Dangerous Temptation Read online

  Dangerous Temptation

  By: Mia Madison

  ©Copyright Mia Madison 2017

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  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the author or publisher.

  Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to the author. Unauthorized or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.

  Warning:

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers.

  Dangerous Temptation

  Addilyn

  Serving a rich tyrant as their secretary wasn’t on my to-do list. But I needed to eat. Cut off from my wealthy, controlling father, it was time to make it on my own.

  As the CEO of a large and prosperous company, I can’t help but to view Mr. Worthington as an entitled beast—A totally gorgeous beast, of course.

  But I quickly learn he’s more. Having been promoted and tasked with solving a very important problem with him, I can’t help being attracted to Mr. Worthington.

  Problem is, he’d my father’s age and my family’s business rival.

  Harris

  My secretary’s secretary, she said. The girl I found bent over under my desk is more than she seems. She’s the daughter of my company’s rival business and I can’t fathom why she is here. She seems totally intent on getting fired too, her words challenging me. I should let her go, but I’m curious and… Maybe something else.

  Addilyn has a sharp mind and I know keeping her around will lead me to doing things I shouldn’t. But she makes me feel alive again. If she were anyone else, I wouldn’t hesitate to make my move.

  Imagine my surprise, when she wants me as much as I want her.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  About the Author

  Other Stories by Mia

  Chapter One

  Addilyn

  “Come on… Come on you little sucker.” I didn’t make a habit of being on my knees inside my boss’s boss’s office, but today I was making an exception.

  Inching forward a little more, I stretched my arm and wiggled my fingers in an attempt to snag the balled piece of paper that had rolled under Mr. Worthington’s desk. It was the apology note from my ex-boyfriend. Even though we’d been broken up for two and a half months, the jerk had only just now gotten around to apologizing for cheating on me.

  A half second after I’d finished reading the note, my boss, Pam—the Executive Secretary to the President, owner and CEO of Select Holdings, Inc., an international investment company—had plopped a stack of reports into my arms and told me to deliver them to Mr. Worthington’s office. I’d wadded the apology note up in my hand with a hearty, “Yes, ma’am,” and had gotten on with business. But, as soon as I had put the reports down on Mr. Worthington’s desk, my ex’s worthless note had slipped free of my hand and rolled under his desk.

  As if it had planned the whole thing.

  So… that’s why I had my head down and my tail wagging in the air when Mr. Worthington came into the room. It had nothing to do with how tall he was or his football-player shoulders. It wasn’t even about the way his damn suits made him look like he was ready to march down a catwalk while photographers tried to snap him at just the right angle to capture his hauntingly grey eyes. No, it was none of those things. It was just my shitty ex-boyfriend.

  “Got you!” The tips of my manicured nails snagged on the edge of the wadded paper and I rolled it closer to me, allowing me to scoop it up.

  That’s when I heard Mr. Worthington’s throat clear.

  “Can I help you?” Mr. Worthington asked with his trademark gravelly voice. Knowing he was near and that I had instantly become that girl who would be forever remembered as the one he’d found on her knees under his desk mortified me… then it made me angry.

  Getting up with a smooth ease, I turned and faced him, leveling my baby blues at him. Putting my hand on my hip, I said the first words to come to my mind. “I don’t know, can you?”

  My voice was challenging. It was not the behavior of an underling hired a few weeks ago. Rather than respond to the challenge, I saw Mr. Worthington’s brows lift in surprise, and I remembered who I was and where I was. I wasn’t daddy’s little rich girl in the place. I was employee #587324, or I might as well have been. I didn’t matter, I wasn’t important, and Mr. Worthington could fire me as easily as taking a breath. And rich girl or not, I’d said no to taking any more of daddy’s money—it always came with too many strings attached. I eased the defiance of my stance by clasping my hands in front of me and lowering my eyes.

  The truth was, well-educated or not, at twenty-two years old, this was the first job I’d ever had. I had no prior experience, I’d had to beat out thirty-seven other applicants, and I needed this job. I did not want to go groveling back to my father because I couldn’t pay my rent. I was done living my life to please him. Marry an influential man, have babies, volunteer to run a local charity. Those had been my father’s words. His exact words. That was the life he wanted for me. What I had wanted meant nothing to him.

  “I’m sorry, sir.” The words were hard to say, and I was impressed with myself for not choking on them. I shifted my weight, unable to hide my nerves and hating that I was showing Mr. Worthington any weakness. “Am I fired?”

  “How can I fire you if I don’t even know who you are?”

  I dared to lift my gaze to meet his as he spoke. I saw no amusement in his eyes. I saw a man wondering if he should pounce, wondering if he should destroy me, and it made the need to fight rise up again. Yet, I kept my voice easy as I answered. “I’m your secretary’s secretary.”

