Romance Warfare: a Tigress' Guide to NOT Secure a Mate
Lizzie Lynn Lee
Chapter One
It’s hard to enforce a no contact rule when she’s working for you. Totally ignoring her makes you look like a jackass.
“Who?”
“Eva....Eva Carey.”
“You are f*cking kidding me.” Adam Frost slammed his hands onto his mahogany desk and kicked his chair back.
“There’s no way that’s happening. Eva Carey is not working for me.”
Adam stalked back and forth across his office, his legs lithe and muscular as he paced the length of the room. He stopped in front of the floor-to-ceiling window and peered down at the busy streets below, the cars and people all miniature versions of themselves from this height.
“Does she know?”
There was no answer from behind him. The mid-morning sun slanted across his chiseled features, picking out hints of copper in his deep chocolate hair. He spun and speared the man in the chair with his gaze. “Does. She. Know?” he ground out.
Dean Woolsey, VP of Frost Industries and, coincidentally, Adam’s cousin, was sprawled across a leather club chair parked in front of Adam’s massive desk. He chuckled at Adam’s discomfort, clearly he enjoyed torturing Adam. “Does she know you’re CEO of Frost Industries? Yep, pretty sure she does. Does she know she’s your new executive administrative assistant? I…I’m not sure.” He cleared his throat and developed a keen interest in the abstract painting dominating the wall to his left.
Adam stopped his pacing and dropped back into his chair, closing his eyes, and massaging his temples with his thumbs. He could feel disaster in the making. Big time. One that he couldn’t easily wish away. Anything related with Eva Carey always drained his energy and his sanity. Winter is coming, he thought sarcastically. “This was all you, wasn’t it?” he asked Dean.
Dean shrugged and gave him a half-cocked smile. “Listen, she needed a job. When the Carey clan alpha came calling, what was I supposed to tell him? ‘No way in hell am I hiring your gorgeous little heir?’”
Adam huffed his exasperation and for a split second, his sky-blue eyes flashed topaz at Dean. “This is a huge company, Dean. There must be another department where you could have put her. Mail room, perhaps?”
“Come on, mail room? You want to insult the Carey’s alpha? She’s more than qualified and she needed a position that pays well.”
“Fine, accounting, whatever. Just somewhere else. Away from me. Somewhere I don’t have to see her every day.”
“Oh-ho, don’t tell me you still have feelings for her?” Dean hooted with laughter. “This is going to be even better than I thought!”
Adam narrowed his eyes. Irritated. “You did do this on purpose.”
“Of course, I did, Adam. You need a little shake-up in your life. And I don’t think anyone can shake you up as much as your ex-fiancé, the lovely Miss Eva Lillian Carey, whom we all dearly miss.”
God damn it, Dean.
“Well, where is she?”
“Down in HR, filling in the last of her paperwork. I told them to send her up as soon as she’s finished.”
Adam jumped out of his chair and started pacing the room again. Dean watched him back and forth, a smile playing at his lips. Adam stopped in front of the window again, smoothing his hands over his thick, chestnut locks and fidgeting with his tie. Dean snorted, trying to hold in his laughter.
“You’re walking on thin ice, cousin.” Adam growled.
“How many years has it been?”
“I don’t know.”
“Five or six…”
“Eight.”
Dean howled with laughter again. “This just gets better and better.”
“I don’t know what you think is going to happen. Or just what is so damned funny. That was a long time ago. Yes, I loved her. Then. But now, this is going to be strictly professional. She needs a job. Fine. She can work for me. But that’s it. She has her office, I have mine. Keep the correspondence electronic. No reason for any contact beyond the job.” Adam sank into his chair and started rummaging through a stack of paperwork, trying to distract himself from thoughts of Eva Carey. The girl, now a woman, who haunted his dreams and waking moments long after she walked away from him. “Yeah, I think I’ll do just that.”
Dean snorted derisively. “It’s hard to enforce a no contact rule when she’s working for you. Totally ignoring her makes you look like a jackass.”
Before Adam could retort back there was a soft knock on the office door. Dean cocked his eyebrow at Adam. “You wanna get that?” Adam’s eyes flicked back and forth from Dean to the door. The knock sounded again, louder this time.
Adam cleared his throat. “Come in,” he said loudly.
The door swung open and his past stepped over the threshold.
***
Eva Carey was standing in the doorway, the office lights behind her silhouetting her curvaceous body. She was staring down at a sheaf of paperwork and stepped forward, still studying the papers.
“Hi, I’m Eva. HR told me come on up to this office when I finished.”
Adam watched as she strode forward, luscious hips outlined in her black pencil skirt, sky-high stiletto’s making little dents in the plush office carpeting. Adam was entranced by every sway her body made. She threw out her hand when she reached the chair Dean was sitting in. “It’s nice to meet….” she looked up, her voice trailing off faintly.