AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER 1
CHARLOTTE RESISTED the urge to pick at the polish starting to peel from the corner of her fingernail. It wasn’t just that she wasn’t used to wearing it, but that she’d never had so much riding on a job interview before. It was impossible not to fidget.
“Ms. Castro,” the receptionist called as she stepped around the fancy front desk of the even fancier spa resort.
“Ms. Leon is ready for you now.”
When she smiled, Charlotte tried to smile back. She wasn’t as practiced, and it probably showed. The woman flashed her perfect teeth a thousand times a day, more than Charlotte had in a year.
Gripping the handle of her worn, brown, leather satchel, Charlotte followed the woman from the serene lobby where pan flute music emanated from hidden speakers, past the spa’s waiting area where clients dressed in white robes sat in massive chairs arranged among lush, verdant plants and facing a fountain.
What kind of asshole can a ord to stare at a stone sphere rolling around on a water current in the middle of a Wednesday?
A life like that was as inconceivable as it was contemptible.
“Right through here.” The receptionist stopped at a frosted glass door at the end of a hallway lined with waterfall walls on one side. She glanced at the water cascading over blue glass tiles before landing with a tiny splash in a bed of charcoal-colored river stones. It was soothing although ostentatious.
The door opened on something from a magazine.
Panoramic windows took the place of a back wall, giving the modern, sprawling o ce a comforting glow. It complimented the soft rolling greens of the golf course beyond an iconic, 1920s mission-style hotel looming in the distance. The Biltmore Hotel on the other side of the golf course was the crowned jewel of Coral Gables, the a uent Miami suburb that made an imposter of Charlotte.
When Alexandra Leon stood from the glass-top desk, Charlotte
steeled
herself.
The
forty-five-year-old
brunette was as imposing in person as she appeared in all her online photos. She was tall, confident, and conventionally beautiful. Her warm olive skin and dark almond eyes revealed her Mediterranean heritage. The well-tailored black dress, matching jacket, and pulled-back hair betrayed her wealth but in a restrained, subtle way. The way of old money and inherited status. The only thing that surprised Charlotte was that despite the ever-present Miami heat, Alexandra always donned a formal, long-sleeved suit.
Even in her o ce, apparently.
“Have a seat,” Alexandra said in a husky voice as she gestured to the small, round conference table nestled against the far corner of the room. Her words wore only the slight
curve of a mild Spanish accent. The product of a childhood spent in Barcelona.
The receptionist excused herself as Charlotte strode across the room, projecting every ounce of quiet confidence she’d ever possessed. She waited for Alexandra to take the sleek, white leather seat across the table before sitting down herself. Alexandra moved like music, one note connected to the next seamlessly as she glided.
Charlotte matched her movements. Her emerald-green wrap dress and cropped brown blazer didn’t have the same fluidity, but that didn’t stop her. She only regretted not having worn her long, blonde hair loose around her shoulders. It was one of Charlotte’s best assets, but she’d erred on the conservative side for the job interview.
“I didn’t expect to meet with you directly for an accounting position,” Charlotte confessed as Alexandra sat back, one long leg crossed over the other and not a single piece of paper in front of her. Jayson wanted her to play this as submissive but eager. Not her normal setting. “The head of an operation like this has to have more important things to do.”
