Page 8 of Illicit Education
I should have gotten off when I had the chance. Now I was trapped with him.
“I’m sorry, I… I meant no offense.”
“Oh, I highly doubt that.” He chuckled, a soft rumble that caressed my ears and sent a shiver of appreciation down my spine. “Backpedaling doesn’t suit you.”
The doors opened to the seventy-fifth floor, but instead of exiting, the man remained positioned closely behind me. Too closely. So closely the heat radiating off of his body was a physical assault on my senses, luring, tempting, drawing me to him. I had to fight to ignore the pull.
A woman looked up from the executive assistant’s desk, eyes widening when she spotted us. Then her surprise morphed into confusion as he reached past me and punched thedoor closebutton with his middle finger, then pressed the button for the seventy-third floor.
“I believe you missed your stop.”
How did he manage to turn even the most innocent statement into something alluring?
His voice wove its way into my ears, teasing my senses.
But it didn’t matter. My attraction to him meant absolutely nothing,especiallynow that I knew I’d likely offended someone who could crush my dreams then multiply his millions in the same moment.
After a swift descent, the elevator doors opened to Reed Romance.
No longer fueled by anger and adrenaline, but pushed forward now by an undercurrent of fear, I hurried forward without looking back. I didn’t need to see amusement in his dark eyes or that sexy–irritating–smirk on his lips.
Or worse, annoyance.
Had I just ended my dream internship before I even started?
The doors closed behind me and I exhaled a sigh of relief. He hadn’t followed me, hadn’t marched out behind me, demanding to know my name so he could guillotine my future.
Maybe he wasn’t even from Reed Enterprises at all. He could have been an author, an agent, an accountant…
Maybe even a journalist.
If he'd been someone of significance, he would have said so. Could have fired me on the spot.
Yeah. He definitely would have said something.
It was fine.Iwas fine.
My thoughts trailed off as I took it all in, joy easing its way up past the various other emotions warring within me. Frustration. Confusion.
Lust.
Shhhh.
A large half-moon desk sat in the center of this level, with a woman manning the phones seated behind it. On the wall above her head were the wordsReed Romancein a bold, block font. Brushed nickel letters, each over a foot tall, stuck out from the wall and were backlit in soft amber light. Above them, in the same metal material, was a massive tree that mimicked the structure erected downstairs in the center of the lobby.
Beneath the logo, in a smaller italic font was the imprint’s tagline:Reed More Romance
It wasn’t all that clever, but it worked.
I paused halfway between the elevator and the receptionist, my heart beginning to race.
This is it.
I did it.
After four years spent obtaining my bachelor’s degree, followed by a six-week crash course in publishing at Columbia, I was about to start my fall internship at Reed Romance.
And now that I was here, standing before the prominent logo I’d seen a million times on the first pages of novels, in news articles and magazines–and, most recently, on the letterhead of my internship invitation letter–the excitement of this day was restored, filling me with the buzz of anticipation and eclipsing even the sexiest smirker from my mind. He didn’t matter, whoever he was.