Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
The next, I'm being whisked away to get married…
My boss says he needs a wife ASAP.
When you are offered a huge paycheck that would resolve all your life's problem,
Saying yes might be the only option.
Plus my boss is pretty easy on the eyes.
Probably has no idea that I have this huge crush on him.
Or that he's like a ray of sunshine in my life every day.
Except the guy that showed up at the altar is… not him.
The one I was just made to get married to is my boss's older twin brother…
The heir to the Bradford Enterprise.
The dark brooding man that everyone calls a beast.
The one that stays completely out of the spotlight.
The one surrounded by all kinds of rumors…bad ones.
Before I can escape,
He hauls me away to his huge mansion.
Away from everything.
And he says for better or worse,
We are stuck together…
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter one
Everleigh
Iwill never get over Bradford Anderson the Third.
Yes, so he also happens to be my boss, and I’m just the lowly admin person. This isn’t some rags-to-riches story. I’m just one of his assistants with hopes of being, well, of being not.
And by that, I mean promotion. I have no aspirations for the man himself. The company promotes from within. They try and give people who are already here an opportunity if they can. I saw my chance last week when an entry-level position in the accounting department came up. I couldn’t decide whether applying showed ambition or would make me look malcontent, but I sent my resume in anyway.
It’s been a week of literally sitting on pins and needles because I have this thing where when I get super nervous, my butt cheeks become slightly numb. Having a numb butt for seven days now has been uncomfortable, to say the least. It’s gotten worse now that I’ve received the call. You know, the one where the said god of a boss gets on his office phone, calls your direct line, then asks you to please come to his office. Totally unscheduled. For no reason whatsoever.
That call.
The numbness is spreading. I’m walking, and I’m doing it all funny—it's like my legs are all jelly and butter, and there’s no toast or anything substantial to hold me up and keep me together. I’m that nervous. I’m a wreck. I’m probably sweating through the white blouse my mom still has to iron for me because I’ve never figured out the art of making it look good, and she’s a pro, and we can’t afford dry cleaning. I’ve already knocked on the door, so it’s too late to lift my arms and check, but in any case, I’ll keep them pressed to my body.
Breathe, Everleigh, breathe. Don’t breathe messily, and don’t pant. Just breathe normally. In, deep, out, push. In and out. Soothing breaths. Here we go. You’ve got this. You need this. Oh god, what if he fires me because he thinks I’m not happy here because I applied for a different position? What if he thinks I’m a huge ingrate, and if I’m not dedicated to my job, then I shouldn’t have a job? Oh fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I can’t afford to lose this job. Not now. Not ever.
Bradford is there in his palatial office behind his throne. I mean his desk. He’s sitting all casual and gorgeous. He basically defines beauty, and his suits might be the three-thousand-dollar bespoke kind, but they only look so stellar because they’re on him—all six foot three godly, manly inches of him. He has perfect sandy hair, and it falls just the right amount over a strong forehead. His eyes are a glittering green, and the lights in here only enhance their strange shade. He’s also got a carved-out jawline, strong lips, and all the typical too-gorgeous-to-be-real features of a god-made man through some unfortunate and humbling accident that happened in a parallel universe before he was even born.
“Good morning, Everleigh.” He motions to the chairs in front of him, and because he’s a king and I’m just a lowly peasant, and the entire lower half of my body is now numb, I fall into one of them rather less than gracefully. It takes me a second to rearrange my wooden legs and pull down my cheap pencil skirt. I pray he doesn’t notice that it’s not designer and that I got it on sale at a thrift store. Yes, on sale at a thrift store. I manage to keep my arms tucked at my sides just in case of sweat emergencies, and then I raise my head and gulp.
“Good morning, Mr. Anderson.” My stomach ties into a horrible, tight knot. If only this man knew how desperately I’d fallen for him. I’ve been working as his assistant, which was basically landing the job of a lifetime, for two years now. I only got the job because I have a friend from college who used to work in the mailroom here but now works in marketing and knows people who know people who know people. And they needed someone urgently back then.
I’m distracted when the sun comes out from behind the clouds outside, and a beam of golden sunlight slants through the huge windows in the office and straight onto Bradford. He’s not only gorgeous, but he’s good. He runs this place like it’s his birthright, which it basically is because he comes from a long line of Andersons—the third in his name should give that away—but also from old, old, old, ancient family money. Despite his mountains of gold, he gives back to this city in ways that most people don’t, and he really does care. He’s an inspiration, which is why his name has been in so many magazines and newspapers and generally all over the internet. It’s not my job to handle his PR, thank goodness. That takes a whole department. Literally. He’s turning thirty next month, and it has led to a whole slew of requests for things like the top thirty under thirty, blah, blah, blah. It’s been a scheduling nightmare, and unfortunately, I do handle that part. Just saying.