Free Sweet Surrender (Sweet Jealousy, Book Two) by Morgan Garrity Page B

the hair dryers that was set out on the counter. She watched herself in the mirror. The same girl stared back at her, as always. Only this time, Addison thought, she had a secret.
    She noticed another red mark blooming on the top of her leg, and she tugged her dress down in an effort to cover it.
    Then she took a deep breath and headed out of the fitness center and up to her office.
    It was early, still, and Addison was one of the first people there.
    The only sounds were the senior editors in their offices, clacking away at their keyboards as they tried to get their copy ready for the latest edition of the website.
    Addison had always thought that the job of a senior editor seemed so glamorous --- they took long lunches, were always wearing fabulous clothes, and got invited to parties and premieres in the hopes that they would write something good about whatever event or film was taking place.
    But since she’d been working at Intuition, some of the shine had worn off – along with the posh corner offices and Jimmy Choo shoes came short deadlines, long nights, and a lot of responsibility. If things went wrong, the senior editors were blamed. If things went right, the editor-in-chief got most of the credit.
    Still, Addison wanted a senior editor position. She longed for the day when she could call the shots, could decide what she wanted to write and what she wanted to cover, picking the most interesting articles and assigning everything else to others. She pictured herself spending weekend mornings in coffee shops, watching New Yorkers hurrying by as she slashed at her writers’ copy with a red pen.
    Of course, she had a long way to go before she got there. And now she wondered if she ever even would get there. Now that she’d had an affair (could it be called an affair, Addison wondered, if it had only happened once? Or was something like that more of a dalliance?) with Nathan Sweet, would she be blacklisted from the magazine industry?
    The thought was almost too horrible to take. Writing and journalism was all she’d ever wanted to do. What would she do if she couldn’t find a job in the field? She wondered if Nathan Sweet’s influence reached to Georgia. She had a hard time believing that Mr. McGillion at the local newspaper would know or care about Nathan Sweet.
    The thought made her smile. Of course, she wasn’t completely sure if Mr.
    McGillion didn’t know who Nathan Sweet was. His wife, Jennifer, was always ordering gossip magazines, and fancied herself something of a woman of the world. So maybe –
    “What the hell happened last night?” Tia demanded.
    Addison turned her chair around to see her friend standing behind her. Tia looked gorgeous as usual, in a pair of tight white pants and a gorgeous wrap-around blue blouse.
    You would have thought that someone with her curves would have looked voluminous in such an outfit, but it was the opposite. The shirt hugged her curves in all the right places, giving her a sexy but professional look.
    “I like your shirt,” Addison said.
    “Don’t change the subject,” Tia instructed. She pulled a chair over from an empty desk and slid it close to Addison. “Why did you leave with Nathan Sweet last night?”
    Addison swallowed, wondering how much she should tell her friend. Obviously she couldn’t tell her the full truth, about what had happened in Nathan’s office and then last night at his apartment. Or could she?
    Maybe Tia would have some insight. She seemed experienced. And she seemed to know at least a little something about Nathan Sweet.
    She motioned Tia closer, and Tia moved in, anxious to hear what Addison was about to tell her.
    Addison opened her mouth to talk, but nothing came out. She couldn’t say the words out loud. They were too humiliating.
    “It was nothing,” she said softly. “He remembered me from our meeting earlier, and he thought Tyler was bothering me.” She shrugged, like it was no big deal.
    Tia raised her eyebrows skeptically.