Score by Jessica Ashe Read Free Book Online Page B

as hot as me, and no one else’s shirt seemed to be clinging to their back.
    “Jenny,” Sam said, appearing suddenly behind me. It’s not like I had a door for him to knock on, but it would’ve been nice if he let me know he was arriving so as not to scare the shit out of me. “Glad you’re here at last.”
    At last? I’d arrived at the office just after eight o’clock, and my official start time wasn’t until nine. Apparently arriving after him made me late regardless of the time.
    “Hi Sam,” I replied, doing my best to sound cheery and enthusiastic. “Sorry about what happened with Jaxon.”
    “What do you mean ‘sorry?’ Sounds like it all went according to plan. His agent is down in reception ready to start talking terms.”
    “Oh, yes of course. I just meant sorry I wasn’t able to get all the details sorted out while I was in England.”
    “Plenty of time for all that,” Sam said. “Follow me.”
    I stood up and tried to subtly peel my shirt off my back before I walked past everyone else on the way down to Sam’s office. I stopped by his door, but he kept on walking until we got to the corner office recently vacated by the vice president of marketing. Sam opened the door and motioned for me to walk inside.
    I walked in and breathed a sigh of relief as a cold wall of air hit me. This office had its own air-conditioning vent, and with the door having been shut the office was freezing cold. In a couple of minutes I’d want to put on a sweater, but right now this was my idea of heaven.  
    The office was empty except for a few books the vice president had left behind on the bookshelf. He had one of the best offices on this floor which had never made much sense to me. Sam outranked him and had a much smaller office. It was something to do with Sam being a transfer from the parent company whereas the former vice president of marketing actually worked for New York United. I hated office politics.
    “Make yourself comfortable,” Sam said. “This is your new office.”
    “It’s my new office?” I parroted back to him.
    “I assume you prefer this to the cubicle?”
    “I don’t understand. Why are you giving me this office? I thought I was going to stay in the cubicle.”
    “You deserve an office,” Sam explained. “I’d have given you one straight away, but we didn’t have the space.”
    “But why this one? It’s one of the biggest on this floor.”
    “You need a big impressive office to negotiate the contract with Jaxon’s agent. You’re going to be the lead on this one.”
    I should have just nodded and kept my mouth shut at this point. I knew plenty of people from Harvard who went straight into jobs with a lot of responsibility, and for the most part they lapped it up. Admittedly that had more to do with the large egos of my fellow Harvard grads, who tended to think they could do any job in the world regardless of how little training they’d had. I, on the other hand, tended to shy away from responsibility I wasn’t ready for. Given my lack of experience, my responsibility here shouldn’t extend to much more than making the coffee and the occasional bouts of photocopying.
    “I’m not ready to be a lead on such a big contract,” I said honestly. “I’d love to work on it,” I lied, “but I need someone to oversee everything.”
    Sam smiled. “I’ll be the first to admit that you only got a foot in the door here because of a recommendation from Carrie, but I do love your attitude. Don’t worry, you won’t actually be the lead, but we need it to appear that way. Jaxon has agreed to speak to the club about a transfer, but only on the condition that everything goes through you.”
    At that point, Sam stepped aside as three men walked into the office carrying computer equipment and books. They quickly set about making the office ready for me and making it look like I’d been here for months. Someone even brought in a trashcan with screwed up bits of paper in it. Say what you