Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 145155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 581(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
“Natasha Marx to see Joshua Stanton.” I smile nervously.
The girls glance at each other and buzz the intercom. “Yes.” Adrian’s bored voice comes through the speaker.
“Natasha Marx is here to see Mr. Stanton.”
“I’ll be right there.” The girls frown at each other. Is that not normal? I stand awkwardly on display as the girls look me up and down. Adrian bursts through the security door.
“Hi, baby,” he gushes and wraps me in an embrace and kisses me on the temple. Way to embarrass me in front of the staff. He smiles and pulls me toward the doors. “Show’s over, ladies. Back to work,” he snaps. The two girls immediately put their heads back down and start to look busy. Shit, Adrian’s a mean boss, who knew. I thought he was a butterball. He pulls me by the hand through a large room that is surprisingly empty with only about fifteen desks with computers and men sitting behind them. They are typing so fast it looks like they are pretending. “What are they doing?”
Adrian shrugs. “Some are designing, and some are hacking.”
I frown. “Hacking? Do you hack? I thought this was a reputable business,” I ask.
He smiles. “We are just checking facts, medical stuff. Nothing important.” Some are dressed in suits and some are in jeans and hoodies. Hmm, what is the dress code for this place? I am then led through another set of double doors to a huge office. The whole back wall is glass with an amazing view over Sydney. There is a huge desk in the middle of the back wall facing the door.
“This is my office.” Adrian smiles.
“Nice.” I nod, impressed.
“Josh is just training. He will be about ten minutes. Do you want to go into his office and watch?”
I smile and nod. I walk through another set of doors and into the most impressive office I have ever seen, holy shit. Another huge glass wall looking over the city adorns the space. There is a conference table with at least twenty seats on one side of the room, a desk at the back and then to the left is a glass wall looking into another room. And there he stands, my prince. Looking unbelievably hot in a gray pin-striped suit and, I have to say, unbelievably smart. He is standing in front of about twenty students, writing on a whiteboard. A huge computer screen hangs behind him, erected on the wall. They are all in front of computers and are following his instructions. Every now and then he grabs his mouse and shows them on the large screen what he is doing as he talks into a microphone thing attached to his ear. Intelligence is just so…sexy.
“Who is he training?” I ask.
“He runs these competitions where computer kids from around the world have to hack into traps he has set and uncover the hidden formula.”
“Why does he do that?” I frown.
Adrian smiles. “Because he likes to set the traps more than they like to do them and it exposes him to the most talented computer geeks on the planet.” Ah, the penny drops.
“He’s recruiting?” I ask.
Adrian smiles. “Yes, they think they are here to learn, and they are, but what he hasn’t told them is that the top five will get internships with us.”
“And an internship is valuable, is it?” I frown.
“Learning from Josh is like winning the frigging lottery. The man is a genius.” My mind goes into overdrive and I ask the question I have been dying to.
“Adrian, why is Josh so heavily guarded?”
He gives me a sympathetic smile. “Josh has a lot of jealous people around him, Tash. It’s not so much him that they are after, as his mind.”
I frown as I try to comprehend what it must be like to be that smart. I shrug my shoulders and smile. Guess I’ll never find out. I sit on his desk. A smile plays on my lips as I imagine him in this office when we first started hooking up.
Now that I know him better and am fully aware that he had feelings for me all along I know he would have been unbearable to be around during those first few weeks. Poor Adrian…and Cam. What did Cam say the other night? Hmm, that’s right, Josh follows him around stressing him out. I smile at the thought…why do I find that funny? I look back to my Adonis in front of his class and I feel a familiar pull toward him; never have I been so attracted to another human being. No other male even exists when he’s in the room. As I sit in his office hanging off his every word, his eyes drift over to where he spots me sitting on his desk. Our eyes lock across the room. I can hear what his body is saying to mine, my body instantly softening under his gaze. Preparing itself for his onslaught. He looks me up and down and immediately cracks his neck. Bingo. I smile and he calls for lunch and wraps up his class. He walks into his office, grabs me by the hand and pulls me around the corner away from the sight of his class and pushes me up against the wall. Then he is on me. His powerful kiss leaves me breathless as he grabs both sides of my face.