First Comes Love - Ashlee Price
Book Description
Office Rule #1: Don’t fall in love with the woman you’re interviewing.
Office Rule #2: I’m the boss so I make, and break, the rules.
Hobnobbing with staff is against company policy.
Besides, a man in my position needs to be ruthless. Rugged. And cold.
Who cares if I’m known around the office as the brooding, difficult boss.
As the President of my family’s empire,
I’ve got more important things to do than sit in on interviews.
Then she walked in the room.
Once I laid my eyes on her, I’m filled with a throbbing intensity.
A true showstopper. Hot. Smart. And sassy.
She’s my dream woman.
But she’s also off limits.
Duty calls.
My family is banking on my project’s success.
That new little fantasy will have to remain just that.
One thing is for sure.
She’s full of fire.
Fire that I’d like to test out myself. Somewhere private.
Which makes the temptation, and the risk, even hotter.
Prologue
Greyson
What’s better than winning the lottery?
Hitting jackpot when you didn’t even realize you’d bought a ticket.
And this woman— this Harley Davison— has jackpot written all over her.
Thin yet strong athletic body. A dipped-in waist I instinctively want to put my hands around. A generous mauve-lipped smile that slays me. Green eyes with a brand of amusement I’m not quite sure I get but want to. Even her gap-toothed teeth and every golden wave on her head seem to beam.
I rip my gaze off her, force it onto her hands. Lithe rosy-skinned, small-boned things, they flit and fidget, as if small birds that want to be cooped up in this over-air-conditioned office as little as I do.
“I’m Harley,” she says.
Her voice has an exotic flare to it—Australia? New Zealand?—one that her clothing—red-gold brocade blazer, black on black pinstriped pants— only accentuates.
Just another quick glance and a whole number of ‘exotic’ things I’d like to do to her flash through my head.
Focus, Greyson.
But it’s too late. Another smile of hers and I’m done for.
Why she’s here, what I’m supposed to be doing, what this interaction is even for, all falls away.
I have to grip the arm rests of my seat to physically keep me in place. No more glances for me, who knows what would happen.
All I know is that I, impossibly, unaccountably, incredibly, with an intensity that’s almost painful—want her.
Chapter 1
Greyson
One Day Earlier
Here we go again.
Another day at the office, in a position most people would kill for—Storm Media President.
Below the second-level balcony I’m standing on, the open-concept, plant-friendly configuration of cubicles buzzes with eager-anxious activity. Around me wafts the vanilla scent from the air freshener that our janitor, Gladys, installed last night. Across my neck, prickling where I grazed the skin with my razor this morning, is the slight whish of the energy-efficient fans.
I pause, appreciating all the productivity in competent motion, even if I’m not a part of it. One office down from mine, Landon has his head down, slogging away at the mess of the books Dad left us.
I should get back to the office too.
Ah, yes: the office. Still haven’t managed to successfully call it ‘my’ office. Probably because it isn’t.
It’s Dad’s, from its memorabilia-strewn walls down to its desk—his luggage for the first trip that got him backers, back when Storm Media was just a dream in an overly ambitious college kid’s head. The place even smells like him: some sort of spruce—weird, since he never was one to spend an afternoon in nature that could be spent building up the company.
Every time Emerson saunters in here, his first comment is how this is a museum, and his second a question on when I’m going to ‘clean it up’. Truth is, I don’t know. I don’t think I want to. With Dad gone, it’s one of the few things I have left of him.
Seems like every day I’m getting angrier, more restless, pacing the floor of my office like a trapped panther.
Anyway. Time to get started on…
I scowl at my reflection in the laptop screen before turning it on.
That’s just it. My assistant’s on vacation, and even then, Madeline has been admittedly muddled at what exactly I’m supposed to do now that I’m president. Somehow, Dad managed to be busier than anyone I knew, and yet his files and instructions leave out one major point: on what?
Everyone knows he was a great man for raising morale—but exactly how many times are you supposed to saunter around telling people to ‘keep it up, you’re doing great’? What else did he do?
Build and conquer, always, his voice echoes in my head. I reach for my phone, stopping