Free Deadly Fortune: A Contemporary Suspense Romance (Romantic Mystery And Suspense Short Stories Book 1) by Jade Allen

Rachel groaned into her pillow as the sound of Muse’s “Hysteria” ripped her out of the depths of an intense sleep. She reached out blindly, groping for her phone on the bedside table, trying to decide whether or not it was worth it to cue the snooze function. It would only net her an extra nine minutes—just enough time to start drifting off again before the alarm came back on—but the weight behind her eyes, the heaviness of her arms and legs against the soft, warm bed, was so tempting to give into.
    She pulled her face free of the pillow and opened her eyes, staring dumbly at the still-playing alarm flashing on the screen. She knew if she didn’t make up her mind soon, she would be fully awake, and there would be no point in tapping the snooze icon. Groaning again, she tapped the icon and dropped the phone onto the bed next to her, curling up. She could at least pretend, for the moment, that she didn’t have anywhere to be.
    Rachel was still hovering in the mental space between asleep and awake when the alarm went off again; her brain had started to perk up into function, insistently cataloging everything she would have to get done that day, in spite of the deep-seated desire to return to sleep. God, I don’t want to go to work, she thought, sitting up in bed and reaching for her phone to shut off the alarm for good. She could have, theoretically, hit the snooze button one more time; she only needed twenty minutes to get ready for work, and the alarm was set to forty-five minutes before she had to leave. But she was awake; there was no point in pretending anymore.
    She took a deep breath and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, climbing down and scrubbing at her slightly greasy-feeling face. Rachel decided that a big glass of water, a toothbrush, and some face soap would complete the process of transitioning out of sleep and into waking life. But first, she absolutely had to get the coffee started.
    Rachel wandered out of her bedroom and into the kitchen, blinking sleepily as her feet shuffled along the rug; for the moment, she was determined not to check her email, or even to look and see what was going on amongst her friends online. The quiet of the house, so early in her day, was not to be interrupted by considerations of the incredible mess waiting for her when she arrived at work. Her body moved automatically as she went into the small apartment kitchen: turning on the faucet, rinsing the coffee pot, scooping coffee into the basket, reaching up to retrieve a glass from the cupboard. Slowly but surely, her body was coming awake, her brain losing the lingering fog of sleep.
    While the coffee brewed, Rachel downed the glass of water in a few rapid swallows, washed her face, and brushed her teeth, sitting down heavily at the tiny table in her dining room—a second-hand rescue from when a distant aunt had passed away while she was in college, and her cousins had needed to get rid of as much of the woman’s hoarded furniture as they could. She poured herself a cup of coffee and added milk and sugar, giving it an experimental, necessary sip before she finally unlocked her phone and tapped on the email icon.
    A resigned sigh gusted through her lips as the screen loaded, showing somewhere between fourteen and twenty new emails. Rachel took a deep breath and began to skim the previews, her eyes taking in subject lines and the first sentence or so of the messages themselves. She mentally prioritized them based on who they were from, whether or not the subject line said “urgent” and her own experience. It had been a little over two years since she had gratefully taken the job of Administrative Assistant, feeling the hot breath of student loan debt collectors on her neck. She had worked hard to get as many scholarships as possible to make her way through college, but Rachel had been forced to resort to loans when there was simply not enough money
    About a year into working for Elite Advertising, Rachel had come