Reprieve (Love's Second Chance Book 1)

by Scott,Scarlett

“Whoa, Jamie. You look like a cross between a Dominatrix and Cruella de Vil,” Claire couldn’t help commenting. Pregnancy tended to do that to her, she’d noticed, making her say exactly what was on her mind, pointblank.

  Jamie ran a red lacquered nail along the feathers lining the V-neck of her shirt. “It’s my latest phase, but we can’t talk about it right now. Save it for lunch. Where were you?”

  “I overslept.” Claire shifted her leather laptop case onto her right arm. “Not to mention traffic was a complete nightmare. What’s wrong? You look like you’ve been running laps around the fourth floor.” Jamie had a bubbly personality that typically ran to dramatics whenever there was any sort of trouble. Claire groaned. “Don’t tell me the mice for the DC Satellite commercial escaped.” She shot a nervous glance to the floor, searching for little white rodents darting in and out of cubicles.

  “No, the mice are fine,” Jamie assured her. “Although Leo did put one in Maria’s desk drawer for laughs and then it ran into the women’s bathroom, but…oh never mind about that. King Monroe emailed me that he wants you in his office in fifteen minutes or I’ll be fired.” She blew a wisp of red hair from her forehead and frantically checked her watch. “That was fourteen minutes ago.”

  Claire blinked, trying to absorb all the information her assistant had thrown at her. “So did you find the mouse? Because we need exactly four, and the shoot’s this afternoon. I don’t want to have to run around pet stores all morning looking for a replacement mouse.”

  Jamie rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t be the one who’d have to hit the pet stores, I would. But forget about the damn mice. I’m about to be fired here.”

  Claire patted her arm reassuringly. “You know he can’t fire you like that. We’d slap a lawsuit in his face before he could say—”

  “Claire. Just go. Please.”

  “Fine.” It was Claire’s turn to roll her eyes at Jamie’s melodramatics. “I’m going.” She pulled her laptop case from her arm, handing both it and her purse to Jamie. “Put these in my office please.”

  She made her way to the elevator, hoping she had yet to begin doing the pregnancy waddle.

  “You have twenty-seven seconds,” Jamie called after her.

  Claire grumbled under her breath and picked up the pace, stepping onto the elevator and hitting the button for the tenth floor. She knew exactly what this imperious summons was about. An instinctive reaction to avoid both it and Logan had probably contributed to her hitting the snooze button four additional times this morning. Facing Logan Monroe had always been a formidable task, but now it was nearly an impossible one.

  He was the father of her baby.

  Of course, Logan didn’t know that, and now he likely never would.

  As the elevator doors opened to reveal the tenth floor, Claire smoothed her conservative, loose-fitting black dress down over her thighs and took a deep breath. She hadn’t seen him in several weeks. First, he’d been on vacation, then in despot mode, dictating orders from his lofty office via email. She hoped he wouldn’t notice the increasingly round bulge of her stomach. With each passing week, it grew more difficult to conceal from both him and her other coworkers.

  That was exactly why she’d decided to quit LM and join another firm.

  She smiled as Logan’s drab assistant came into view, all but cowering behind her desk. “Hi, Mindy. Logan wanted to see me?”

  “Yes, Ms. Morton.” Mindy pushed her thick glasses up the bridge of her nose. Her blue eyes looked hideously magnified behind the prescriptive lenses, reminding Claire of Milton in Office Space. “I’ll tell Mr. Monroe you’ve arrived.”

  She waited for the formality to be complete, allowing her eyes to wander over Mindy’s desk. Predictably, it was spartanly organized, with no personal touches at all. Not even a photograph in a frame.

  The outer office to Logan’s executive suite was formal and rigid, decorated with tasteful modern art to appeal to the clientele who came through for meetings and presentations in any of the three spacious conference rooms that consumed the remaining portion of the tenth floor. Only Logan and Mindy had offices here. In every sense, it was his floor, his domain. The throne from which he ruled his immense empire.

  “Mr. Monroe will see you now,” Mindy informed her with almost no tonal inflection.

