Free Mr. Corporate (Mister #3) by J.A. Huss Page A

that. And I don’t blame him. Those charges were still hanging over him at that point in time. He was taken to the station and questioned. I had to go down there and admit that it was mostly me making the scene. They wrote me a ticket.
    God.
    This is what happens when Weston Conrad and I spend too much time together.
    I’m not interested in fulfilling anyone’s prescribed role. I’m not interested in being someone’s subordinate. I’m not interested in marrying my boss. I’m the boss. I have my own company, failing though it is. I’m the boss. Not him. And I won’t get caught in his trap again. Not even for an afternoon.
    I’ll keep you safe, Tori. I won’t ever let anyone hurt you. You will never have to worry about that kind of stuff from me .
    No. He’s right. I wouldn’t. Because I’d be his little trophy wife. Locked away in some fancy house with no real friends, only the awful girls from the country club to keep my mind off going mad. I don’t even know girls from a country club, but I’m assuming they’d all be good little Stepford Wives as well.
    I’d rather die than live that life.
    Die.
     

Chapter Twelve - Weston
     

    God, why do I let her get to me so badly? Why do I care that she thinks I’m some privileged rich bastard who needs to get his way at every turn in order to be happy?
    I’m not like that.
    I sigh as I pull open cupboards looking for a pot to boil the lobster in. There’s no oven here, otherwise I’d just broil it. I find one in the last cupboard and drop it into the stainless-steel sink with a loud clang, then watch it fill up with water as I study the cuts on my hand from the lobster’s spines.
    The pain that comes with my prize feels good. It takes me back to all those summers I spent on the boat. I was only a little kid when I started harvesting lobsters and I didn’t have a boat. No one hires a kid that age to help with their business. So I caught my own lobsters. I got busted for selling them the second summer. I didn’t know it was illegal. I didn’t even have a permit that first summer. I didn’t know anything about harvesting lobsters. I just got lucky.
    But the second summer I got caught and had to appear in court. My father was pissed off. But the judge liked my entrepreneurial spirit and told me to go find a guy named Rusty down on the docks near my house.
    So I did. And I got hired. I was in charge of icing the lobsters once they were caught. I’d take the catch and dump it in the huge chests filled with ice water, dunking them until they stopped moving.
    My hands were filled with the little pricks from spines that summer. Someone gave me a pair of gloves a few weeks in, but by then I’d learned how to avoid the spines and I didn’t care for the gloves in the hot summer sun.
    I liked that job. I liked the way it made me feel. Like I was independent. Like I was in control of my future. I still like work for those two reasons.
    I spent seven summers working on that boat. Right up until I went away to boarding school in the eighth grade.
    Victoria comes into the house, clutching her silk shirt and her short skirt in her hands. She looks at me, then my hands, which are still out in front of me, palms up.
    “You’re bleeding,” she says.
    “Yeah.” I turn back to the pot and shut off the water. “They have spines. But don’t feel bad for me, Victoria. I’m sure in your head I probably deserve the pain.”
    “Don’t be a dick. Please. If we have to spend this day together, just don’t be a dick.”
    “How am I being a dick?” I ask as I place the pot of water on the stovetop. “I’m not doing anything but being nice.”
    “I don’t want to hear your pitch, Weston.”
    “I have no clue what you’re talking about.” I go looking for salt to put into the water but come up empty.
    “‘I won’t check out until you’re safe, Tori,’” she says, mimicking my voice in an unflattering way. “You never checked in, Weston Conrad. So you can’t