Free A Billionaire Punishes Part 1 (Erotic Romance) by Nic Saint Page A

we’re
invited for our job interviews, I think it’s important we give them
the same story. Let’s meet at Marcy’s so we can discuss.”
    “But, Tamara!” I cried—but just then her
phone hummed and she quickly tapped her headset.
    “Flowers For You this is Tamara Dunkle
speaking how can I help you?” she rambled off, giving me a cheeky
wink.
    I returned to my seat and saw that I’d
missed two calls while I was chatting with my friend. Celeste would
definitely chew my ass off. Every dropped call showed up on the
daily stats and had to be justified. Oh, hell. Perhaps Tamara was
right. Time to get out of this hell hole and land ourselves another
job. Flowers For You was pretty much the worst employer I’d ever
had, so any job was probably an improvement.
    Then my phone dinged and I sighed, before
putting on my cheeriest voice and singing, “Flowers For You good
afternoon this is Erin speaking how can I help you?”
    “My office. Now,” a voice barked into the
headset, then disconnected, and I felt an instant adrenaline rush
coursing through my veins. Celeste. Yikes, what had I screwed up
now?
    Ten seconds later I entered the big boss’s
lair at the end of the hall, my heart in my throat and my voice
reduced to a squeak. Celeste always had that effect on me.
    “You called me?” I squeaked.
    “Erin. Come in. Sit down,” she grunted.
    Celeste was sitting behind her desk with her
feet up and a pensive expression on her face. I wasn’t exactly sure
how old she was—could have been twenty-eight or thirty-eight—but
she wasn’t as ugly as her no-nonsense personality indicated. For a
ball-breaker, she looked rather pretty, even attractive, if you’re
into the dominatrix thing. She was all hard features, raccoon
mascara, thin lips, raven hair and a pair of gigantic boobs that
she liked to put on display in low cut blouses.
    I took a seat in front of her, nervously
wringing my hands. It’s one thing to dream of landing another job,
but quite a different one to be given the boot, which was I’d come
to expect every single time I was called into her office like this.
I had no idea what I’d done wrong, but I was sure I was about to
find out in the worst possible way.
    “Erin,” she said, glaring at me. “I was
checking your résumé just now.”
    Oh, Lord, this was it. She was going to kick
me out.
    “I noticed that you used to work as a
secretary for…” She checked something on her screen. “Lupus
International.”
    I nodded vigorously. “Shoes,” I squeaked. “I
worked for one of the managers.”
    “Were you any good?” she said.
    “Erm… Sure,” I said, wondering where this
was going.
    She grunted what I interpreted as an
approval. “I’ve got a job for you,” she said, swiveling a bit in
her office chair, then adjusting her dress, revealing a bit more
cleavage. Damn those boobs. I wondered for the umpteenth time if
she’d had them worked on; no woman has boobs like that. At least
not if she’s human. Perhaps Celeste came from another planet?
    I blinked. What did she just say? “Um…
What?”
    “We have a new competitor.” She tapped her
keyboard, then turned her computer screen to me, showing me the
exact same home page Tamara had been gushing over. “Hearts &
flowers. Opened up three months ago and already they’ve swallowed
up thirty percent of our market share. Thirty fucking percent!”
    “That’s not good,” I mumbled, though
inwardly I cheered for those pesky H&F people. Go, Carswell,
whoever you are.
    “Damned right it’s not good. They’ve got the
most innovative site design in the business. Must have cost them a
fortune in R&D.”
    She tapped her long nails on her blotter,
studying me closely. I wilted under her scrutiny, like a delicate
flower in the hot sun.
    “How do you feel about corporate espionage,
Erin?” she suddenly said, her eyes narrowing.
    “Um, it’s illegal?” I said tentatively.
    “Illegal shmegal,” she scoffed. “Look, this
Carswell character