Slave to Love by Julie A. Richman Read Free Book Online

progressive as this.”
    I laugh, “It would be bad form for me to be poaching employees from my vendor.” Although that is exactly what I’d love to do with Sierra.
    “That’s not what I meant at all,” she back-peddles. “I would just really love to have someone as a mentor who understands the technology marketplace and how to successfully position for the future.
    Mentor? Position? Yeah, I know what position she’d like to be in. Flat on her back on my desk.
    This woman is trouble. Camera in purse, blackmailing kind of trouble. Granted, she would make great arm-candy at industry functions, charming the boys’ club left and right as she worked the room. She wouldn’t be dazzling anyone with her superior intelligence, but no one would get past her store-bought rack to notice or care. She is the perfect sales person/account executive until she finds just the right executive to marry her and produce perfect looking children.
    “So, what about that drink?” she presses.
    I’m transfixed on her body language and how aggressive it is. With the slightest of signals or encouragement on my part, she would gracefully end up on my side of the desk or on my desk or against the floor to ceiling windows. And that is exactly what she wants me to be thinking.
    I watch her full fuchsia painted lips move, but all I can hear is Sierra in my head, “I don’t shit where I eat.” And I know that not only is that good advice, it’s the perfect advice for me in this circumstance, because this one is a deceitful master that might be difficult to get rid of. Thanks, Sierra.
    I look down at my Breitling, “Oh wow, I didn’t realize it was so late. Excuse me.” I stand as I slip my laptop into its case. “I don’t want to keep my girlfriend waiting.”

    Grabbing my phone as I get in bed, I do my nightly last email check of the evening. Disconnecting from work doesn’t happen when everyone’s paycheck depends on you. I’m just not the type of personality to be able to flip a switch and turn it off.
    And there it is, an email from Sierra Stone. I can feel my heart beat faster just seeing her name. The subject is ‘Information Needed for Universal Event’. Okay, a business email, that’s safe and a place to start. An entre to rebuilding some sort of rapport. Trust.
    Scanning through the body of the message. It’s very professional. They need my social security number for Secret Service clearance because U.S. Presidents, past and present, will be in attendance. Chuckling as I think, she should only know the level of security clearance I have with the government. She’d be shocked. I’m as equipped to protect a President as the staff that will be guarding them. I just wish she felt safe with me.
    Sierra should wear that turquoise skirt and the Louboutins she was wearing on the night we met, I muse. It would get Bill Clinton’s testosterone revved up, for sure.
    Reaching the end of the message, I realize that although totally professional and appropriate, there is nothing personal about it. Quickly scrolling to the top, I immediately check the distribution.
    Ugh , I groan aloud.
    A bcc: to the entire group of invitees. She lumped me in with all of their other clients. The ultimate in pulling away and letting me know that I was just a client. Keep it professional and impersonal.
    Perturbed, I get out of bed and stand by my windows, overlooking the lights of lower Manhattan and beyond, down the Hudson River to the Narrows.
    I have fucked this up on every level possible. I am so drawn to this girl, and not because she looks like Maggie, as Noel would have me believe, but because she’s smart, and smart-mouthed and fun. She has this girl next door charm with a dash of daring and adventure thrown in. I can see us together. I really can. I know the magazines profiling me as one of the Top 25 Hottest Entrepreneur Bachelors or whatever the hell the title of the month is, would have me paired with a model, a glamour girl, or at the