Breakfast with Mia Read Online Free

everyone worth anything trying
to get Michael McKinley’s grandson, sole inheritor of his company, on the phone
for ten seconds of uninterrupted begging. The grandson, Todd McKinley, was a
doctor and had no interest in the company, so the whole affair became the
plump, red apple in the Garden of Eden. The question on everyone’s tongues was,
what can we give Todd McKinley to let us have a piece of his apple pie?
    Damian stayed behind closed doors with a steady stream of
ladder climbers coming and going. None of them spoke to me. There was so much
nervous anxiety in the air you could taste it and it tasted like sweat and
pheromones. This account made everyone hot. It was a career maker account. A
multi-billion dollar hog of an account.
    Near the end of the day when it was clear no decisions would
be made before morning, I knocked a little mousy knock on Damian’s door and
waited for him to give me the go-ahead to enter. It was slow to come, but
finally he called me in.
    “Mia,” he sighed with a kind of relief that almost broke my
heart. “Come in.”
    His tie was completely unknotted and hung loose and
forgotten around his neck, the top two buttons unshackled. He’d been running
his hands through his hair and it stood out messy and a little sweaty.
    I shut the door behind me and made my way around the side of
his desk. He pushed back and slouched deep into the leather of his executive
chair. I held out a coffee to him, extra sugar and cream, though he’d never
even notice. He took it gratefully.
    “You read my mind, Mia.”
    “That’s what I do, boss.” I slid up on the corner of his
desk nearest him and crossed my legs. His eyes unfocused sleepily and stared at
my knee. Or through my knee. I didn’t think he could actually see me. “You ok?”
    “I am very tired. I feel like I’ve been blindsided for eight
hours straight, and we aren’t any further than we were when we walked in this
morning. Everyone wants a piece of this account, and it’s not like I have it to
give. We need it though, at least, we need our competitors not to get it.”
    I winced. “So, do you think this is a bad time to ask for a
favor?”
    “Sychophantic whore,” he teased tiredly. He sat his coffee
on the desk top and without asking, like this was normal for us, reached for my
legs, uncrossed them, and scooted his chair closer. He took my hips and centered
me. I held still because this was the most physical contact we’d ever had in the
year I’d worked for him. We got along, sure, but something about his exhausted,
beaten down look made me think he was desperate for comfort in a way he’d never
needed from anyone before. It made me want to reach out and stroke his hair,
his shoulders. Damian was a powerful, ambitious man, but he was good too, and
kind and easy going and generous. Moments like these made him vulnerable to the
people willing to devour him for a piece of his empire.
    “Mia,” he said seriously. “As long as you don’t ask me for
Todd McKinley, I will give you anything in the world. Anything. Just ask and
it’s yours.”
    “Devil,” I chided, and very gently touched his hair. It was
sweaty and dirty from touching it all day long. He groaned a little, closed his
eyes, and set his forehead against my knee. He exhaled weakly and I stroked his
hair back from his face. Something in my chest twisted painfully and for a
moment I couldn’t find my voice. It ran out of the room in terror. “If I’d known
you were in a giving mood, I’d have requisitioned a pony for the cube next to
my desk. Unfortunately, it’s your clout I need.”
    He made a strangled laugh against my leg. “My clout is
usually an affront to you.”
    “Irony, she’s not lost on me.” Touching Damian like this
made my heart pound like a racehorse in my chest, but men don’t make me nervous
and Damian even less so. This vulnerable neediness was so strange and unwelcome
to him. I felt violently protective. I dug my fingertips into his scalp