Free His Challenging Lover by Elizabeth Lennox

credit card. Put all the others in the ‘like’ pile on this credit card and have them sent to this address,” he told the man who looked like he had just about won the lottery today due to the commission he’d earn on this shoe extravaganza.
    On the way out, he picked up a box of pretty chocolates, thinking they might go a ways towards soothing Tilly’s panic every time he asked her for something. As the cashier was ringing up that purchase, he saw another box of chocolates. This one was bigger, more elaborate and he immediately thought of Autumn. “Can you wrap that box up,” he said to the cashier. “Have them sent to this address?” he told her, handing him another business card. On the back, he wrote Autumn’s name and her extension, just in case.
    “Thanks,” and he smiled, walking out of the store with the smaller box of chocolates, feeling much better. Autumn loved shoes, but she was a huge fan of chocolates too.
    Back in her office, Autumn pulled her old shoes off and slid her feet into the new ones, loving the way the supple leather enclosed her foot. She stood up and walked around her office, making sure that they still felt good while she was on the carpeting. Smiling, she walked down the hallway, a definite perk in her step. She wasn’t even going to tackle the problem of trying to find new candidates for Xander today. She felt too good and she didn’t want to spoil the mood. She’d figure something out tomorrow, she told herself as she slowly whittled down her workload that had been piling up over the past few days since she’d spent so much time trying to find Xander a new assistant.
    She sighed as the tension left her body with each step and felt wonderful. She stayed on the opposite end of the hallway from Xander, not wanting to ruin this good mood by running into him and having him demand more resumes. Resumes which she didn’t have right now, since she was purposely ignoring his problem.
    When she came back to her office an hour later, she noticed a strange look on Mary’s face. “What’s up?” Autumn asked, her hand resting on the doorknob to her office. “And why is my office door closed?”
    Mary smiled weakly, then shrugged. “I didn’t know what to do with all of them, so I just stacked them in your office,” she explained.
    “Stacked what up?” Autumn asked, confused.
    “All the boxes.”
    Autumn still didn’t understand. “Did an order come in that didn’t fit in the storage room?” she asked, pushing open the door. And then she just stopped.
    Her office wasn’t filled, but there were definitely a lot of boxes on her desk. Bags with about ten different boxes. Shoe boxes! And a huge box of chocolates sat on the corner of her desk.
    “What’s all this?” Autumn asked, wondering what kind of mistake had been made. “Where did all of these come from?”
    She opened one box and saw the red, suede shoes she’d absolutely loved earlier this afternoon. “Oh my!” she gasped. Opening the next one, she saw the black ones with the zipper on the size. Box after box revealed all the beautiful shoes that she’d tried on earlier. “I didn’t buy these,” she whispered, her voice completely gone as her heart beat frantically. “At least, I don’t think I did,” she said. She pulled her receipt out of the smaller bag and looked. Sure enough, there was only one pair of shoes on that receipt.
    “There’s definitely been a mistake,” she said. “Some of these shoes are way out of my price range. I can’t spend this much money on shoes!”
    Mary was sighing as she held up a pair of lime green, leather shoes with a gold bow on the side. “Can you keep them for a day or two? I just like holding them,” she said with awe in her eyes.
    Autumn didn’t even answer her, too busy looking up the phone number of the department store. It took her several tries, but she eventually was connected to the shoe department. And miracle of miracles, the salesclerk who had helped her