  Honestly, Claire thought as she passed through the polished steel double doors leading to Logan’s inner sanctum. She was beginning to think Mindy was a robot. And the steel doors were too modern for her tastes. They reminded her of the door to the kitchen at a truck stop diner. But she wasn’t an interior designer, so what did she know?

  Characteristically, Logan stood at his large window, looking down on the world below. Even with his back to her, his mere presence radiated power and sexual energy that she wasn’t entirely immune to, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it.

  “Ten seconds to spare.” Logan didn’t bother to turn away from the window as he spoke.

  “Maybe I wanted to call your bluff,” she told him, coming to a halt at his side, a few feet between them for sanity’s sake. Today, she wanted to meet Logan on even ground. She wouldn’t wait behind the imaginary line drawn by his massive desk and sit in one of the uncomfortable chairs arranged before it like a good little employee. By standing next to him, at his window, she broke an unspoken understanding that existed between Logan and all his staff members at LM. Give Mr. Monroe his space.

  Well, Claire was encroaching, and she didn’t care.

  “Legally, it may have proved tricky.” Logan turned to her then, his dark eyes meeting hers. “But I would’ve managed it. I don’t have the best law firm in Philadelphia on my payroll for shits and giggles.”

  Claire blinked, taken aback. In all the years she had known and dealt personally with Logan, he had never uttered a single curse, regardless of the situation. She realized then that he was barely containing his anger with her. The instinct to step away from him rose inside her, but she resisted. His gaze held her in an intangible trap.

  “You wouldn’t have fired Jamie,” she insisted. She didn’t know why it suddenly seemed so important for her to establish that between them, but it did.

  He studied her in silence for several moments before responding. “No. I wouldn’t have.”

  As admissions went, it was insignificant, but for this man, any admission, no matter how small, was a milestone. Claire relaxed, allowing herself the luxury of studying him.

  Logan Monroe was fantastically gorgeous in an out-of-this-world, you-can’t-possibly-be-real sense. It wasn’t just his tall, well-muscled frame that made him so sexy, though it certainly didn’t hurt. The sharp cheekbones, strong jaw line, and slightly cleft chin combined with his black hair, sulky mouth, and golden skin to create utter perfection. Those looks had landed him in the gossip pages, an endless string of beautiful women on his arm. He flew with the jet set, his clients only the best of the best, and no mistake about it. To look at him was to lust after him, and no woman in the office was impervious to his incredible looks. Including Claire.

  Especially Claire.

  Oh God. She wanted him so badly, a wave of longing slammed into her then and there. She wanted him right now, in his office, on his big desk. Images of their insane weekend in New York flashed through her mind like the trailer for a movie. She wished she could forget.

  “Claire.” Her name was a whisper on his lips. He moved closer to her, his eyes openly hungry, and she knew he was recalling every vivid detail of their encounter as well.

  She swayed toward him.

  “Mr. Monroe?” Mindy’s hesitant voice sliced through the moment, echoing eerily from the intercom. “You have a call on line one from Mr. Tolliver of Pierpont Hotels.”

  Logan muttered a curse and walked to his desk, hitting the intercom button with more force than necessary. “Tell him I’ll return the call, Mindy.”

  When he turned back to her, his CEO veneer was firmly back in place, as though it hadn’t just shattered before her eyes
moments ago. He pulled a paper from his desk and held it up for her inspection. “Would you care to explain this?”

  So now they were getting down to business. Claire crossed her arms over her chest, but then quickly dropped them to her sides when she realized the antagonistic posture called attention to her burgeoning belly. Besides, she wasn’t here to antagonize Logan. Was she?

  “I would think it’s self-explanatory.” She tried to concentrate on the paper and not on him. “It’s my resignation.”

  “Goddamn it. Don’t try to be cute.”

  That offended her. “I’m not trying to be cute. I’m leaving LM. You have my two weeks’ notice. I followed policy to the letter. So why did you call me up here?”

  He tossed the paper back down on his desk. It skidded across the surface and made a lazy glide to the floor. Claire continued to keep her gaze riveted to the paper. If she looked at him, she couldn’t quell the onslaught of explicit images of the two of them together.

