Ignite Me (The Annihilate Me Series) by Christina Ross Read Free Book Online

Ruth
always has been nothing if not a rock of insanity sitting alone in an unsteady
sea, hasn’t she?   But we both know
that, so enough about Ruth.   Anyway,
here is your office,” she said.   “I
hope that it suits.   You’re on this
floor because I’m to oversee you in case you have questions.   Your computer is there.   There are pens, pencils, and other
office-related things all around you.   If you need anything else to help you write your paper, just ask
Margaret and she’ll supply you with whatever you need.   And listen to me on this—take your
time when it comes to writing that paper, make sure that it’s perfect, show it
to me if you want to, and then you can take it to Alex and Jennifer.   At that point, we’ll see where you land
at Wenn.”
    “Done,” he
said.   “And thanks, Barbara.   It really is good to see you again.”
    “Agreed.   I’ve missed you, you horrible boy.”   She paused for a moment and seemed to
reassess him.   “Although maybe that’s
not quite fair—you seem somehow different to me.   Not quite so brash.   Not quite the womanizer I used to know.”
    “That’s because
I’m not.”
    He was a
womanizer?
    “Music to my
ears, even if I don’t believe it for a second.”   She clapped her hands in front of
her.   “So!   Get settled in.   See Margaret once you’ve filled out your
paperwork.   And then continue on
with your research.”
    “Will do,” he
said.
    When Blackwell
left his office and walked past me, I caught a look of suppressed glee on her
face, and I knew what had caused it.   Brock Wenn was off the market.   He was in this for his career.   She knew that I’d heard every word of their exchange, and as far as she
was concerned, she’d triumphed in sending home a message she thought I clearly
needed to hear.
    Brock Wenn was
off limits to me.
    But an hour
later, after I’d finished filling out my own paperwork, Blackwell was busy
chatting away on her phone when the computer closest to me dinged.   How could it be that I’d already
received an email, unless it was perhaps from Margaret?   I glanced over at the screen and saw
that Wenn obviously had an instant-messaging system in place to communicate
internally.
    And there was a
pop-up message waiting for me.
    It was from
Brock, which surprised me, and after I read it, I just stared at it before I
looked up at him and caught the smile on his face.   “You really do look terrific,” he’d
written.   “Don’t let her get you
down.   Deep within her, she actually
has the potential to be a good person—believe it or not.”
    Maybe to you,
she does.   But when it comes to me,
she’s about as nice as a stray cat tormented by mange .
    I saw that
there was more to the message and scrolled down to finish reading it.   “I don’t know many people here, so with
us being the newbies and all, would you be interested in having coffee with me
tomorrow morning?   We could meet
somewhere at six before we come to work.   If you’re worried about Blackwell, don’t be.   I promise that it will just be two colleagues
enjoying coffee and getting to know one another.   Nothing more.”
    With a sense of
certainty I felt whirling within my gut, I knew that that was a
lie.   Brock Wenn was interested in
me.   But Blackwell had just
mentioned that he was once a womanizer.   Was that still the case?   And
with Blackwell so firmly against us having anything to do with each other, I
had no choice but to wonder what kind of dangers having coffee with him would
pose to my career here if somehow she found out about it.   Because if she did find out, she’d have
my head.
    I thought about
it for a moment, and then I figured that the chances of that happening were so
low, why the hell not?   It was my
Summer of Resolve, after all, and I was nothing if not attracted to him.   So, I responded to him with this:
“Coffee at six sounds nice for a couple of newbies.   Where do you have in