“We’ll take a nice long honeymoon once the Alpha Trials are over,” he said, sounding a little less brusque. “You can pick where we go.” He peered at her more closely. “You have heard about the Alpha Trials, right?”
Taylor, her mind reeling, was still fixated on the fact that he’d just said “‘honeymoon”.’
Things couldnotget any weirder.
“You’re talking about us getting married,” she said slowly. “You. Getting married to me.” She’d barely let herself dream of such a possibility over the last year…but now that he was barking his proposal at her as an order, minutes after they’d met in person, it sounded about as appealing as a roadkill soufflé.
Sure, her treacherous body was still gently throbbing with lust, but her brain was recoiling at his harsh tone and businesslike demeanor.
He looked at her, apparently amused. “Married? If that’s what they call it around here. Now, I’m sorry, I’ve got some people here that I need to question,” he said, then…turned and walked out. James flashed an apologetic look at Taylor.
Okay. The conversationhadactually just gotten weirder.
“If that’s what they call it around here?”What the heck else came before a honeymoon?
And why did the big, gorgeous dickhead have to ruin her favorite sex fantasies for her? Sure, he was incredibly hot and made her pink bits throb with desire, but he’d just delivered the least romantic marriage proposal in history. There was no way. No. way.
James cleared his throat. “He’s got a lot on his mind right now. His behavior will be very different after the Trials are over.” Somehow, Taylor could hear the capital “‘T”‘ when James spoke. “I’ll make sure of that,” James added. He flicked a look of annoyance after his employer, then followed him out of the room.
Chantelle rushed in. She’d apparently been standing outside the door listening in. How very Chantelle of her.
“I heard all of that, and yet I do not believe my ears. He didnotjust,” she said to Taylor.
Taylor struggled to regain her composure as Cliff stalked down the hallway, turned a corner, and disappeared from sight. “Yes he did.”
“He didn’t even.” Chantelle stared after him in stunned disbelief. “You need to go and—”
“Hell, yes, I do.” It didn’t matter that Cliff owned the company where she worked. It didn’t matter that he was sexy and rich. Taylor had dealt with bullies since kindergarten, all the way through high school and secretarial school – people who thought they could make fun of her for being fat, or living in a trailer park, or having a drug-addicted, promiscuous mother who slept with all of their fathers, and an alcoholic father who was regularly featured in the local paper’s “Arrests This Week” section.
She’d learned early that if she didn’t stick up for herself, people would walk all over her.
She stormed out of the room and down the hall, and followed the sound of voices. He was in the main conference room.
She burst in, flinging open the door so hard that it banged against the wall and the glass panel in the door cracked.
“You have some nerve!” she yelled at him. “I’m sorry, you actually think I’m going to marry you because you march in here and order me to? That was the rudest, most obnoxious proposal in the history of proposals. I won’t marry you. I won’t date you. I wouldn’t touch you withBrandii’shoo-ha.”
Cliff’s eyes widened in shock, as if nobody had ever spoken to him like that before.
Well, if they hadn’t, it was about time.
James put his hand over his mouth, clearly stifling a laugh.
And then Cliff’s gaze flicked to the other doorway in the room. Perry was standing there, and his eyes were open wide with shock and dismay.
“Taylor, you leave me no choice. You’re fired,” he said.
She knew she could protest, but she’d lose. Cliff was the big boss – and she’d just screamed obscenities at him right in front of Perry.
There was nothing she could do about it. And she would have been fired sooner or later, because she couldn’t get away with stealing the product samples forever, she knew that. Sooner or later it would have come to light. But if she’d played it a little more cool with Cliff, she could at least have bought some more time for Chantelle.
Why do I have such a temper? Why couldn’t I have tried to sweet-talk him? I’ve just killed my best friend,she thought.
Her lips moved mechanically, without apparent help from her brain. “I’ll go clear out my desk.”
Chapter Three
Later that afternoon…