  But Logan wasn’t a man to be denied. He stepped forward so that the only thing she could see was his long, muscular legs clad in charcoal trousers. The pants hugged his lean legs—almost indecently—and she found her gaze settling on his narrow hips. Well, she couldn’t help herself. Her eyes zeroed in, dead center, and that’s when she noticed it.

  Logan was aroused.

  The breath left her lungs in a rush. He was doing a damn fine job of pretending to be aloof. She never would have known.

  “I’m up here.” His tone was biting.

  Her eyes flew miserably to his face and she saw the faint traces of a smug smile curving his lips. Heat rose to her face. God, since when did she go around staring at men’s goods? And not just any man’s, but Logan Monroe’s, which was precisely the problem.

  “Tell me, Claire,” Logan drawled. “Is my fly unzipped, or were you just staring?”

  Her eyes widened. “This is sexual harassment.”

  Then again, having sex with him had blurred the lines between them, and she didn’t even know where she stood anymore. Even so, it wasn’t like him. Logan Monroe was always above reproach. He must be even more furious than she’d realized for him to be speaking to her this way.

  “So what?” He shrugged. “You were the one looking, not me. Besides, you’re leaving, remember? Were you trying to get a good last peek before you never saw it again?”

  “This is insane.” Claire ran a flustered hand over her neat updo. “You’re insane. Did you just order me up here to make crude comments?”

  “Hey.” He held up his hands. “I only mentioned it because you couldn’t take your eyes off my dick.”

  “I’m leaving.” Claire spun on her heel and headed for the door but didn’t make it far before Logan blocked her path.

  “Wait.” He sighed and combed a hand through his hair, then tugged absently at his left earlobe. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  She raised a brow at him. What on earth was that supposed to mean? Had he completely lost his mind?

  Damn. What had just come out of his mouth? It sounded too personal, too sentimental, and he had to fix it. “I don’t want to lose you at LM,” he amended hastily. “You’re an excellent creative director, and your vision has brought us any number of accounts.”

  The only problem was that Logan couldn’t call any to his mind at the moment, since he was still fantasizing about Claire unzipping his pants and devouring him with her mouth the way she’d done with her eyes. Think, man, think. “Pierpont Hotels,” he managed finally, hitting on the account they’d most recently won and a highly lucrative one at that.

  Pierpont Hotels were the best of hotels in big cities across America, currently in the middle of a knockdown, drag-out advertising competition with their biggest rival. And it had been purely Claire’s brilliant ideas that had secured the account.

  Claire was shaking her head. Her silky-soft blonde hair glinted in the glow of the overhead office lights. He couldn’t help but recall how smooth it felt in his hands, how it looked tumbling around her shoulders, how it smelled sweet the same way her skin did. Unconsciously, he leaned closer to her just to catch a whiff of her delicious scent. Mmm. God, no woman had a right to smell and look that good.

  “I’m leaving LM, Logan,” she told him, reminding him that he was in the middle of holding a conversation.

  This was not what he wanted to hear. She was supposed to cave in the face of his good judgment. He was a persuasive man, damn it. Why was Claire being so stubborn? Then again, on the one hand, losing Claire did have some merits. Like maybe he wouldn’t have to hide in his office all day because she gave him a hard-on every time he saw her. But still, Claire truly was talented and creative, and he didn’t fool himself into thinking there were many more to be found like her. LM couldn’t afford to take on a mediocre creative director just when it was leaving competitive firms eating its dust. She had to stay. He wasn’t very good at not getting what he wanted.

  “I’ll give you a raise.” He named an outrageous sum, hoping like hell she’d take it and leave his office so he could stop staring at her breasts, accentuated quite nicely by the high waist of her black dress. Was it his imagination, or were they larger?

  “I don’t want a raise. I want a change of scenery.”

  “So I’ll redecorate your office,” he offered. “In addition to the raise. Name any designer you want.”

  “No.”

  “No to what?”

  “No to everything.” She toyed with the pearl necklace hugging the base of her throat. Claire was always elegant, always flawless, from her perfect hair to the sexy heels on her feet. It made him want to muss her hair, unzip the dress.

  But he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about how incredibly sexy Claire Morton was and how badly he wanted her. Where the hell was his brain? In his pants, obviously. Logan shook his head, trying to get back into business mode.

