Penthouse Perfect: BBW Erotic Romance Read Free Page B

like she’d won the lottery. It was enough for her to live on for a year, at least.
    She could tell Bailey & Blake to kiss her behind. She could buy a new car. She could even go on vacation. Maybe to the ocean. She hadn’t been there since Gran died and left her the apartment, nearly three years ago.
    Joel’s face flashed in her mind again. She had promised.
    “I’m sorry, but no. That information isn’t for sale.” She didn’t ask the thousand other questions running through her mind, like why would they offer so much? How had they even known she was with Joel? How had they known how to find her?
    She shook her head. “Is that all you needed?”
    Ian looked upset. “Are you sure? My boss will be upset if I can’t get that information. I can offer a bit more, if that will help.”
    She stood up, afraid of her own thoughts. It was so much money… “No. I’m sorry. Why don’t you contact Mr. Cortran himself? Make an appointment?”
    Ian looked away. “Maybe. Sorry to have taken up your time.”
    She felt bad for the guy, and even worse to be letting that much money just walk away, but she had made a promise
    To a stranger.
    He’s not exactly a stranger.
    Yes he is. You think he cares about you at all?
    Not really, but a promise is a promise. Get over it.
    You need a new car.
    I need a new car. A new life. A new plan. So what? Selling out Joel is off the table.
    No. It would be lying, it would be small and mean, and it would make her feel horrible.
    Joel probably had reporters hounding him constantly, and she felt oddly proud of helping to protect him, even just a little. Even if he would probably never know.
    She was suddenly exhausted, too tired to even yell at the men behind the closed doors across the landing. She walked back to her desk and sat down, then just put her head on her arms. She would deal with them tomorrow.
    She knew one thing, though. She couldn’t sit here for another minute. She got up, stuck her head into Mr. Bailey’s office without knocking, and said, “I’m sick, and going home for the day. Tell Mr. Blake to have Chelsea find the files he needs.”
    Marcus Bailey looked up, blinked at her through his thick glasses, and waved. “Oh, OK. See ya tomorrow.”
    “Maybe,” she muttered, and closed the door hard
    ***
     
    A soft knock on his office door brought Joel’s head up out of the spreadsheets he was studying. It had been a long day already, and it wasn’t even eleven o’clock. He had signed off on the permits for the new factory in Pennsylvania, checked the accounting figures for this quarter, and now he was in the middle of figuring out how to restructure management tiers without firing anyone.
    His office, normally a comforting place for him, was starting to feel claustrophobic. He reminded himself that he always got that way when he was about to make an important decision, regardless of where he was. 
    A happy sight greeted him from the doorway, though. “Miffy!”
    He got up and swung around the desk to hug his grinning ex-secretary. She was so little that he was afraid he would accidentally crush her, and her springy gray curls tickled his face as he bent down to kiss her cheek. She smelled like lavender. “How are you? How is retirement?”
    “I’m bored out of my mind!” Miffy stomped a tiny, Nike-clad foot.  “This screw-brained idea isn’t going to work. I keep telling Harry that, but he won’t listen. Do you miss me yet?”
    Joel laughed. “Every day, Miff. Every day.”
    She glanced past him to the stack of papers on his desk. The highest one was almost as tall as her. “You need to hire someone.”
    “I’m holding out for you to leave Harry and come back to me,” he joked, but squeezed her delicate shoulders one more time before letting go. He had kept Miffy on when he had taken his father’s place, so she had been personal secretary to two of the three generations of Cortran men. She had also saved his behind more than once with her vast knowledge