Free Chosen by Desire by Kate Perry

her head. “But my butt can’t.”
    “Oh.” Max’s assistant frowned like she couldn’t comprehend such a thing. Then her expression went back to its normal placid blankness. “If you need anything else, I can be reached through the house phone.”
    “Great. Thanks.” She watched Francesca glide out of the room, wondering if the woman would ever warm to her.
    Seemed unlikely. But if someone had told her she’d find one of the Scrolls of Destiny and end up working for the famous Bái H, she’d have scoffed at that too.

Chapter Eleven

    T he apple pastry was ogling her, she just knew it.
    Carrie glared at the tray of food. Each morning Max’s butler Don delivered breakfast for her, and each morning the tray included that killer apple pastry. Tuesday, she’d broken down and tried one. She’d had one every morning since. Three in total.
    Okay, four, because she had two on Thursday.
    Her butt couldn’t withstand another twenty-five days of fatty carbs. This morning, she’d been determined to resist and had a piece of whole-grain bread instead. When the cinnamon aroma of the apple pastry taunted her, she’d moved the tray to a table across the room.
    But the smell still wafted over to her.
    Like she wasn’t having a hard enough time concentrating as it was. She set Max’s ancient text aside and stretched her arms over her head.
    She never knew she had such a problem with temptation. Probably because she’d never come across anything so tempting.
    Nor
anyone.
    Her problem wasn’t temptation—it was Max. He was not only fattening her up but weakening her will. Not that she’d seen him in person since that first morning on the beach. But, man, had she seen him in her dreams. Every night. In living color and tumescent flesh.
    Not only did her dreams interrupt her sleep, but they made her restless in a way she’d never been before. Working on her dissertation didn’t even soothe her anymore.
    “Rather annoying, really,” she muttered, pushing her things aside. She ambled around the room.
    And ended up in front of the food tray.
    “One more won’t hurt,” she told herself. She wouldn’t eat any after this. Plus she’d gotten into the habit of taking a walk on the beach each morning. There was a pier at the end of Max’s property where she liked to sit and think. Or, these days, sigh over her boss.
    “Pathetic.” She reached for the apple pastry and paused. Thinking of her thighs, she turned her back on the tray and headed to the kitchen for a banana.
    At least that’s what she’d planned—until she heard a rhythmic
whack-grunt-whack
farther down the hall. A female someone, by the tenor of the grunt.
    Curious, Carrie went to investigate. The noise came from the last room down the hall. She peeked around the corner.
    A rec room, bright with sunlight and airy because of the high ceiling. Instruments of torture, otherwise known as workout equipment, were arranged in half the room. The other half was covered with a series of interlocking, thick mats. A super-long piece of blue silk dangled down from over one end of the matted area.
    A punching bag hung in one corner, and beating the bag was Francesca. She wore a sleek sleeveless catsuit that didn’t leave anything to the imagination, its femininity incongruous with the ferocious attack. She rained a series of left–right punches that set the bag spinning. Then she backed up and delivered several kicks for good measure.
    Carrie meant to leave Francesca to her workout—really, she did—but when the woman turned, running and launching herself onto the silk, she had to watch.
    Catching the fabric a few feet off the ground, Francesca maneuvered it until it wrapped around her leg, the silk a bright contrast to her fair skin. She anchored it at her ankle with her other foot, reached higher overhead, and pulled herself up like it was a rope. Higher and higher until she was almost to the ceiling.
    Francesca stopped and began a complicated series of twists and