Do-Over by Dorien Kelly Read Free Book Online Page A

code-speak or something?”
    “Your former secretary, Leigh, and her boyfriend,” she explained impatiently. “They were going at it like otters between the L and the M rows when she was supposed to be working overtime to purge old files. Howard stopped by to pick something up. Now he’s having the area sterilized.”
    Cara smiled at a vision of Howard in a haz-mat suit,spraying down files. Then another thought distracted her. “Otters?”
    “Yeah, otters,” Annabeth snapped. “Got a better word?”
    “You’re a little testy this morning. What’s up?”
    “He’s here.”
    “Who’s here?”
    “Mark Morgan. I heard you screamed at him in the parking lot on Saturday, but to refresh your memory—big hands…bigger ego.”
    That sounded about right. “Where is he?”
    “Moving into Rory’s old office.”
    “No stinking way!”
    “Ah, I feel better already,” Annabeth sighed.
    Cara didn’t hear because she’d already hung up and headed for battle.
    She found Mark Morgan behind the desk that was to be hers, looking like the king of all he surveyed. Which left her, once again, in the role of a groveling subject. The skin on the back of Cara’s neck crawled with a nauseating sense of déjà vu. Years melted away and she was watching Morgan move into the editor-in-chief’s spacious office, while she tucked her tin cup of stumpy red pencils into the grungy, gray cubicle she’d been allotted outside His Highness’s door.
    Some of what she felt must have telegraphed itself because she was sure she saw a flash of pity cross his face.
    Screw pity.
    “Hi,” he said.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Looking around. I’ll be moving in here.”
    “Is that so?” she said in the same tone she’d use to say, “Drink some strychnine.”
    He glanced over her shoulder and out the door as though seeking backup. “I figure they stuck me in here because it was convenient.”
    “As opposed to the two open associate offices just down the hall?”
    “Cara—”
    Oh God, now she could hear the pity.
    Screw him.
    “Do you recall me being particularly stupid back in law school?”
    He didn’t answer. In fact, as she watched him sitting there saying bloody nothing, it was as though he had forgotten that she was in the room. The beginnings of a smile played about his mouth. He had these cool crinkles at the corners of his eyes she couldn’t recall seeing before. And the hot expression in those eyes sent a primal shiver through her, which, of course, ticked her off all the more.
    “Morgan?” She leaned across the desk and waved a hand in front of his face. “Anybody home?”
    “Huh?”
    This was her competition? Just now, the NYC-minimalist suit and tie had more life than their wearer. “I don’t know how you remember me, but I don’t remember you being this dumb. First, pay attention when I talk. It gets on my nerves the way you wander off as if I’m too complicated to follow.
    “And second, don’t humor me. I know the score. They stuck you in this office because they figure it will be easier than having you move again when you make partner. My advice to you is not to get too comfortable. I’ve put in six long years of work to get that chair,” she said, pointing at the high-end leathermodel he so happily occupied. “No way are you weaseling ahead of me.”
    He watched her with the kind of calm she’d kill to really possess, instead of fake. Seconds slipped by, the two of them locked in a battle Cara chose only to half understand. Then that smile—the one promising wonders that would spoil a woman for all other men—appeared. “You know, we could always share. Wanna sit on my lap?”
    “Jerk,” she snapped. “This isn’t funny.” She turned heel and retreated to the low-rent district. His laugher drifted through the wall.
    Damn, damn, damn! Feeling totally impotent, Cara paced between the desk and the credenza. They’d given him Rory’s office. Smoke from the Vatican chimney would be no clearer a