Don't Ever Stop: A BDSM Billionaire Romance by Vivie Rock Read Free Book Online Page B

thing myself, given the opportunity.’
    With that, I closed the door of her dusty office for the last time, and went back to my old desk to pack up. I told Patrick about Jen, that Redmond Cooper had had her fired. Patrick took it better than I’d been expecting. He laughed about the fact that two days after winning an award he was the only one left on the team, so full rights of the trophy went to him now. But he did seem disappointed to see me going.
    ‘We’ll keep in touch,’ I said. ‘I’ll still be in the same city.’
    ‘I’ll hold you to that,’ Patrick said, with a smile. ‘In fact, why don’t we meet for drinks after your first week at work? Friday night? You can tell me all about it?’
    I shrugged and nodded. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘You can pick me up outside Global. We’ll explore the bars in Midtown.’
    ‘Very fancy,’ said Patrick, and he gave me a hug. I once read that hugs should last approximately three seconds. Any less and it looks like your humoring the other person, any more and you’re either after something , or unaware of social conventions. This hug lasted for about ten seconds. And as far as I’d gathered in the three weeks I’d known him, Patrick was an aficionado of social convention.
    I took in the extra seconds of the hug to smell his aftershave. Calvin Klein, I thought. It was quite pleasant.
    Eventually, Patrick pulled away from me, and I picked up my box of stationery and left the office.
    That night at home, telling my parents the news wasn’t so easy.
    ‘You did what ?!’ shouted my dad. ‘I used my connections to get you that job, and you stuck it out three weeks! Any idea how that’ll look on your resume? You’ve got to stick with a job like that for at least a year!’
    ‘Have you thought about how Global Media’s going to look on my resume?’ I asked moodily. ‘That’s better than ten years at The Chronicle!’
    My dad was hurt. He’d tried hard to get me that job. I needed to back down. ‘Look, Dad, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It was a difficult decision.’ (That part was a lie, of course.) ‘But this is a big deal for me. I really feel like the course of my whole life is about to change.’
    Dad appreciated my apology. ‘Just be careful, okay kiddo?’ he said, taking my mom’s hand. ‘We both care about you a lot.’
    ‘We know what these big corporations can be like,’ chipped in Mom. ‘How they can take advantage of you.’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ I told them both. ‘I won’t let anyone take advantage of me.’
    I gave them both a hug, and then walked up to my room, sensing that maybe, finally, their little girl was about to become a woman.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    The Glamorous World Of International News
     
    ‘I’m Tegan,’ she said, coming to meet me at reception. ‘Welcome to Global.’
    Tegan shook my hand, and we began walking to the elevator. ‘You’ll be shadowing me for the next few weeks,’ she explained. ‘Redmond only told me about it this morning. So I apologize for not having, like, an action plan for you or anything.’
    It seemed jarring that Tegan had called Mr. Cooper Redmond . Should I call him that too, now that I worked here? He’d asked me to call him ‘sir’…
    Tegan took me into the elevator, and I snuck a look at her as we traveled up to the second floor. She was another catwalk-esque employee. Global Media had them in abundance. Tegan was different though. She had short, cropped red hair. Not a pixie cut – her hair was almost shaved. She wore a sleeveless, royal blue shirt, and thick black tattoos licked and curled around her arms. She looked incredibly striking. Like the kind of person you probably wanted to stay on your side. You didn’t want to be enemies with a woman with a shaved head and tattoos, that’s for sure.
    We were only going up one floor, so the elevator doors opened after mere seconds, and we walked out. Being on the second storeys, this was the second largest of the