ROMANCE: His Reluctant Heart (Historical Western Victorian Romance) (Historical Mail Order Bride Romance Fantasy Short Stories) by Jane Prescott Read Free Book Online Page A

glitch.  Oh God, I should have emailed him directly, shouldn’t I have, saying that it was something like that.  Would he have bought that?  What must he be thinking, reading that and thinking that I meant it?  I mean, of course I meant it.  I’ve wanted the man’s bod ever since I laid eyes on him, but he didn’t need to know that!  And then there’s that whole thing that the girl is being basically raped by a pirate—what was I thinking?  How could I unleash the full scary volume of my kinkiness upon the world?
                  By day four, I’ve convinced myself that I just about don’t care. Seriously, it’s cruel to make me wait this long to get fired.  I may have made him uncomfortable, but this is affecting my sleep and my psychological well-being.  I have completely had enough.  By day five, my impatience has morphed into anger and I am readying myself to walk into Christopher’s office and quit.  I cannot work like this.  I am running behind all of my deadlines and every time someone so much as sneezes, I think it’s a notification on my email account and nearly jump right out of my skin.  I have neatly packed everything on my desk and found an empty crate to use instead of a box.  Sally peeks in to see what I’m doing and I tell her to mind her own business; she slides back into her cubicle with a huff, but I don’t care.  I get up to leave when I see that I have a new e-mail.  From Christopher.
                  My stomach bottoms out and I flop down into my chair because my knees can no longer support the weight of my body.  Here it comes.  All right, I’m ready for it; let’s just get it over with.  I click open the e-mail and read.
    Dear Andrea (he writes),
      Check your work mailbox.  Get back to me.
    -Chris Mellins
                  Is this how they’re delivering pink slips these days?  Because if it is, it’s surprisingly low-tech.  Our work mailboxes are arranged like cubbies and are constantly crammed full of fliers, memos, coupons, and things nobody generally pays any attention to.  I guess that’s a handy a place as any to stuff a “You’re fired” notice.
                  Except that when I pull out the mess of papers from the cubbyhole, there’s nothing pink in there except an old birthday card from Sally that’s too girly for life itself.  I flip through the stack, but the only thing that’s new and undoubtedly from Christopher is a manila envelope with a little yellow Post-It on top that says in Christopher’s long and loopy handwriting: Open at your desk with nobody watching.
                  What kind of game is this man playing?
                  I head back to my desk and I’m in luck because everyone else has gone out to lunch; the place is nearly empty.  I check left and right and then push my swivel chair close into my desk and open up the envelope.  Inside is a small sheaf of papers.  The top reads, CHAPTER SEVEN: A NEW KIND OF MUTINY
                  What’s Christopher up to?  I guess he’s going to make me keep reading to find out.
                  Meg was sound asleep in Captain Edwin’s cabin when the door came crashing open and a man hit the floor with such alacrity it’s a wonder he didn’t break his kneecaps.  Shocked awake, she clutched the bed sheet to her chest to try and preserve her modesty.
                  Not that there’s much left.  Over the past two weeks, Captain Edwin had explored and plundered her body until there was nothing that Meg did not know about herself anymore.  He had been right, so right in fact that Meg did not even feel ashamed that she had succumbed to his experienced advances.  She recognized that she was not in the ideal situation to learn about her body for the first time, but now she spent her days in this haze of feelings and thoughts from the nights that made them all blend together.  Since