Annette Blair Read Online Free

Foundation back on its feet, and while I’m here, I plan to work myself, and everyone else, to the bone . Are we clear on that?”
    “Sure. Of course. No problem.”
    “Glad to hear it.” The jock turned on his heel for a last-word exit, but he gasped, faltered, and grabbed his cane. So much for a spectacular retreat, Kira thought, wishing to hell she hadn’t witnessed it.
    “Gram!” he shouted. “My office. Now!”
    Bessie winked at Kira. “Yes, dear.”
    “Jason!” he snapped from his office. “You will call me Jason! No, maybe you should call me Mr. Goddard when I’m on the job, and I’ll call you Mrs. Hazard.”
    “Yes, dear.”
    “Six months,” he said, with no less bite. “You have me for six months and not a day more.”
    “Yes, dear,” Bessie said with a last grin for Kira before shutting herself into his office.
    If Kira hadn’t been so shaken, she might’ve laughed—so sweet and innocent had Bessie looked before facing the snarling wolf in his den. Snarling and angry with the world.
    But the closing click of that door had Kira covering her heart. Six months with eyes like his gazing down at her—as if in heated expectation . . . of . . . not what every other woman was willing to put out.
    Would she be able to interact in a businesslike manner, in a sane manner, at least in the office, for six months on a daily basis with a man who looked like every girl’s fantasy? A man with the eyes of a predator, an irresponsible jock who’d been chased by, and slept with, every acclaimed beauty in the Free World?
    Kira wasn’t certain, but no way could she bear the heat Goddard seemed to generate day and night. She didn’t know what his problem was: a personality clash, plain old dislike, the nepotism chip on his shoulder, or maybe it was her magic spell. Whatever. It didn’t matter, because they were stuck working together, and they’d both best get over it.
    At least the electricity between them wasn’t sexual. She’d already failed that test. She didn’t have enough sex appeal to interest her own bridegroom, never mind a brazenly rich, sexy playboy jock.
    She knew by Goddard’s reputation, and by her ex’s praise, that the hockey wolf was the kind of cocky jerk who needed no more than to snap his fingers, or flash his smile, to get a woman into his bed. “Well not me, buddy.”
    The man was spoiled—that was a headline-making fact—spoiled and rich, and so well put together that women followed him as if they were pups and he had a bone in his pocket.
    Kira clamped a hand over her mouth when she caught her pun. A pretty meaty bone, too, as far as she could tell. Made Charlie look like he kept a cocktail frank in his pants, which pretty much defined the sex.
    Now Goddard, on the other hand, had a reputation as a world-class lover, a winning kisser, and . . . selling him to the highest bidder was beginning to sound brilliant.
    Kira grinned, but she groaned inwardly. The thought of working with Bessie’s world-class hunk of a grandson spelled danger—a spell greater than any she could conjure—the kind with a heart-thrumming excitement attached,heaven help her, which meant she needed to remain in control at all times.
    She’d surround herself with a white light so no emotion could touch her, because the last time she let down her guard and relaxed around a jock, she got caught in a three-way face-off without a stick.
    She might be a solitary white witch, who’d vowed to harm none, but she wasn’t stupid. She would not allow, or accept, or open herself to harm.
    Now that she knew how faithless jocks could be, she wouldn’t trust any of the breed again.
    Nevertheless, the anger in her, the need for a bit of revenge, made Kira want to call her two-timing ex and brag about working with his idol.
    She might do it, too, if she could erase the picture of Charlie and her sister in bed together long enough to make the call. Regan, her slut of a sister, had tried to say that “it” had