LOGINChapter 13: Juliet pov His fingers were an inch from the phone. I did not think.My foot shot out and hit it hard, and it spun across the marble floor and slid all the way to the wall.Jaxon froze, still bent over, his hand hanging in the air.Slowly, he looked up at me.“What was that?” he asked, in a low and dangerous voice.“My foot slipped,” I said, and my voice came out much too high.“It happens.” I walked past him, picked up my phone from the wall, and pressed it against my chest with the screen turned inward.My heart was hammering so hard that I could feel it against the phone.Jaxon straightened up and stared at me.It was a long look, cold and narrow, and it went from my face to my messy hair to the phone I was hiding, and I held my chin up and did not blink.“Watch where you walk, Miss George,” he said at last.“You are in my corridor.”“Then maybe your corridor should be bigger,” I said. His jaw tightened.He turned and walked away, and I watched his back until he disap
Chapter 12 Juliet’s pov It was his mouth. His lips brushed against mine with a cool suddenness that stole the air straight from my lungs, leaving my brain frozen in disbelief for one second. He was kissing me. A man I had known for barely two hours had dragged me into the quiet sanctuary of a restroom and claimed my lips like it was the only inevitable thing in the world. My eyes were wide, my hands locked rigid in the air, every muscle in my body locked into a defensive brace. I didn't move. I didn't breathe. I didn't give him an inch. He felt the resistance instantly. Rome pulled back slowly, his stormy grey eyes searching every fraction of my face, the lazy smile completely vanished from his mouth. “I am sorry,” he murmured, his hands instantly lifting in surrender as he stepped back. “Forgive me. That was wrong of me.” I pressed my spine hard against the locked door, my chest heaving, utterly incapable of forming a single word. My lips were burning, a tingling heat sprea
Chapter 11Juliet’s povI walked away from that corridor with my head down, and my eyes burned, and I was not looking where I was going.I collided with a wall.It was a warm wall, and it smelled of cedar and something expensive, and it said “Oh,” in a low voice, and two strong hands caught my shoulders before I could fall.I looked up. My breath stopped.He was the tallest man I had seen, with dark hair swept back from a sharp forehead and a jaw that carried a faint shadow of stubble, and his eyes were a stormy grey, and they were looking straight down into mine.His charcoal suit fit his broad shoulders so well that it was almost indecent, his sleeve was rolled back to show one strong forearm, and there was a small, lazy curve at the corner of his mouth.He was hot, and I did not have a better word for it.My heart began to race, my knees went weak, and a heat I had never felt, or could not remember feeling, climbed from my stomach to my face.Why is my body behaving this way? I tho
Chapter 10 Juliet’s pov Isabella scoffed at me, and her eyes ran from my shoes to my hair with open contempt. “Follow me,” she said, and she turned and walked toward the elevators, her heels clicking, without once checking whether I was behind her. I did not follow. I stood in the middle of the lobby, in front of forty staring people, and I watched her disappear into an elevator with her tablet against her chest. She thinks I will follow her around obediently, I thought, and I looked at the building directory on the wall. The CEO’s office was on the fortieth floor. Good, I thought, I will go and ask the man who signed this order for myself. I found the correct elevator, pressed the button, and rode forty floors up with my jaw so tight that my teeth hurt. Nobody stopped me, because nobody dared, and at the end of a long, silent corridor I found a pair of tall oak doors with a brass plate. Jaxon De Luca, Chief Executive Officer. I did not knock. I pushed both doors wide op
Chapter 9Juliet’s pov The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the ceiling of my room.My throat was sore and dry, my head throbbed, and a thin needle was taped to the back of my hand again.A doctor sat beside the bed with a stethoscope around his neck, and three maids stood behind him with their hands folded and worried faces.“She is awake,” one of them whispered.“Madam, can you hear me?” the doctor asked.“I can,” I said, and my voice came out as a croak.“What happened?”“You collapsed in the kitchen after drinking coconut milk,” he said, in a voice that tried to be gentle and did not quite succeed.“Mrs. Galba found you and called me. I gave you the antidote at once.”Antidote. I swallowed, and it hurt, and I thought, so I really am allergic.Then why did I enjoy it so much?“But there is something unusual,” he went on slowly, and he looked at his notes and then back at me.“Your chart says you are severely allergic to coconut, and I would have expected swelling, hives
Chapter 8 Juliet’s pov Jaxon scoffed and glared at me, and his eyes narrowed until I could hardly see the blue in them. “Are you trying to destroy the company the way you did five years ago?” he said. “So I should let you join it again?” “Huh?” I said, and my eyebrows pulled together, because I had no idea what he was talking about. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, and I could tell I was the cause of his headache. “Damn it, the amnesia again,” he muttered, more to himself than to me. “Either way, you are not joining.” I scoffed, and my arms crossed over my chest. Five years ago? I could not remember what I had eaten two weeks ago, and he expected me to stand here and take the blame for something I had never heard of. “What exactly did I do?” I demanded. “That is none of your business,” he said, and he opened his mouth to say more. His phone rang. He took it out of his pocket, looked at the screen, and something changed in his face, a tightness I had







