged this meeting. I ordered her here because I need answers.

  As I watch her make small talk with my assistant, I can't help but admire how she carries herself around others. She appears confident to a fault. The way she holds her shoulders back is evidence of that. You'd never know by looking at her that she's as careless and reckless as she is. She knows that there's little I can do to remedy her behavior other than to explain the impact her actions have on the business, as a whole. There's no doubt in my mind that she recognizes the risk she's taking. It's what energizes her and pushes her forward.

  I reach to tap on the frame of the wooden double doors but it's unnecessary. Her dark eyes catch mine as her gaze wanders the reception area. She's bored with whatever, Sophia, my assistant is talking about. That's clear to me. Sophia, on the other hand, is oblivious to her disinterest and only ups the volume of her voice. The clattered chatter of her words is filling the space, seeping into my office.

  "Gabriel." An instant smile courses over my mother's deep red lips. "I'm early."

  She's not.

  I'd asked her to meet me almost an hour ago. She'd countered with a proposed dinner meeting, but my plans for tonight are non-negotiable. When I'd explained that I needed her in my office no later than three, she'd told me she'd make it by five. It's a quarter to four now.

  "Join me in my office." I hold her gaze, waiting for her to dismiss Sophia with a thoughtless flick of her wrist. It's the same gesture she's used on me time and again.

  "Your secretary is telling me the most outlandish tale about a bullfrog."

  My eyes drop to the marble floor in an attempt to mask the grin that I feel on my lips. "A bullfrog?"

  "She asked where I grew up, Mr. Foster," Sophia goes on, "I was telling her about some of the things I saw back home."

  I look up and directly at her. I have no idea where 'home' is to her. She was a quick hire after my last assistant quit on the spot more than three months ago. Her name escapes me but the vile loathing in her eyes when I refused her request for an extra week's vacation to accommodate her honeymoon was memorable.

  All the pent up resentment she'd held within for the eighteen months she worked for me had collided with her better judgment and had won. She'd hurled a barrage of insults at me in such rapid succession that I struggled to distinguish one from the other.

  Once her peace was said, I calmly informed her that the two weeks of vacation time she'd previously requested had been approved months earlier and tacking on 'a few more days' as she casually put it, would eat into my time in London during fashion week. I needed her there with me, not on a beach in the Caribbean drinking cocktails crafted from tropical fruit and flavored rum.

  "We need to talk, mother," I say, ignoring the expected question about Sophia's childhood and the amphibian that apparently played an important role in the story of her life. "You can continue this conversation when we're done."

  She shoots me a look that carries a veiled warning of something intended to be menacing. It may have worked, and likely did, when I was still a child, but now that I'm thirty-two-years old and running an international conglomerate that boasts our shared surname, the impact it has is fleeting, at best.

  "You're asking me to be rude, Gabriel." She yanks softly on the diamond earring that is hanging from her left ear. "I'm just getting to know Sophia. You can wait a few minutes while we finish up."

  It's now clear that she knows exactly why I insisted she make time for me today. It's also obvious why she lobbied for a discussion over dinner. She wanted the security that a crowded restaurant would bring. My mother knows me well enough to recognize that discussing family business in public isn't something I willfully do. That has a time and place, and regardless of what my mother wants, the time is right now.

  "This can't wait." I motion towards my office. "We need to talk. That needs to happen now."

  Her lips etch into a firm, thin line as she tosses her purse and coat on Sophia's desk in an overly dramatic gesture before she walks straigh
t towards me.

  ***

  "Your father would have no part of this." She arches her neck to once again look at the now closed doors of my office. It's the third time she's done it since I suggested she sit on the black leather sofa before I sat next to her. "He wouldn't approve of this at all."

  I unbutton my suit jacket. "When is the last time you spoke to him?"

  "Why? It doesn't matter when I spoke to him."

  It actually does.

  Since their divorce more than a decade ago my parents' broken relationship has swung on a pendulum from adoration to unconstrained contempt, bordering on hatred. The latter usually is in play when my father brings his latest companion to a company function in full view of my mother.

  The string of dalliances he's had since they separated has been with women younger than me who view him as a tolerable rung on the ladder to success. Not one of the dozen or so women who have flirted their way into my father's life has lasted more than a few months.

  "You know how much I value your input, Mother." I lean back wanting my body language to convey my message just as much as my words. I've learned in the most difficult way possible, through much trial and error, that the only way to handle Gianna Foster effectively is to make her feel valued and irreplaceable. "You also know that I'm not hiring any new designers at the moment."

  She scratches the top of her forehead. The motion pushes a few strands of her deep brown hair aside. My mother has never made a secret of her pursuit of youth. She's on a first name basis with at least three of the most prestigious plastic surgeons in Manhattan. In her ongoing effort to recapture the face that once was reflected back in the mirror, she's lost the natural glow she had when I was a child. I remember back then thinking that she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. Now, as I look at her perfect complexion, I see a woman battered within by the ever moving hands of time.