Free STEP BY STEP by Clarissa Black Page B

didn’t lie to you!” I said, barely
recognizing the angry shriek that escaped my mouth. I rarely raised my voice,
but I wasn’t going to stand there and let him accuse me of lying.

 
    “I know what I saw,” he said in a low
hush. Before I had a chance to say anything else, he was gone.

 
 
 

 
 
EIGHTEEN

 
 
 
    PRESTON

 
 
 
    About
one year ago…

 
 
 
    “Preston,” Mr. Halston said as he entered my office door unannounced. Being equal business partners never
stopped him from acting like my boss and barging into my space. Perhaps it was
because I was hardly thirty and he was twice my age. “I have someone I’d like
you to meet.”

 
    As Mr. Halston moved from the doorway, behind him stood the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid
eyes on. A tall, fair-skinned beauty with cropped blonde hair and the biggest
eyes I’d ever seen stood with one hand resting on her perfectly proportioned
hip. Her red lips, full and soft, parted into a sweet smile as she walked
towards me and extended her right hand.

 
    “Sapphire Hart,” she said. “Nice to meet
you.”

 
    “Sapphire’s our new associate VP of
Client Relations,” Halston said. “The young lady I
told you about. She’s the one I offered the job to last month while you were on
that ski trip in the Swiss Alps, but she had to finish out her old contract at
Reed, Ferryman, and Henderson.”

 
    “RFH,” I said as I shook her hand. “Very
impressive. What made you want to come here?”

 
    “Mr. Halston convinced me,” she said as she gave him a friendly, knowing wink. “There are
more opportunities for advancement here. And growth. RFH was a little stale for
my style. I wanted something a little more exciting. A little more
progressive.”

 
    “I see,” I said, trying to hide the fact
that I found her impossibly gorgeous. My eyes kept traveling the length of her
body as if they had a mind all their own.

 
    “I hear you have a vision for Halston and Woodfield ,” she said.
“I’m here to help you make that vision a reality.”

 
    Sapphire oozed confidence like nobody’s
business. With her head held high and her shoulders back, she was a woman who
wasn’t afraid to try to take over the world. She was exactly what I needed. She
was exactly what I wanted…

 
    “I look forward to working with you,” I
said.

 
    As Mr. Halston lead her out of my office, his hand on the middle of her lower back, she turned
to look at me one last time, flashing a sexy smile in the process.

 
    The second she left, I loosened my tie.
My mouth was dry and suddenly the room was hot. The growing bulge in my pants
told me what I already knew, and no woman had ever given me that powerful of a
physical reaction before.

 
    Sapphire was a real spitfire. An
intelligent beauty that packed a 1-2 punch, she was the stuff that dream girls were made of. Group meetings turned into
individual meetings, and eventually joint projects with the two of us at the
helm took up most of our days. Working lunches turned into casual drinks which
turned into date night dinners and the occasional hotel room.

 
    We wanted the same things from life, and
we were prepared to chase our dreams together. The attraction was evident the
moment we first made eye contact, and the chemistry as undeniably intense. She
was the only woman powerful enough to put me in my place, and God knows I
needed that.

 
    Month went by, and my feelings towards Sapphire
only snowballed into something that was bigger than I knew what to do with, and
one lazy Sunday afternoon I’d found myself wandering into a jewelry shop on 5 th avenue. I walked out with a flawless, five-carat, cushion cut diamond
solitaire, and I spent months trying to come up with the perfect proposal.

 
    That night, at the restaurant, everything
changed. Life as I knew it was over. I’d never given so much of myself to
anyone before, and in a matter of seconds, I realized that those