Taming the Bad Girl

Evernight
Publishing

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright© 2012 Emma
Shortt

 
ISBN:
978-1-927368-60-2

Cover
Artist: Sour Cherry Designs

Editor:
Marie Medina

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING:
The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is
illegal.
 
No part of this book may be
used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This
is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any
resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

This one is for all those bad girls out there. Because
sure, a glowing halo is pretty, but combat boots kick its ass every damn time.

TAMING THE BAD GIRL

Office
Seduction, 2

Emma
Shortt

Copyright © 2012

Chapter One

Lucy: When your life is in the skids there’s not much you can do but
get your bitch on.

I sat in my black, leather chair, hands splayed
on the enormous pine desk, body rigid. My knees were clenched tightly together,
my spine screaming from the months of tension I’d subjected it to. I could feel
the cold, smooth wood beneath my palms, and it was almost a counterpoint to my
entire mood. It should feel scratchy surely? The wood sticking out and digging
into my skin. That would fit my entire life right now. Hell, it would fit my
life for the last few months and then some.

“So here we are then.” This came from Giles,
head of finance, and the man now in charge of my entire budget.

I ran my palms back and forth across the desk,
trying to ignore his words, trying to ignore him. It was either that or
scream
from the top of my lungs, or cry until my eyes hurt.
I couldn’t do either, of course, so holding
myself
still and pretending Giles wasn’t there was the only way to drag at some
control.

“Lucy, are you even listening?”

His velvety drop-your-pants-right-fucking-now
voice sounded exasperated. But then it always did around me—when he bothered to
address me at all that was—ever since that night all those months ago. A night
that had twisted my entire life on its head and sent me down a path I strongly
regretted ever following. To say I was fucked up was a bit of an
understatement. Today’s events so were not helping.

“No,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’m not.”

He sighed. “You’re out of choices, darling.
Gabe’s made the decision.”

I curled my fingers into fists and bit down on
the inside of my mouth.
The left cheek, which was already
ragged from all the stress of the last few weeks.
I tasted blood and
shuddered, Giles words echoing through my mind making my heart give a nasty
squeeze. Not just because of the truth of the words but because he’d called me
darling—plus with a sneer. It was the equivalent of a Giles insult. He knew I’d
pick up on it, and that fact made it hurt all the more.

“The right one, in my opinion,” Giles continued.
“You need my help, Lucy.
Whether you want to admit it or
not.”

Again with the sneer and again
with the squeeze.
A lump welled in my throat and
I had to clench my jaw to hold it back. Almost against my will I lifted my gaze
to his, nearly gasping as I looked into the deep hazel of his eyes. How many
months had I avoided doing just that? Now I remembered exactly why. The oh-so
familiar pain shot across my chest, joining up with the lump and throbbing.
Part of me couldn’t quite believe it still hurt so much. It wasn’t anywhere
close to being fair.

“Gabe can fuck off.”

Giles raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow and
held my gaze through hooded lids. The lump, the throb, hell, everything
intensified and a shiver ran through me. I opened my mouth to insult the boss
again, more to take my mind of the fact that Giles was here in my office than
anything else, but closed it just in time. Telling the man who paid my wages to
fuck off was not the smartest thing to do, and not in keeping with my ‘pretend
it’s not happening’ stance of just a moment ago. Still, it wasn’t like I didn’t
have a million insults stored and at the ready.

Gabe
Janson
.
I shuddered in an
entirely different way at the thought of him because he was my actual overlord,
head of the company since about a month ago, and he’d practically demoted me
without even the courtesy of telling me himself.
The bastard.
No, he’d sent Giles to do his dirty work. Suffice it to say my feelings towards
Gabe were not of the fluffy, happy kind—if anything they were the
ready-to-murder kind, hence my cache of insults. It didn’t help either that
he’d hooked up with my best friend or that I’d
boinked
his not so long ago.
Another event in my life that I
regretted—strongly.
And when it came right down to it, all my stupid,
crazy choices of the past four months stemmed from one place and one place
only.

No, one man, and he was standing right in front
of me.

That thought was enough to crack my pretend
composure, and I jumped up from the desk, no longer able to stay still. What
good did it do after all, wallowing in my own misery? It only made things
worse. Getting my bitch on was my only defense, the only way to keep a bit of
the old me in place, or as I liked to think of it, the pre-Giles me. My chair
whizzed back against the wall with a bang and I glared.

“Gabe’s saving your ass,” Giles said as I opened
my own mouth—probably to throw out another insult—and the languid tone to his
voice had me adding him to the take-the-bastard-down list.
Though
in actuality he was already on it, had been ever since that night.
No,
not the night, I corrected myself, my heart aching again. The morning after,
when he’d tossed me aside without so much as a ‘thanks but
no
thanks.’

“Gabe’s a total bastard,” I screeched, yes
screeched
,
it was the only way to keep control. “He
waltzes in here like he owns the place—”

“Which he does.”

“And demotes me?”

Giles laughed softly, and I hated the fact that
it raised all sorts of goose bumps along my skin. Again, it wasn’t fair! Why
hadn’t the rest of my body picked up on what my heart felt? It should be just
as numb, surely? Just as pained? Not panting like a fucking dog at the first
flash of Giles’ fantastic eyes.

“You’re in the shit, Lucy,” Giles said. “You
know it and I know it, and the only way you’re getting out is to accept my
help.”

“You’ve wanted this all along!” I said, once
more with the screech. Because apart from all the other stuff between us, the
stuff we never spoke about, everyone knew that Giles did not approve of my work
style. He was finance, after all, and I was creative. The two didn’t mix. Hell,
nothing
about us mixed, which I knew
now. If only I’d known it all those months ago….

I took a deep breath, and in an effort to both
gather some control and oust Giles seductive eyes from my thoughts, visualized
my budget sheet for the millionth time. Where had all the money gone? I
couldn’t quite work out how I’d spent it all, though I had, clearly. My annual
budget was about as empty as my bra without the padding, and I had to find a
way to make it all balance for the rest of the year. Staff wages had to be
paid, suppliers invoices had to be settled. I had to make the budget stack up
before Gabe would authorize Giles to give me any more money. To show him
exactly what I’d spent it all on. Which was why Giles was now leaning against
my office door, hands in his pockets,
gaze
amused,
eyeing me in a way that just screamed satisfaction.

An image came to me then, hitting me with such
force that I almost moaned. Giles looking an altogether other sort of
satisfied, and I felt my heart give another little twist, another little break,
another piece falling off and disappearing God knew where.

 
“Wanted
to be landed with a spoiled brat like you?” Giles said, and yep, off went
another piece. “I don’t think so, darling.”

“You—”

“But this is the way it is, so
get
used to it.”

I narrowed my eyes and sucked in a deep
breath.
 
Unsure really
what to say to that or what to do.
For the last months I’d lived in a
sort of weird state that even I couldn’t understand—and I was the one doing it!
I partied hard and worked hard because I just did not know how else to handle
what had happened with Giles, and in my mind eventually everything would sort
itself out. My life, my heart, it would all come together. It had to, right?
That was the way the world worked. Only it hadn’t, it
wasn’t
. My partying had gotten so out of control, past the
boundaries of what was even acceptable anymore. A long list of men flashed
through my mind and I bit down on my cheek again. And then the projects, the
ones I’d been sure I’d win if I just worked a bit harder, put a bit more of my
budget into it. I’d placed everything on the line and now, as Giles said, here
we were.