Free Romance: The CEO by Emily Cooper

the large package of Beau Donovan, and started making moaning sounds.
    “Hmmm…” the woman moaned. “Yes please.”
    Harper’s cheeks blushed with redness. After at least two minutes of deep moaning, the woman placed the magazine back on the table, much to Harper’s relief.
    Harper could have quietly stared at the picture for hours, and she could have done with the enjoyment, but to avoid any further unwanted embarrassment, she didn’t pick the magazine back up.
    Things had changed lately for Harper and life was becoming more stressful by the day, but New York City was always in a hurry to change someone's life.
    Whether they were drawn to the city by the lure of fame and fortune or the temptation of the cultural explosion that was rocking the city and bringing new trends into existence by the hour, there was something for everyone from business and trade to the big screen and the top restaurants in the world.
    They say if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.
    Eight years ago, Harper Clark had moved to The Big Apple to pursue a career in financial advising with one of the top firms in the nation and had found herself in a growing economic boom that afforded her the kind of life she had always imagined for herself and her boyfriend and hopefully soon-to-be husband.
    But things tend to change quickly here.
    Really quickly.
    The markets changed overnight and instantly people lost their jobs and money just as quickly as they had earned it.
    Harper wondered what that said about them. If the saying is ‘If you can make it in New York City you can make it anywhere,’ and you flop, did that mean you were considered a failure?
    To live here you had to be tough and have a thick skin and the ability to bounce back when things didn't go the way they were anticipated to. Harper wasn't sure how much bounce she had left after so many things fell out from under her.
    Harper stared out the window behind her, looking out to the expanse of the city, wondering how her life had taken such a turn and ended up the mess that it currently was. There were so many things that had changed over the last few months and none of them seemed to be for the better.
    She crossed her legs and rested her head on the cool glass watching the cars and taxis go by on the busy street, wishing she had somewhere to be other than sitting in the cramped little doctor’s waiting room. She was there because she was having a lot of trouble sleeping at night. Her brain couldn’t switch off and let her sleep peacefully.
    Harper was determined to get her life back in order and keep a positive outlook on things. She refused to let a few turns of bad luck and a few bad choices ruin everything.
    If things could go south in a hurry, they could turn around the same, right?
    She was newly single, had her own apartment and a lot of free time on her hands to venture out into the world and find her passion.
    She wondered if the stock market was where she belonged.
    Maybe something else would come up and she would find that she liked that better than working on the trading floor. She had some time to figure it all out, though not as much time as she would have liked and been comfortable with.
    The truth was that her boyfriend of the last two years had dumped her and left her high and dry.
    He took her credit cards and decided to go on a spending spree before heading out of the country to Mexico with his new girlfriend who he had proposed to with a ring he had bought with Harper's money.
    To further add insult to injury, he had chosen her birthday as the ideal time to drop that bomb on her.
    She was forced to move into a small one-bedroom apartment in a ‘up and coming’ neighborhood. Which meant that it was a slum that the city was trying to revamp before they completely lost it to poverty.
    They were building new apartments and tearing down a lot of the abandoned buildings in the area in an effort to clean it up.
    It wasn't the best area and it certainly