Maisey Yates - Breaking All Her Rules

His dark brows shot up. “I think I’m flattered that you consider it a possibility.”

“Don’t be. I’ve been in the company of male strippers.” At a bachelorette party she’d basically fled. She’d spent the evening in the bathroom tapping out desperate emails on her phone. And she’d later been called a prude. But whatever. She could not handle random naked guys shaking it in her face. “Some of them are pretty...worse for wear.”

“Well, you are a surprise. Now where’s my consultation.”

“Pay off your mortgage before retirement. Never get involved in a land war in Asia. Your turn.”

He reached into shirt pocket and took out a pen and a little note card. She arched her brow and watched as he started scratching the pen over the surface, keeping it turned away from her so she couldn’t see.

His teeth closed over his lower lip, the expression of concentration sending a shock of lightning straight through her. And for just one moment she allowed herself to think, with uninhibited enthusiasm, that he was one fine specimen of a man.

Not the kind of man she would ever go for. He wasn’t clean-cut and clad in a suit. He didn’t have glasses and a reedy frame, which seemed to be her type, if two lovers was an indication of type.

He was as far from that type as you could get. He had those untrendy jeans—blue Wranglers—a plain button-up shirt and he was built like a house. Broad and hard-looking. Like his muscles had muscles.

Also, he had that rough-looking ghost of a beard on his face. Like he was just too darn manly to shave or something.

“Here you go,” he said, hanging her the card, his fingers brushing hers, a spark passing from his body to hers. He smiled, like he’d felt it, too, and it made the blood in her veins turn to warm honey.

Oh...

She looked down at the card and an unexpected laugh broke through her lips. He’d drawn a fox. All sketchy lines, in black ink, sitting in the middle of a street, tall buildings behind him.

“This is your professional offering?” she asked, arching a brow.

“Ouch. I didn’t know you were an art critic.”

“Maybe I missed my calling.”

“Maybe. Though, I think most critics have a little bit of a meaner look about them.”

“I don’t look mean?” she asked, forcing her eyebrows together, feeling her forehead crinkle. She was risking fine lines for this guy, what the eff was wrong with her?

He held out his hand and planted his thumb between her brows, smoothing out her forehead. “Not so mean.”

She should be annoyed that he’d touched her. He didn’t know her. What right did he have to touch her?

“I...”

His gaze dropped to her mouth and all the words got completely sucked out of her head. Every word she knew in English and Mandarin. And the little bit of high school Spanish she remembered, too.

All with his eyes. Those were some very powerful eyes.

And he started leaning in. Oh...no. What was she going to do? This man that she didn’t even know was about to press his mouth to hers, and she wanted him to. Oh...oh...shoot.

The cab pulled up to the curb and stopped.

“My stop,” she said, jerking back from him, her hand searching for the door handle. She reached into her purse and pulled out a twenty. “Just...keep the change. I...yeah.” She started to get out.

“Wait,” he said.

She turned, his absolutely perfect face stopping her in her tracks for a moment. “What?”

“Your phone.”

She reached in and grabbed the phone off the seat. “Thanks. See you...well, I won’t see you.”

She closed the door and headed toward her office building, her hands shaking. Her whole body shaking. She’d just been saved by a timely stop.

Saved from making a huge mistake.

She curled her hands around her phone, the picture of the fox pressed up against it. Yes, it would have been a mistake.

And she didn’t have time to linger on it. She had work to do.

Chapter Two

Grace whipped her phone out as soon as she hit the elevator. She swiped the slider and the phone opened, without asking for a code.

Weird.

The email icon at the bottom showed two hundred unread messages. Just the sight made her insides recoil in horror. “What the...”

She scrolled through the icons and saw...an app containing sex facts, and one containing information about beer.

What. The. Hell.

Then she opened the mail client. Mostly, it was junk. A couple of read messages with the subject line Urgent from someone named Marsha Colbert.

This was not her phone. It was Zack Camden’s phone. “Argh!” she said to the elevator, her frustration echoing back at her as it came to a stop. The doors slid open and she pasted a smile on and slipped the phone back in her bag.

“Hi, Grace.”

Carol, her boss’s PA, greeted her brightly. “Hi, Carol,” Grace answered, doing her best to keep smiling.

Always appear unruffled. Always.

That was her motto. She never, ever wanted to appear like she was drowning, even if she was paddling like hell beneath the water to keep her head from going under.

You didn’t get anywhere in life by complaining. You didn’t get anywhere cutting corners. If you worked harder, better than everyone else, that would win in the end. It always did. She lived by that, always. And she would live it now.

“Doug was looking for you,” Carol said.

Grace forced her smile wider. “Wonderful, I just have a client...”

“He said it was urgent,” Carol said, looking apologetic.

Oh, frick. Carol was only apologetic if Doug was breathing fire.

Double argh.

She walked down the hall and toward her boss’s office, a feeling of impending doom crowding her heart, shoving up against her breastbone. Suddenly, she would give a hell of a lot to be back down in that cab with Zack Camden. And not just so she could check her email.

They sometimes called the walk to Doug’s office The Green Mile. And for good reason. And it wasn’t because the shiny tile was green.

She lifted her hand and knocked. “Come in,” she heard him say through the heavy oak.

She pushed the door open and smiled, even wider than she had coming in. “Hi, Doug.”

“Grace, have a seat.”

Shoot. A seat. He wanted her to sit? Oh, she was screwed. She obeyed, sitting in the chair in front of his desk. It didn’t escape her notice that there was a box of tissues within her reach. Not his reach—hers.

For emotional breakdowns after he screamed at people, she imagined. Or worse, if he didn’t scream at all, but set about condescending to them until they melted into watery shame.

Luckily, she had tear ducts of steel.

She took a deep breath. Ice bitch, take me away.

She would not care. She would not care.

“Look, Grace...” Doug leaned back in his chair, his tie riding up. His tie was too short. He looked like he got dressed in the dark. You’d think that one of the more high-powered businessmen in the city would know how to properly dress. But no. Obviously, not. “I had a call from a client just a little bit ago.”

She gritted her teeth. “Right.”

“He complained about your conduct.”

Her mind shot back to the lunch meeting she’d had an hour ago. Yeah, there was no question he was the one who’d filed the complaint.

“What about my conduct?” Grace asked. “Specifically.”

“He said you’re quite rude and abrupt. Very cold.”

Bastard. Bastard jerk-face bastard. She would never say any of that out loud, but it was the truth. Of course she was cold, she hadn’t agreed to let him bang her.

“I...apologize that it was perceived that way....”

Doug held his hand up. “It’s not perception when it’s a client, Grace. It’s fact. If a client is alienated, all that matters is their truth.”