  “I’m not going to let you leave LM.” He was doing his best to sound reasonable. “You’re too great of an asset to the agency. Name your price. Tell me what you want.”

  “I don’t want anything from you,” Claire said, coolly dismissive. “Accept it.”

  He caught her arm. “I don’t accept it. I know what this is about.” Logan tugged her closer to him, until her breasts grazed his chest. He tried to ignore the way they shifted against him and concentrate instead on his anger, allowing it to consume him. “We slept together. Get over it. Be an adult. You don’t need to run away from a solid career just because you got laid.”

  Her eyes blazed with blue fury as she yanked her arm from his grasp. “This conversation is over.”

  She turned away, and this time he allowed her to leave, knowing he’d been a bastard. Damn it, she pushed his buttons. But even if she did make his life hellishly complicated, LM needed her.

  Christ, he had a headache. Logan made it back to his desk, pressing his fingers into his throbbing temples as a white-hot pain exploded inside his head. His knees buckled and he collapsed into his chair. Damn, not another migraine. They always hit him like this, out of nowhere, with little warning, like a subway car slamming into his brain.

  Logan closed his eyes, laid his head down on the desk, and fumbled in his top drawer for the bottle of aspirin he kept there. The pain grew until it felt as if his head was sandwiched between the pavement and the tire of a fully loaded big rig. Nausea swirled in his stomach, like a sickly volcano about to erupt. His hands shook as they popped open the bottle by feel. He listened for the clink clink clink of three pills hitting the surface of his desk before snatching them up along with his coffee cup. If he won against the pain, it was a dark victory.

  “So what did King Monroe want?” Jamie wanted to know the second Claire’s office door closed behind them.

  Not much that was worth repeating, Claire thought angrily as she stalked to her desk. “He was being his usual bastard self.” Actually, he’d been his usual bastard self, magnified by about ten billion.

  “Typical.” Jamie blew
on her now-fuchsia-colored nails. She painted her nails whenever she got nervous. “So do I still have a job?”

  “Of course.” Claire began rummaging through the ever-growing mountain of files and miscellaneous paperwork strewn haphazardly across her desk. So much for their go green initiative. She had no clue what she was looking for. Anything to distract her, she supposed. “He called me up there to talk me out of leaving LM. The arrogant jackass thinks he can buy me.” She continued her search, tossing file after file carelessly aside until one slid to the floor and sent papers floating.

  “Damn it.” She marched around the desk and bent to help Jamie, who’d already begun collecting the papers with calm efficiency.

  “Did you tell him about the baby?”

  “No, and I won’t. It’s none of his business.” Claire reached for a proposal for a soap commercial that had become wedged beneath Jamie’s left heel. “Lift your foot please. Actually, I don’t want him to know.”

  “Why?” Jamie retrieved the last of the scattered papers and stood.

  Claire sighed as she rose to her feet. This whole pregnancy thing was making her extremely lazy. When she wasn’t fantasizing about sleeping with Logan Monroe, she fantasized about lying in bed all day in her fleece pajamas, watching daytime soaps. Maybe it was just another pregnancy thing, but why had she never noticed how compelling soaps could be?

  “Claire? Hello?” Jamie waved a hand in front of Claire’s face, sending a faint-worthy wave of nail polish fumes blasting over her. “You look like you’re on cloud nine.”

  “Uh-uh.” Claire shook her head. Cloud nine implied happiness and there certainly wasn’t much of that to be currently found in her life. More like cloud negative nine. “I was thinking about the Scrubby Soap account. Sorry. What did you ask again?”

  Jamie frowned, looking like a concerned little mother hen, which was a strange role for her to play since she was a good eight years Claire’s junior. “Why don’t you want Monroe to know about the baby?”

  “I’m concerned he’ll use it against me,” she said truthfully. More than she could say. She’d been forced to fill her assistant in on the pregnancy after the hellish morning sickness she had been suffering. Jamie had been convinced Claire had bulimia up until that point. Naturally, Claire had left out the little matter of Logan being the father. No one knew about the crazy, stupid night she’d hooked up with Logan but her almost-officially-ex-husband Garrett and her sister, and that was how Claire intended to keep it.