  “I’ve never heard such a thing,” he scoffed.

  “Well maybe if you didn’t work her so damn hard. Do you know that woman hasn’t been home before 8 PM since she’s been here?” Shut up already! Warning sirens were blaring in my head, but my sense of survival had left the building and I was ready to burn it down.

  It was Mr. Worthington’s turn to shift his weight onto one foot. “No, I didn’t know. Doesn’t she have a little boy?”

  I could follow the track of his thoughts from his words. He was wondering how much time Pam got to spend with her son before he had to go to bed. The answer was almost none.

  I swallowed, pushing my need to challenge his authority down. “Yes, sir. He cried himself to sleep two nights ago.” If her relationship with her little boy was a concern to him, I was going to drive the point home.

  “I see,” he said. “Well, I’ll have to see what I can do about that.”

  His straight-forward candor surprised me. If he’d been my father, he would have tried to leverage something about the situation to his advantage. Suddenly, I wanted to keep this job enough to mind my manners.

  “Um, am I fired?” I asked as we traded places so that he stood next to h
is desk and I was closer to the door.

  “Now if I did that, Pam wouldn’t be getting to go home before 8 again.” His words were light enough, but there was no smile in his eyes or on his mouth.

  “No, sir,” I answered, risking a smile for us both. The man was gruff, but I could handle gruff. And fairness… well, I could downright support the hell out of fairness. This was a job I wanted to keep, and I got my hind end out of his office before I could give him any more excuses to let me go.

  Chapter Two

  Harris

  “Where have I seen her before?” I grumbled to myself as I leaned back in my chair.

  It was like a memory that wanted to come forward but hadn’t found the path through the dark maze of all I’d done and seen in my forty-six years of life. Yet, despite my sense of having seen her before, I couldn’t imagine that she would have been someone I could have ever forgotten. She was gorgeous with blonde ringlets that danced along her shoulders, and her slender legs seemed to go on for miles. She had a beauty that could have outshone Rita Hayworth.

  She was young enough to be my daughter, but somehow that knowledge didn’t provide me with the cold shower that I’d hoped for. Why’d she have to be so damned beautiful?

  Getting up from behind my desk, I walked along the side wall of my office with a slow, purposeful gate. It was covered with photographs—time capsules of important moments for Select Holdings, Inc. We were the company that stood behind the movers and shakers found on four different continents, and this wall held the quintessential moments of the company’s history. In them were the individuals with whom the company had forged business deals throughout the years, and it stood as a testament to the company’s desire to build a community of industries working toward common goals rather than organizations constantly seeking to undermine and undercut each other’s efforts.

  All in all, it was kind of like organized crime, but legal. You help me and I help you make money.

  My eyes scanned every face of every picture. Bending at the waist, I leaned forward and stared at one about hip height. In it stood myself—alone—and a variety of other business people, some with members of their families. It had been taken at a Consortium for Economic Planning for 2050 and Beyond. Together, we had projected the needs of nations in the face of potential wars, natural disaster, and population migration caused by climate change, mapping out contingencies stretching forward to the end of the century. Never underestimate the profitability of a crisis. Not that I celebrated such things, but a machine only knows what it’s programmed to do.

  And there, standing behind Roger Clement’s right shoulder was a tall blonde with sparkling blue eyes and legs that a runway model would be jealous of.

  “Gotcha.” The girl I’d seen was the daughter of Select Holdings, Inc’s most aggressive competitor, Clement Securities.

  Still bent over, I twisted my neck to look back towards my desk, the same desk that I’d seen her underneath. She’d been snooping around, and I wanted to know why. While Select Holdings, Inc., prided itself on a global morality—to an extent—it was not a sentiment that made us immune or unaware of the ambitions of other companies to see us fall and crumble so that they could pick up the leftovers from our devastation. I hadn’t considered Clement Securities to be especially money grubbing and greedy, but it wouldn’t have been the first time we’d been targeted for industrial espionage.

  I stood to my full height as I heard my office door open behind me. Turning, I watched as the beautiful Ms. Clement walked with a quick swing of her hips over to my desk and laid some files down.

  More than a little curious about what she was up to, I kept my mouth shut and simply watched her without moving. She didn’t know I was there, and I wanted to see what she would do when she thought she was alone. I already had plans to check under my desk for a recording device.

  But, what she did was nothing. She laid the files down and turned to leave. She made it a whole five hurried steps before she spotted me out of the corner of her eye. The shriek that followed nearly made my eardrums bleed as her hands flew to her chest and she stumbled off balance to the side. I had to lunge to catch her flailing arm as she started to fall, pulling her hard against me until I knew that she was once more steady on her feet.

