Do-Over by Dorien Kelly Read Free Book Online

the jugular, Bri. And this time, put your money on me. I swear I’ll win.”
    Bri cheered, Cara winced at the noise, and up on Olympus, Zeus and his buddies began to tally the odds.

4
    Cara’s Rule for Success 4:
    If you’re on the losing side of a battle,
    manipulate it until
    you look like a winner.
    T WO MINUTES PAST NINE on Monday morning, Mark walked through the front doors of Saperstein, Underwood.
    “Good morning,” he said to the person he knew from some prior groundwork to be Annabeth Kielman. Of course, he hadn’t expected that she’d be wearing a broad metal choke chain usually seen on a rabid Rottweiler, or that she’d be humming “Taps.” “I’m Mark—”
    She glared at him. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a ceremony?” With a militarily precise turn, she faced the wall of names behind her. She took two steps forward, the edgy American version of a Buckingham Palace guard.
    Intrigued, Mark watched as she slid the plate bearing Rory McLohne’s name from its holder. With a turn, she faced him. Brass plate held between thumb and index finger, she brought her hand to shoulder height, then released. Mark raised a brow at her cannibalistic smile when Rory’s nameplate landed with athud in what he assumed was a wastebasket. She dusted off her hands and then returned to her desk.
    “I take it you weren’t a fan of Rory’s?” he asked.
    She toyed with the metal ring at the end of her chain, brushing her fingers against the upper curves of what looked to Mark to be manufactured—or at least rearranged—cleavage.
    “Big ego, small… hands. ”
    Nibbling on her lower lip, she made a show of sizing him up. For about a tenth of a second he was startled, but then he had her pegged. Mark settled his palms on the smooth granite surface of the desk. Look all you want, Lolita, he thought.
    Leaning forward, he gave her an intimate smile…a knowing smile.
    Her smug expression wavered just enough that he knew his instincts were dead-on. “You like your little kingdom, here, don’t you, Annabeth?”
    “It sucks.”
    Spoken like a true postmodern man-eater. “Ah, but here you’re safe. Here you’re in control. It’s so much better than that big, mean world out there, isn’t it?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied in a venomous voice.
    “Sure you do, and here’s my deal for you… If you don’t play me, I won’t play you. Straight-up and honest between us.”
    Her black-eyeliner-rimmed eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
    He held out one hand to shake hers. “My name is Mark Morgan and I’ll be moving into Rory McLohne’s old office. I won’t call you demanding coffee and I won’t expect you to run personal errands for me. I will expect you to greet my clients politely and to takecomprehensible messages when calls for me land up here. And in exchange, Annabeth, your little secret will be safe with me. You can pretend to hate this place worse than Jackson State Prison.”
    Her flat stare from eyes so pale gray they were almost void of color might have made some guys question their judgment, but not Mark. He dropped his hand and shrugged. “Okay, have it your way.”
    In what could be interpreted as an act of capitulation, she shoved a pile of pink message slips across the counter at him.
    He smiled. “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
    “Eat shit,” was Annabeth’s succinct reply.
    Mark shrugged. “Close enough.”
    C ARA SAT BEHIND her desk, door closed, deep in a mental run-through of her shark-baiting strategies. She half wondered whether he was late just to jerk with her. Okay, so he was late only by her standards, she conceded with a glance at her watch. As she practiced her calm smile, the one that said, “I’m in control, as I should be,” the interoffice line on her phone rang.
    Cara glanced at the caller ID, then picked up. “Hey, Annabeth.”
    “They were doing it in the file room.”
    Cara blinked. “Is this