Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Vance Morgan. The man I abhorred. Despised even.
I shoved away from his hard body, tilting back my head. My gaze flicked from his soul-sucking green eyes to his sharp jawline and finally to those full man lips I regretfully had a thing for. I was certain a celibate nun could take one look at those suckers and have her clit involuntarily throb. Saddling up on a face like his would have probably been worth ten Hail Marys and a short stay in purgatory—if he hadn’t been the vainest, most-cavalier, narcissistic bastard I’d ever met.
“Do you not watch where you’re going?” I said, glaring up at him.
“You’re beneath my line of vision, Blake.”
Short jokes at eight in the morning? The audacity.
The rhythmic tap tap tap of fingers over keyboards filled the tense silence. While I fought the urge to tell him to take a running start and leap out the window, he did the thing that set me off. He smirked a dimple-popping smirk.
The tiny volcano of anger I kept reserved only for him blew. “Go fuck yourself,” I said, then flipped him off before walking away.
Was that an irrational reaction? Sure.
But, in my defense, I was already in an awful mood. Not only did the man make me irate by existing in the same office space, but that smirk… It was the same thigh-loosening, playboy smirk he’d given me months ago at his New Year’s Eve party. Right before he had pressed me to his bedroom wall, leaned in, kissed my neck, and whispered, “I heard you were easy.”
Heard you were easy?!
The man had actually uttered those words and thought, what? That it was the Fast Pass ticket to a one-night stand?
Well, I can tell you it most certainly was not. I wasn’t a violent woman, but the second that sentence left his stupid mouth, I balled my fist, pulled back my arm, and nailed him right in his misogynistic eye.
I wound through the cubicle aisles, then chucked my purse to the floor space beneath my desk before plopping down onto my spiny chair. Between the engagement invitation and Vance’s smirk, I needed to take a breath. A very deep, calming breath.
After I’d taken a not-so-cleansing breath, I booted up my computer and opened my email.
Followers wanted to know the best hotels in Miami and the tastiest Italian food in Sacramento. I’d just jotted down a potential pitch on solo travel when my phone vibrated on my desk.
I need an RSVP ASAP.
Kate. I clenched my teeth and growled like a feral cat. One on a fencepost with its back arched and scraggly hair on end.
“Angry short girl,” Vance’s voice came through the other side of the cubicle.
My attention went to the fabric-covered pressboard. “Colossal chauvinistic cretin.” Oh, that collection of words was good, and if there was one thing I appreciated, even when the universe was in the middle of taking a huge dump on me, it was a good word. “Cretin means idiot, in case your silence means you’re trying to look it up in your dictionary.”
“And necromancer means witch.”
I bit my lip.
Necromancer was a good word, but since I was not in the mood for this back and forth to go on for another ten minutes, I skipped right past calling him an amoral fuckboy and went for the jugular. “You vanquished woebegone flop—that means you lost—who isn’t going to Paris because the woman who gave him a black eye won the pitch instead of him.”
Ah, now that was silence.
Blissful, beautiful, butthurt silence because my one good-luck incident this month had been my winning the pitch for the holy grail of all assignments. Two whole weeks of European travel.
I had four more days in this cubicle hell, and as long as I didn’t lose my passport or Wanderlust didn’t go bankrupt and lay off everyone, I would be on a Paris-bound flight in roughly ninety-six hours.
I wouldn’t have to deal with Vance, his smirks, or his annoyingly deep laugh that rumbled daily through that stupid divider. Bonus to that, I wouldn’t have to deal with my boss, Amanda, or the old lady who lived next to me and sang the most ear-splitting renditions of Mariah Carey to her fifteen cats, and most importantly of all, I wouldn’t have to deal with my traitorous sister and her dumb engagement party.
That trip was going to be my Eat, Pray, Love moment. My chance to forget about the shit-covered wrecking ball leveling everything in my life while I gorged myself on European pastries and museums. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure if I’d come back to Manhattan. Maybe I’d just disappear. Take up a new identity…
Vance’s snort bled through the thin makeshift wall. “I hope the next stage of your life comes with a ladder.”
Two short-person jabs in a matter of ten minutes?