Aimee Duffy - What a Girl Needs

Book Two in Indecent Proposals

Aimée Duffy

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright HarperImpulse an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2014 Copyright © Aimee Duffy 2014 Cover images © Shutterstock.com Aimee Duffy asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Ebook Edition © March 2014 ISBN: 9780007540297 Version 2014-09-26 Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Dedication I definitely need to dedicate this one to Susan Thomson. The conversations we've had will keep the ideas flowing for years!

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Aimée Duffy

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

HarperImpulse an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

77–85 Fulham Palace Road

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2014

Copyright © Aimee Duffy 2014

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Aimee Duffy asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International

and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

By payment of the required fees, you have been granted

the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access

and read the text of this e-book on screen.

No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,

downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or

stored in or introduced into any information storage and

retrieval system, in any form or by any means,

whether electronic or mechanical, now known or

hereinafter invented, without the express

written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © March 2014

ISBN: 9780007540297

Version 2014-09-26

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

I definitely need to dedicate this one to Susan Thomson. The conversations we've had will keep the ideas flowing for years!

Dear Sally,

I read your column weekly but never thought I’d be writing this email. The truth is there’s something wrong with me. I can’t climax. I’ve never been able to, and my recent ex told me this was normal for some women. Not the women I know. Was he telling the truth? Sometimes it feels like I’m the only one.

Yours,

Anonymous

Georgia Lewis forced herself to leave it at that. It was one thing to think of herself as a freak, another to sign off using the label. Moving the mouse over the mat provided by Briggs Department Stores, she tried to click ‘send’, but her finger wouldn’t obey the command.

Frustrated, she let go of the mouse and raked a hand through her hair, pushing it out of her face. She couldn’t be the only woman in New York who’d never experienced what her friends kept banging on about, could she? Plus she’d created a false email address so none of Sally’s Sexual Help readers would know it was her who sent it in, so what did it matter?

She needed to pull on her big-girl panties and send the damn thing. Maybe then she’d be able to concentrate on the end-of-year accounts on her desk. After all, she was here to work, not worry about body parts that didn’t function correctly.

Resolved, she reached for the mouse again. Her desk phone rang and she stifled a sigh. Abandoning the mouse, she picked up the phone.

‘Accounts Department,’ she answered, though she could hardly call it that, more ‘two women forgotten in closets at the back of the building.’

‘Georgia, I need the buying accounts for last month.’

His deep voice made her skin prickle, like it always did. She shook off the weird sensation. He was her new boss; until his father got better anyway, and she’d never let herself look at him any other way. Okay, maybe she had on occasion, when she trailed behind him in the hall. Who wouldn’t check out an ass like his? It was high and firm and utterly squeezable.

‘Sure, Maxton. I’ll get them ready.’

‘Georgia…’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Max. Sorry.’

Hard to break a habit of a lifetime. His father, Maxton Briggs the First, never allowed his name to be shortened.

But it was Maxton Briggs the Second running the show now.

‘You’d better. I’d hate to have to punish you.’

He disconnected the call leaving her staring at the receiver. Heat rose in her cheeks and her heart hammered in her chest. He didn’t mean…

No, he didn’t. He was joking. God. She had to get a grip. Sexual frustration was driving her to think her boss was flirting with her. And sure, Max was less formal than his father, and she supposed a good guy to work for, but since his break-up, which was unfortunately witnessed by half the staff at Briggs, he wasn’t his usual happy-go-lucky self. Not to mention a little bit weird. Though she couldn’t blame him for that.

She rose so quickly she left her swivel chair spinning. Pulling open the cabinet drawer, she shuffled the slings until she came across the empty one which should have housed the file he wanted.

‘Damn it.’

The sooner she gave Max the file and sent him on his merry way, the better. Usually she struggled to keep her thoughts from rolling off her tongue around everyday people; with him around it was impossible. And the boss didn’t need to know what she thought of his ass, or how hot he looked in one of those charcoal suits with the silk ties. Or even about those dreams she’d had starring Maxton the Second, and very little in the way of clothes.

Well, apart from his ties. The silk ones, though, he never wore them as such. Either they were around her wrists securing her to her bed frame, or sometimes she dressed in nothing but a tie and pair of skyscraper stilettos.