Sin Garu turned a speculative look back on Tessa, then added one of Marcus’ hairs to the bowl. He paid his spies in the Light Bringers’ Western Kingdom well for results, and a piece of Marcus’ hair was invaluable.
A picture of Marcus appeared, showing him as popular with Seattle’s human scum as he was with Tanselm’s despicable royals and commoners. No matter. Sin Garu stared with loathing as the images of Tessa and Marcus merged to become one. Immediately freezing the water, he erased the present and recalled his plans already set in motion.
Now might belong to Marcus Storm and his brothers, but tomorrow, and Tanselm, would soon be his.
Chapter 1
Tessa
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Marcus Storm stared in disbelief at the memorandum sitting in the center of his obsessively clean, disturbingly organized desk. His dark blue eyes flew over the page, widening at each word.
I had to fight the urge to give in to maniacal laughter and rub my hands together like a super villain.
Just seeing the frown gracing that strong, uncomfortably handsome face made me want to cheer with victory. Finally.
I’d gotten a rise out of the unconscionable playboy.
He glanced up from my latest memo with icy disdain. “You can’t believe I’ll simply accept these cutbacks?”
Much as I would have liked to irritate him for the sheer hell of it, the cutback proposal I’d slaved over for a solid week was necessary if we wanted to keep his newest client profitable.
“Excuse me, Mr. Storm,” I said with exaggerated politeness. “But if Meerlin Incorporated is to have a future with our firm, i.e., turn us a profit, we have to rid ourselves of some unnecessary costs which, unfortunately, with Meerlin’s downsized budget, can no longer be considered practical.”
He stared at me. Just one look from him and my insides turned to mush. It had been like that from the beginning.
The raven-haired, blue-eyed jerk was of the tall, dark, and mouthwatering variety. He roused in me an unfortunate combination of lust and dislike I had yet to reconcile, even after six months of working with him.
Correction, I mentally adjusted myself while he looked at me like some kind of bug he’d like to squash. I’d worked near him for five months. Only recently had I been assigned to work with him.
My boss knew I planned a just revenge for his complicity in partnering me with the conceited hottie.
Jonas had thought it would be funny, the Amazon versus Casanova.
I still wasn’t laughing.
“Ms. Sheridan,” Storm bit out my name like an epithet. “You’re telling me I have to get rid of half my staff in order to keep Meerlin profitable?”
“Yes. But by ‘get rid of’ I mean reassign them to other campaigns.”
His barely banked anger made dealing with him worth it. And only my desire to resolve the situation enabled me to say my next words with a straight face.
“It’s no secret you’re a miracle worker when it comes to marketing and financial strategies. But my forte is logistics. Trust me when I say that our CFO won’t agree to your present numbers for Meerlin.”
And now came the mic drop.
“Though I’m sorry about Meerlin’s own losses, we can’t afford to be nice simply because you slept with their head of advertising.”
There. I’d said what everyone on the floor had been talking about for days.
He answered with an icy composure I found unnerving. “Listening to rumors, Ms. Sheridan?”
He stood up from behind his desk and rounded to face me. Despite my own formidable height, he stood at least five inches taller, putting him at an intimidating six foot four.
“I would have thought a woman who has an extraordinarily friendly relationship with her boss, who wears shirts parted clear down to her navel—” he paused dramatically as he ran his gaze over my body with a searing intensity “—and who consistently manages to rank at the head of the logistics department in Temita Consulting would be loath to put two and two together in the off-chance she might get five.”
I stared, openmouthed. Had he just inferred I’d made my way to the top of the logistics branch using my body?
He smiled, a shark’s grin that blurred my vision with fury.
