Sweeter Than Revenge by Ann Christopher Read Free Book Online

knew her skills involved looking good and making people feel comfortable. Thatshe could do. She’d take it day by day, and in a year at the latest she could retire to the pool again, with enough money to buy all the paperbacks she could ever want.
    Without bothering to knock, she eased open the door to the conference room and slipped inside. About twenty heads swiveled in her direction, and then everyone wedged at the crowded conference table stared at her with wide, saucer eyes. David, looking surly in a khaki suit, cream shirt and yellow tie, sat at the far end of the table with a thick stack of files in front of him.
    Uh-oh. She’d had no idea a meeting was on the agenda, otherwise she would have moved a little more quickly this morning and not tried on quiteso many outfits before choosing this one. Embarrassed to be the center of attention, she managed a weak smile and wondered where at the crowded table she could sit.
    “Good morning,” she said.
    A general murmur of greeting answered her.
    David frowned. “Glad you could join us. Everyone, this is Maria Johnson. Maria, this is—” his sweeping hand encompassed the entire table “—everyone. All the other account assistants.”
    The crowd called a chorus of Hi, Marias to her and Maria flashed a smile.
    A young man, dark-skinned and dreadlocked—rather handsome, actually—leaped to his feet right in front of her, nearly knocking over his chair in the process. “I’m Kwasi. Take my seat.”
    “Thankyou, Kwasi,” she said, sliding into the chair.
    Across the table, a plain-Jane sister, with brown glasses, overgrown hairy brows, a short black bob and an awful yellow blouse that did nothing for her sallow coloring, frowned at her. Maria knew she wouldn’t be making friends with thatone, but of course women usually weren’t her biggest fans anyway.
    “Actually,” David said to the room at large although his narrow-eyed gaze drifted between Maria and Kwasi, “we’re finished. Maria, I’d like a word with you.”
    With a collective sigh of relief, everyone surged to their feet, grabbed their various pens and pads of paper, and streamed toward the door, all watching her with open curiosity. Several of the men smiled at her, but none of the women did. Maria stared after them, wishing she could mingle with the crowd and drift out rather than deal with David and his flashing eyes.
    Help arrived in the unexpected form of her father, who appeared in the hall and struggled against the group like a salmon swimming downstream while all his cronies swam up. Finally the crowd thinned and Ellis shut the door.
    “Hello, Sugar.” He kissed Maria on the cheek and then strode around the table to shake David’s hand. “My breakfast meeting ran a little late. What’d I miss?”
    Uh-oh. Maria shot David a desperate, pleading look—please don’t tell on me!—to which he responded with a raised eyebrow and amused smirk. Clearly he would not be denied the pleasure of tattling and turning her over to the warden.
    “The question isn’t what youmissed, Ellis.” David’s measured tone did nothing to disguise his unmitigated glee at putting Maria onto the hot seat with her father. “It’s what Mariamissed. You tend to miss a thing or two when you show up nearly an hour late for your first day of work.”
    Ellis’s face darkened and his troubled gaze swung back to Maria. “That true?”
    “I suppose,” she said, sighing.
    Dropping his head, Ellis rubbed the back of his neck. “Anything to say for yourself?”
    Maria’s face burned with embarrassment and impotent anger, at herself as much as David. She imagined that by now her cheeks must be bright enough to power a runway strip at the airport so planes could land at night. Ellis no doubt wanted her to offer some mitigating circumstance—a flat tire, emergency appendectomy or alien invasion—that explained why she was so late, but she didn’t have one other than not wanting to be here.
    Raising her chin, she stood