Free Butterflies in Honey (Growing Pains #3) by K.F. Breene Page A

a
notepad and pen.
    “Get fired because you failed to show up to
all the meetings.”
    “Probably.”
    They got to the large meeting hall. There was
a hum of conversation as they took their seats. The raised platform
in the front of the hall was empty. Krista checked her watch, which
was a nasty habit of late. It seemed she was always late for
something, or things always took longer than they were supposed to.
It was rude to do in presentations—she needed to stop. It was worse
than sighing all the time.
    Speaking of, she had almost kicked that
habit. Jasmine started carrying around a squirt bottle—which Marcus
thought was hilarious—and squirted people when they sighed. The one
exception was her boss, but it was only a matter of time.
    Finally, the speaker came to the podium. It
was Tory.
    “Did you know about this?” Krista asked
Marcus.
    Tory usually let Krista know when he would be
in the area. He always had things to teach her, or show her, or
work for her to do. She was a working intern, if it came right down
to it. But she benefited from it, and then so did he. Her
department was churning out work better than any other of their
counterparts, worldwide. To date, they had never failed to spot a
bad egg. Not once.
    Another perk was that when he brought Emily
with him, Krista got to leave early. They shopped and gossiped and
had girl time. Work was not brought up, as a rule. Krista looked
forward to those visits. Even though she now had Kate and Jasmine,
there was something special about Emily. Somehow, despite their age
gap, Emily completely got her. She always picked up what Krista put
down, and then ran with it.
    Marcus shook his head and looked around. “It
probably isn’t all that big. It’s about time for a company
update.”
    “Good morning L.A. branch. Thank you all for
joining us,” Tory started.
    “As if we had a choice,” Kate said from
behind Krista and Marcus.
    Krista looked back to her with a warning.
Kate was being rude and it would look poorly on Krista. Kate’s
instructions were to save the rudeness for when Krista was not
around. And then only go so far that she didn’t get in trouble.
    Ben and Jasmine were looking at the stage
with bored expressions. Kate noticed Krista looking and
grinned.
    “Nice of you to show up, boss,” she said
snidely.
    Krista took the matter firmly in hand by
sticking her tongue out.
    Before she could turn back around, Jasmine
asked, “What are the plans for tonight? I need to get out, quick.
My boss is trying to make me stay late. On a Friday !”
    It was then that the microphone blast out a
deep baritone with a gravel rumble, the words gliding across the
airwaves and splintering Krista’s brittle bones. She turned around
so quickly she gave herself whiplash.
    Sean was standing on the stage, in the same
room with her, next to Tory, in an expensive suit and a very
handsome smile. He’d cut and styled his hair, was wearing one of
Marco’s suits, and had shiny black shoes. He looked like a million
bucks.
    And he was here. With Tory. In Krista’s
company. In Krista’s town.
    After rejecting her in San Francisco.
    To describe what happened at that point would
be impossible. The CliffsNotes were: Krista’s world was tilted in
confusion, her stomach dropped ten feet and filled with a sudden
swarm of killer bees, her ass clenched, her breath whooshed out of
her body, her head went light, her vision went blurry, her body got
hot, but broke out in shivers. She couldn’t process. She didn’t
understand.
    “How did I not know about this?” Marcus asked
beside her in exasperation. At least he wasn’t in on it. That was
comforting.
    “What is going on?” Krista asked from a
galaxy away.
    They all listened in rapture to Tory telling
them that Sean would be the new Senior Vice President of the
South-Western Region. It was a new format the company was
working—the nation divided into six regions, each Region run by its
Senior VP, and Tory would oversee all the