An Innocent Obsession

CHAPTER ONE

Emery

I can’t breathe.

I can’t stop shaking.

Today is the day. It’s happening. I never thought I would come within a hundred yards of the man I love beyond reason and accountability, but today I will.

Clarke Carroway is…

No, there are no words to describe him. Not a single one that would do him justice.

I stare into the mirror and try to control my breathing, watching my friend Karen twist a braid into a blonde crown on my head. Does Clarke like braids? I know so much about him. Practically everything. His preferred brand of toothpaste, the color of his bedsheets, the fact that he keeps packets of sugar in the pocket of his dress pants and forgets to take them out.

Yes, these are the perks of being a house cleaner for the obscenely rich.

Scrubbing floors is not my only job, though.

Twice a week, I volunteer in the file room at Carroway-Silver, a corporation that has revolutionized the renewable energy industry. Clarke sits at the helm of the company he created and rules it with quiet authority, spending his days on the top floor of merely one of the skyscrapers he owns in New York City.

And while he’s behind that desk making multi-billion-dollar decisions, I do very bad things. Inexcusable things that could not only lose me my cleaning job but get me in trouble with the police. Can I help needing to be close to Clarke any way possible, though? No. Every single time, I tell myself I shouldn’t take off my clothes and writhe about in the expensive sheets that smell of musk and male. I try so hard to stop myself, but as soon as I catch a whiff of his scent, I find myself crawling in, desperate to be near him in some small way. I shudder to think what would happen if my supervisor caught me.

Or Clarke.

What would happen if he walked in and caught me naked in his sheets?

“What in God’s name are you thinking about, Em?” Karen chuckles as she puts the finishing touches on my new hairstyle. “Your cheeks are bright red.”

I press my cool palms to my face and once again remind myself to inhale, exhale. “I just can’t believe I’m going to be inside his office. He’s going to be so close.”

In the mirror’s reflection, I watch Karen cast a glance around my tiny bedroom. At the pictures I have taped to the walls. Pictures I had no right to take. “You know well enough what Clarke Carroway looks like. The sight of him shouldn’t shock you.”

“I’ve never been this close,” I whisper, running my hands down the front of my blue, thrift shop dress, wishing it was nicer. Newer. “What if he…looks at me? What if I freeze?”

“You won’t,” Karen says, patting my shoulder. “Everything is going to be fine.”

Closing my eyes, I let Karen’s reassurances wash over me. What would I do without Karen? I’m nineteen years old and she should have kicked me out of the orphanage when I turned eighteen. But she let me stay—and thank God. I have nowhere else to go. I have some money saved from working two jobs, but my dream is to go to college. Karen has agreed to let me keep my room at the home until I’ve saved enough for a full year of classes.

“Tell me again why you’re going to be in Mr. Carroway’s office,” Karen says, pushing a bobby pin into my hair in that no-nonsense manner of hers. “I thought your coworker was the liaison between him and the records room.”

“Marion usually brings him the requested files, but she’s on vacation in Fort Lauderdale with her family.” Finally. It only took her a year. “So I’m bringing him the files while she’s gone.”

Karen narrows an eye at me in the mirror. “And this close proximity to Mr. Carroway wouldn’t happen to be the reason you applied for the file room job, is it?”

“It’s terrible of me, isn’t it?” I murmur. “Why can’t I get him out of my head?”

My friend humphs in her throat. “I still remember the first day you laid eyes on him. The gossip section of the newspaper, wasn’t it?”

Heart fluttering, my gaze drifts over to the glossy clipping affixed to my wall. In the fading picture, Clarke is crossing Fifth Avenue, a black overcoat flapping behind him in the wind. Oh, he’s beautiful. Harshly masculine, tall, commanding, robust. His dark hair twists around his head in the breeze, a groove of annoyance between his black brows. That’s what made my palms start to sweat the first time I saw the picture—his expression. Clarke Carroway didn’t have time for photographers or any other nonsense. He had an empire to run. And an iron fist with which to do it.

In my dreams, he rules me with that iron fist.