The Other Side of Greed (The Seven Sins #5) - Lily Zante Page 0,59

to eat, or head back to my own office to deal with the mounting deluge of emails. I’ve had a dozen messages from the new PA. She is completely useless. Maybe I should check in at my office and see what a mess she’s made of today.

But something else draws my attention. With the office is empty, here’s my chance to see if I can find anything of interest on Kyra.

Like the dirt I was so sure I’d find.

The dirt I could expose her with.

Back in the days when I was so sure that no one could be as well-meaning as Kyra.

How wrong I was.

But still, I walk over to Kyra’s desk and sit in her chair, gingerly staring up at the ceiling to make sure nothing is about to fall on my head and kill me.

A moment of madness hits me and I snoop through her drawers, rummaging around, looking for something, anything. A clue to her. I want to know more about her. I take a peek but I find nothing significant. Some hand cream, lip balm. A copy of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist. A hairbrush and a whole heap of unopened pastel-colored Post-it notes and other stationery.

I tap my fingers on Kyra’s desk. It’s not super neat, but it’s not a chaotic mess either. I see some letters lying around under a paperweight. One of them has Greenways Committee letterhead.

I shuffle through the pile. I’m about to tug the Greenways Committee letter out from under the paperweight when the door opens.

“Damn!” Kyra stands there, her knee bent as she glances over her shoulder examining the sole of what looks like a high-heeled boot. She looks amazing. “Damn heels,” I think she mumbles.

I let go of the letter I was about to pull out and fall back into her chair. The sound of it creaking makes her look up at me.

“Brad …” It’s a breathless whisper, shot through with surprise. “You’re here late.” Furrows form on her brow. I can’t talk, because I’m fixated on her bare arms. The small sun tattoo—the one I’ve seen many times before—almost winks at me.

“I’m ... I was ...”

“You said you were busy tonight?”

“I was about to leave. Check in on Emma …”

“That’s why you’re not coming with us tonight?” she asks. It’s a lame excuse and I don’t know how to reply because one white lie leads to another and before I know it I’ll be caught up in a fishing net of deceit, feeling like a hapless little fish. I stand up, because I’ve been caught red-handed—not that she seemed to notice—and because she looks so breath-taking.

Stunning, is the word that shoots to my mind. Something else, white hot desire, shoots directly to my cock.

I’ve never seen her dressed up. She’s not red carpet dressed up, but she looks different. Dark jeans hug her hips. High heels, pencil thin, make her legs look longer. A blouse with thin straps caresses her skin. She’s the epitome of rock star glam. Rock chick glam. My interest in her just hiked up fifty notches.

The transformation is a complete makeover but not a drastic fix-the-teeth-get-Botox type of makeover. I could have sworn she only went home less than an hour ago so she hasn’t had long to get ready but she already takes my breath away.

She sashays into the room, keys in one hand, handbag in the other, and goes straight over to Simona’s desk where she fumbles around in her drawers.

Fuck.

She has another tattoo in between her shoulder blades. It looks like a compass, and it has me thinking. Why that, and why there? Where she can’t see it but I can? A hot-blooded man like me who now has no choice but to gawk at it because I sure as hell can’t seem to turn away.

My eyes are riveted, and it’s like I’m seeing a new side to Kyra for the first time. She is sexy as hell. There was something about her before, which I begrudgingly noticed, but this... this is her sexiness on steroids.

I have to work hard not to let my eyes rake down the length of her as she walks towards me.

“The invitations,” she says, holding them up. “Simona forgot them, and now I’m running extra late and—”

“You look like a model.”

She laughs, confusion making her brows slant before she looks away. We don’t exchange words like this.

“You do,” I insist.

As if a blindfold has been untied from around my eyes, I see Kyra in a whole new