AllFreeNovel
Share Us
No Distractions—not even devastatingly handsome ones.
My five-inch heels clicked on the pavement, drawing the attention of the other early-morning commuters around me. I tossed my brunette hair over my shoulder and showed off my best runway model stride. You know the one. Squinted eyes, duck lips, and hips that just didn’t care.
I was fierce.
Well, as fierce as a Rust Belt-dwelling, twenty-seven-year-old woman named Beth could be. I’d stopped by the coffee shop a few minutes before and traded in my angel wings, à la Victoria Secret, for something even more heavenly.
My daily dose of sugar and a vanilla latte.
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t wearing oversized angel wings, but I had a good imagination. And I wasn’t above visualizing myself as a wing-wearing goddess if it would help me ace the biggest interview of my life.
I clutched a gooey, chocolate-covered éclair in my hot little hand as I made a beeline for my bus stop. I’d work on my sugar addiction later. Today was all about crushing that interview, and despite what my health nut of a best friend claimed, I was always at my best when fully hopped up on sugar.
And boy could I ever use that extra boost. I wasn’t on my way to just any interview. I was on my way to the interview—the one that had the power to reshape my future. The interview that could free me from indentured servitude to the biggest mean-girl in the travel industry, Eva Ferguson—my evil stepmother of fairy tale proportions.
Shivers!
I felt the slightest bit wicked for using a sick day to get time off for my big interview. But to be fair, I always felt a little nauseous every time I sat down at my desk at the travel agency. Just knowing Eva was in the office next to mine was enough to do me in.
Understandable when your boss’s favorite mug proudly proclaimed, “Worst Boss Ever” in bold, devil-red letters. So, I would have been sick if I had shown up. I was officially deep enough in the moral gray area to be safe as long as I didn’t think about it too much.
The crowd got thicker as we approached the corner. We bumped and jostled into each other, all vying for a decent place to wait for the bus in the too-tiny covered waiting area. Someone bumped a little too hard into my giant-yet-stylish shoulder bag, and I clamped down on my coffee so suddenly that I nearly popped the lid.
Pick-pockets!
Pick-pockets were everywhere in the big city, or so my very rural mother had always told me. She would know. According to her, she’d spent a lifetime avoiding the city because the place was so lousy with them. I’d never figured out how she knew so much about cities when she’d never actually spent any time in one, but her warnings were still enough to keep me on high alert most days.
I spun around to face the dirty rotten thief who would dare to try to rip off my two-dollar lip gloss. But the greasy, Fagin-esque perp I expected was nowhere to be seen. Instead, I came face to face with a male version of perfection that I’d thought was only an invention of corny romance flicks up until then.
“Sorry about that.” His voice was deep; not bass singer-in-a-gospel-quartet deep, but deep enough to tickle my stomach in the most inconvenient way.
“I hardly noticed,” I lied.
He smirked in reply and ran his tongue across his bleached teeth. Those straight-as-an-arrow teeth seemed to glow when contrasted with his deep golden-brown complexion. “Right,” he said, his dark eyes sparkling and making fun of me at the same time.
He flashed a million-watt smile, his full lips pulling a little more to one side than the other.
I lifted a brow and gave him an ice-cold look that said, “Don’t even bother. I’m out of your league.” But I think we both knew it was the other way around.
His smile deepened and that’s when it appeared—a dimple that couldn’t have been any cuter if it lived on the face of a six-month-old baby. I took a step back, my eyes focused on his left cheek. Wait, was it his left or mine?
Who cared! I hadn’t majored in dimple-ology in college. I was a marketing specialist and boy-oh-howdy, that dimple was a hot commodity if I ever saw one. So hot, in fact that I needed a bit more space.
I took another step back, this time twisting my ankle when my treacherous heel decided to slip into a grate on the sidewalk. I tried to pull it out, but it was wedged. I guess that’s what I got for strapping stilts to my feet that morning. My “power statement” footwear was becoming more of a liability by the moment.
“Need a hand?”
I bet myself a week’s worth of sweet treats that his hands were as hot as his smile.
No!
There would be no thinking about the temperature of random mens’ hands. I was on my way to seize the opportunity of a lifetime. How often did a person make it to the final round of interviews for a job that would require a move to Hawaii? Please and thank you!
I just had to keep it together for another couple of hours, out-perform one other person who was up for the job, and the position would be mine. I was so on top of my game, the other applicant might as well have stayed in bed that day.
Sorry. Not sorry.
“No, thanks. I’ve got it.” I gave my foot a yank that not only loosened my ankle strap, but also knocked me off balance.