  Her eyes were wide and wild as she stared up at me, her breath coming quick, but it didn’t take long for her to recover.

  “What were you doing just standing there?” The arm that had been flailing seconds before landed a hard slap on my shoulder, and I loosened my grip around her, hating that I was having to remove my hands from where they lay flat against her back. She had the back of a dancer, supple and limber, and the way she moved against me made me feel as though I were holding her as she danced even though her feet weren’t moving. It was with actual regret that I let her slip away. “What are you doing?”

  “I should be asking you the same question. You seem awfully interested in my desk. Why were you rushing?” It was late, already past 6, and I wondered if security was still in the building. I’d hate to have her escorted out, but I’ve done worse.

  Her eyes looked me up and down and she drew back her head. I could see the offense that she was taking to my line of questioning in her outraged expression, but then her features softened and she shrugged her beautiful shoulders. “Every time anybody sees me, they ask me to do something. I was just trying to finish the day and take off before anybody gave me something else to do.”

  “I see,” I said simply.

  She looked chagrined. “I saw that you already let Pam go home. She was so tickled.” Her weight shifted, and she looked as if what she was about to say made her uncomfortable. “Thank you.”

  “No,” I said. “Thank you. I value Pam. I’d hate to lose her by getting too much in the way of what she needs to take care of in her life when she walks out those doors.”

  “Oh,” she said, seeming surprised by my answer, and I wondered for the hundredth time why she had to be so damn beautiful. I had never in my life pursued a subordinate, and I wasn’t about to start now. The power disadvantage was too huge and too unfair to her, yet all I could think about was kissing her cherry red lips.

  I stepped away, putting distance between us and feigning at least a morsel of disinterest. “Good night, Ms…” I let the title hang in the air, hoping that she’d fill the silence.

  “Ms. Clement, Addilyn Clement,” she said in a voice that I wished was whispering to me in the dark of my bedroom in the middle of the night.

  “Good night, Addilyn.” I turned my back on her as I walked to my desk and refused to turn around until I’d heard my office door close. When I finally did, my senses revolted at being robbed of the chance to watch her walk away, and I wondered if there was anything I could do to get the girl fired… or at least moved to a different office, somewhere far, far away from me.

  The fact that she’d given me her real name made me think she was here otherwise. No way her father would send his daughter to spy on my company using her real name.

  Maybe I just wanted a reason to keep her around.

  Chapter Three

  Addilyn

  I couldn’t get Harris Worthington out of my mind, and the man was so off limits. He wasn’t much younger than my father and, just like my father, he had way too much power over my life. My job was at his mercy. My ability to pay my rent and buy groceries were at the mercy of his whims. Yet, the way his slacks fell over that tight butt of his, the way he moved, and the way he looked at me... I got tingles every time I thought about him.

  Doing a surreptitious look around to make sure that no one would notice my not-so-subtle curiosity, I brought up the internet and googled Select Holdings, Inc. to learn about what its website said about the man that made me cross my legs and squeeze. It didn’t provide much, but it did list a few organizations for which Mr. Worthington was the chair. They were all for good causes or charitable in nature—but no less profitable—go figure, and I was starting to feel like Mr. Worth
ington was trying too hard to look like a choir boy. The man was covering up a darker side. He had to be. Nobody was that perfect.

  Going back to Google’s main page, I widened my search, pulling up every piece of information that I could find on the man, and there was a lot. There were pictures of him at charities, shaking hands with other noteworthy donators. But I knew a thing or two about high society charitable events. They were rarely about the charities they supported. People attended them to be seen, to have their pictures flash across the media, and for the opportunity to rub elbows and network with the various millionaires and billionaires in attendance. It was an opportunity for shameless self-promotion, all for the measly price tag of $25,000 a plate. Chump change to those in attendance. So, I definitely was not impressed by his show of generosity by attending such events.

  I dug further, leaning closer to the screen as I immersed myself in the life of a man whom I had no business researching. He’d helped to fund a class action suit against a now defunct company that had poisoned an entire neighborhood with environmental pollutants. He’d donated office space to a small, independently run suicide hotline crisis center. He’d sent three tractor trailers full of emergency relief supplies into a hurricane devastated region.

  I growled at the screen, just about seeing red. Only a man who was truly vile would put so much effort into appearing so good.

  “Addilyn.”

  My head snapped up from the sound of my name. “Yes, ma’am?”

  Pam had a report in one hand and two binders cradled in her other arm. “I need for you to give this report to Mr. Worthington and tell him that it’s the evaluation of the Sandburg acquisition. He needs it as soon as possible, but wait until he is off the phone before you go in to give it to him. I can’t wait any longer. I have a meeting scheduled with the department heads to go over the operations changes that they need to review before their meeting with Mr. Worthington tomorrow afternoon.”