Free Try and Play Me, Boy (The Playgirls #2) by May Sage

at nine and three and I might overlook other defaults.”
    What the ever freaking hell. Yeah, she’d gone to school to serve coffee to a dickhead.
     
    Needless to say, she hadn’t serve him one in the three years since she’d started; even when she’d needed to stretch her leg and had brought the rest of her team a round of fresh drinks. He couldn’t say a thing, as there had been no shortcomings to make up for.
    She also hadn’t screwed him; that particular attraction had died when he’d open his mouth.
    Or rather, she got very good at ignoring it.
     
    Emma didn’t want to beat him only because he was unbearable, though; the thing was, Kane was very good at his job. Doing better than him – if only once – meant she could stand a chance to get the next promotion.
     
    Emma entered the meeting room and immediately saw that there was something ultimately wrong with it.
    The chair dominating the oval table was empty.
    It had never been empty.
    Never.
    Even when it fell during his rare holidays, he popped in to attend to the weekly reports.
    The teamleaders tried to run the show, but no one was into it; after hearing their half-hearted attempt at establishing some sort of authority for a full five minutes, Emma held up her hand to seem polite, and asked:
    “Where is he?”
    No one asked who she meant; most people knew she never pronounced his name if she could help it. 
    “Kane has a cold.”
    That was a lie. No cold would have kept him from the office. He was dead, there was no other possibility.
    “A cold? ”
    “Yes, Ms. Summers. It does happen this time of the year.”
    Every single member of staff – her included – had caught a bug at least once a year, save for Kane; which was one of the reason she’d come to suspect he was some sort of android.
    “And he’s taken some time off because of it?”
    “I believe you’ll find that his mother made him.”
    That did make her chuckle. Yeah, she could totally see that.
     
    Gia Colburn was a goddess; fierce, still beautiful, and very protective of her brew. 
    She’d been an actress in her youth – of all things – but after her marriage to Harry Colburn, she’d gone to school for business and became her husband’s partner in every sense.
    Thirty years later, Harry had retired, leaving the running of his empire to his very efficient wife.
    She was the one who had recruited Emma; she’d been present at the graduation and had offered her an interview after hearing her presentation.
    Emma had tried to rationalize things, to tell herself that she’d completely deserved it – her hard work was bound to pay off. But all that bullshit asides, Gia Colburn was the one and only person who had looked at her and decided she wanted to take a chance on her. That mattered.
     
    “Laugh while you can, Summers. Mrs Colburn has given another set of orders, and you might not like them.”
     
    “Let me guess, he beat you by one contract?”
    She’d met Lucy and Alice at their usual bar right after work and immediately downed a Gin Tonic.
    She’d used to like a classic Hendrix with cucumber, but it had become everyone’s drink since Fifty Shades, and Emma was no follower; she’d changed to Plymouth, and had discovered that it was pointblank delicious with a zest of grapefruit. 
    She shook her head.
    “No. We tied.”
    That would have meant champagne, in other circumstances.
    “Seriously? That’s great, Ems!”
    “We tied,” she repeated. “Although he stopped working Thursday morning, because he caught a cold .”
    Which meant that he would have been one or two contract ahead, as per freaking usual. 
    But it wasn’t the worst thing – oh no.
    The worst was that bloody Kane Colburn had asked his mummy to give his eight pending contracts to her. Which meant that she’d be ahead for months, thanks to his generosity. Prick.
     
    She couldn’t say no – there was no reasonable request coming from Gia that she could imagine turning down – but she knew