My job was good, and the pay was fair, but my apartment wasn’t rent controlled. Tiny as it was, it ran at $2,500 a month after two rent increases over the two years I had been there. Before long I would be priced out entirely and would likely have to move elsewhere within the city borders. I had never really imagined living anywhere else.

My girlhood dream was to make it in the big city, so when I arrived in Manhattan, I figured it was where I was going to stay. Even if I was never going to make it onto a marquee on Broadway, I could still try to reach the dream in my newfound profession. Which just so happened to land me in the place I had always wanted to be.

It was like some kind of wonderful dream, making me think that things might actually still work out for the best. Reality hit like a bare-knuckle prize-fighter soon thereafter.

If I had a boyfriend, it might be different. I could move in with him after getting bucked out, our combined incomes hopefully enough to keep us in shelter for the foreseeable future. Only problem was, no such man existed in my life and I didn’t seem to have very many good prospects of finding one.

My last two boyfriends had left me pretty cold to the whole idea. Though even if they hadn’t and I was still ‘on the market’ as it were, there was still only one buyer I would even consider. But as far as I knew, Max, if he thought about me at all, regarded me as a colleague.

My mind went back to our disastrous lunch. The crying had been a bit much. At least he had paid the bill before leaving. What really hurt was that he didn’t even look my way before leaving, let alone to apologize. It felt like I was nothing. I was fine with being at his beck and call. I enjoyed it honestly, but even I didn’t like to feel like I’d been discarded. Especially not by someone I loved so much.

I was just going to have to forget about him. Not literally, of course. The fact that I worked at his company as his personal assistant made that proposition laughable in its absurdity. I would just have to keep my head down and get the work done, forgetting about any kind of romance blossoming between us.

“The Music of the Night” started blasting from my phone, which was all the way over on the night table. With a most unladylike harrumph, I rolled over to get it, my eyes not even opening as I hit the accept icon, ready to give whoever was calling a very large portion of my mind.

“Carrie?”

One word. That was all it took. I just had to hear him say my name and all the anger and tiredness drained out of me, taking a good deal of my strength with it. Barely able to keep a hold of the phone I realized I’d better say something.

“Good morning, sir.”

I almost said, ‘good morning, master.’ My true intentions nearly slipped out in my surprise. It was sure to be taken as sarcasm even if it had. Still, I managed to avoid any real unpleasantness which I definitely considered a win.

“Listen, I know it’s your day off, but I really need to talk to you about something.”

“Okay.”

“First of all, I’m really sorry about lunch yesterday. I basically ditched you, and that wasn’t right. But I did get some good news. Whitman is investing in the company. This is something that ties into what I started to talk to you about because it is part of a greater push I have been planning.”

“I’m listening,” I said, doing my best to contain my genuine excitement.

I was quite honestly thrilled for him. Whitman was a big catch. If he kept going like this, MP Solutions was going to be one of the top insurance companies in the country within a few years.

“My idea is to have a competition. The rules are pretty simple. Every agent in the firm will have one month to get as many new clients as they can. The two who have brought in the most clients in two months are the winners.”

“What’s the prize?” I asked.

“An all-expenses paid trip with me to the Bahamas for two weeks. On a cruise.”

I was buzzing. Two weeks in the Bahamas with Max! Outside of official work so there wouldn’t be nearly the stigma. If anything was going to happen between us, it was going to be then.

I could just imagine us walking on the beach as the sun set, finding some secluded spot and fucking until we both came. It would be beautiful. I had to win the competition.

“What do you think?” He asked, pulling me out of my reverie of plots and potential villainy.

Tags: Jamie Knight Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net