Sweet Surrender (Sweet Jealousy, Book Two) Read Free Page A

to be open?” Addison asked. This was the most interesting part of the story, at least to her. Joan was an associate editor, which was one step above Addison’s editorial assistant job. Not to mention Joan got to write smart, topical articles on relationships, which was exactly what Addison wanted to do.
    “Of course, what else are they going to do with her section?”
    “I don’t know,” Addison said. “I just thought that with the revamping, they might just let it go.”
    “No way,” Tia said. “People read Intuition for the relationship articles. It’ll be hard to get someone to fill Joan’s shoes, but they’ll have to at least try.”
    The office was beginning to fill up now, and employees were filing by, most of the women stuffing their subway shoes into their bags, looking perfectly put together as they juggled their coffees. Addison looked down at the new dress she’d bought this morning and smoothed it down self-consciously.
    “Anyway,” Savannah said, and put a finger to her lips, signaling that they should stop talking about Joan and what was going on with her. Not that it mattered. Savannah would probably tell another twenty people by lunchtime. It wasn’t like she was particularly close to Tia or Addison, and she’d told them. “I have to get to my desk. If I’m late again this week, I’m going be in total trouble.”
    Savannah arranged her hair around her shoulders. Then she stood there not moving, even though she’d just said she needed to get back to work. Obviously she didn’t want to leave Tia and Addison by themselves, worried that they might share some piece of gossip without her.
    “I guess I should get to my desk, too,” Tia said reluctantly. She stood up and began walking away with Savannah. Just before she disappeared around the corner toward her cubicle, she looked over her shoulder and mouthed, “We’ll talk about this later.”
    Addison rolled her eyes at Tia, like there was nothing to tell.
    And as far as Addison was concerned, there wasn’t. What had happened between her and Nathan Sweet was going to stay a closely guarded secret.
    The office was almost full now, and Addison tapped her foot against the floor, not sure what, exactly, she should do. She supposed maybe she should work on the article that Nathan wanted, the one she’d never written about the sex positions.
    Of course, she was probably going to get fired, but on the off chance she didn’t, she figured she should get some work done. Plus she couldn’t just sit there. Her whole body felt like it was pulled tight with electricity, like she was going to combust at any moment.
    She rolled her shoulders in small circles, trying to force herself to relax. Then she closed her eyes and willed herself not to think about Nathan Sweet. Think about something else, she told herself. Something nice.
    She imagined her family’s house back in Georgia, the sprawling yard and the peach tree in the front yard. She thought about the taste of her mom’s sweet tea, the pitcher of it that was always in the refrigerator, not just during the summer, but every day.
    And then she imagined what her parents would think when she told them she’d been fired from her job in New York. Or, even worse, what they would think if they ever found out what she’d been doing last night with Nathan Sweet. With her boss.
    Guilt and shame filled her body, but it flared like a firework and then flamed out.
    The emotions replaced themselves with anger. How dare Nathan Sweet do that to her?
    He was thirty, old enough to know that you don’t just go around messing with your employees. And especially not in the way that he’d done it with her.
    Not to mention he was engaged! The whole thing was wrong on a million different levels.
    The anger burned and seared inside of her, and she turned to her computer and pulled up a blank word document. She wasn’t going to let Nathan Sweet get to her like this. She wasn’t going to let him use her like she was