THE PLAYBOY'S VIRGIN (Complete Set)

by Mia Carson

  “Belle,” he called out his door. She set a stack of files on her desk and entered his office.

  “Morning, Greyson,” she said with the smile that he realized he wanted to see every morning.

  “What are all these for?” he asked brusquely and tapped the stack. “They just say to sign.”

  “Legal sent them over last night,” she told him and walked over. She leaned over his desk, as he inhaled, the apples and cinnamon scent filling his nose. “Looks like they’re for a deal you made with another company for rights to the new programs you bought from them.”

  He frowned and stared at the papers in her hands. “Right, of course,” he said and cleared his throat.

  She handed them back. “Anything else?”

  “This phone call at ten… Can you push it back for me ‘til noon? I have to talk to the design team, and this one I can’t do until Friday,” he said, pointing to the last post-it on his calendar for the day. “If you have a chance, draft a new proposal for marketing to look over. We need to slow down our releases for news about the new MMO.”

  Her brow furrowed before her smile returned and she nodded. “Problems?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about,” he said as he sat down with a sigh. “That’s all for now.”

  Again, her brow furrowed and her hands clenched at her sides, but she nodded and left his office, closing the door behind her.

  Greyson grabbed his pen and signed the pages after he read them, set them in his out tray, and brought up the schedule for the new game launch. They had run into another glitch last night, and he needed to have a meeting to find a way around it. The launch date was going to have to be pushed back again.

  He entwined his fingers behind his head, leaning back in his chair. His gaze lingered on the pictures around his office—his first successful game launch and every one since then. At the age of twenty-eight, he’d managed to establish one of the top gaming companies in the industry, and he did it without relying on his wealth. Now, he had a company wealthy enough to recruit some of the best talent across the country, and it was going to keep expanding if they could launch this game before the holidays. It might only be January, but they had months of work still ahead of them.

  Lost in thought, he didn’t realize his eyes lingered on Belle and what he could see of her bare shoulder as he watched her work. She made one call, then another, before turning to her computer. He had seen the designs on her computer. They might’ve been rough around the edges, but the potential in them was apparent. But that was all it was. Potential. For now, he needed her as an assistant and nothing more.

  He grumbled under his breath and picked up his phone. “Tim,” he said when the man answered at the other end. “Can you and Davis get to my office? I want to go over the glitch.”

  “Yes, boss man, be there in two,” he said and hung up.

  Belle pushed back from her desk and walked into his office. “Those papers ready? Legal’s been messaging me for the last ten minutes.”

  “Right there,” he told her and pointed to the out tray.

  She scooped them up and sifted through them, standing barely a foot away from Greyson, and he shifted closer, wanting to push the loose strand of hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear. He’d been wondering the past few days how he could convince her to go out with him that weekend for drinks, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “Boss,” Tim said loudly as he and Davis entered the office.

  Greyson frowned and pulled away from his musings of Belle—maybe without her clothes, eventually. “Tell me again why there was a glitch? I thought we figured out the design problems a while ago.”

  Tim smiled at Belle as she left, and she waved before he sat down and held up his tablet. “We’re not sure, but I think it’s an error in the optimization somewhere. Must’ve missed it because if we try to run the program, the graphics are blurry as hell and it rubber-bands real bad when you try to move.”

  He pulled it up and Greyson leaned over, scratching his beard. The lagging in the game had been a problem a while ago, jerking the player around, but the rubber-banding that sent them back to another area was new. “Did you ask IT?”

  “They sent us a back a few options to try, but nothing’s working, so it has to be something we did.”

  “Belle!” He glared at the screen as she bustled back in. “Schedule a meeting for this afternoon with everyone. We have a problem.”

  “You have a call at noon,” she reminded him. “Shall I call them and reschedule it or do the meeting afterwards?”

  He debated which would be better and watched as her eyes jumped to the tablet Tim held. She frowned and moved to see it better. “Reschedule,” he ordered, wondering what she was thinking. “That’s all for now.” He dismissed her roughly, and when she lifted her eyes to his, he shifted in his seat at the flare of annoyance before she nodded and left his office, closing the door behind her.

  “What do you know about her?” Greyson asked Tim and Davis.

  “I know she’s studying to be a designer in school,” Tim said. “She’s got some work of her own I’ve seen, and it’s not bad considering she taught herself everything before getting to college.”

  “She showed it to you?”

  “Yesterday. I gave her a few tips, but she’s got some great original work and has a knack for computers, too. She could be more than just a designer,” Tim told him. “Why? Has she not shown you anything yet?”

  “I didn’t ask,” he said, leaving out how he’d already seen some of her work.

  “Why not? You’re always looking for new talent.”

  “I need an assistant right now to keep everything in order, and besides, she’s young,” Greyson said with a shrug. “She’d probably be more of a liability than an asset.”

  “Uh huh,” Tim said. “Just so you know, there’s a pool going around the office.”

  “About Belle?” Greyson asked.

  “Yep, on how long she’ll last as your assistant.” The tone of his voice told Greyson he wasn’t too happy with his boss, but he left it alone. “What do you want me to do with our glitch?”

  “If the graphics are malfunctioning, something wasn’t optimized right,” Greyson agreed quietly, his mind racing about the bet. “See if you can run it again and pinpoint exactly when the game starts to fail. We’ll go from there this afternoon.”

  Tim and Davis nodded and left, deep in conversation about options for optimizing the graphics again if they were running too high for the intended platform. Greyson rubbed his eyes and stared at the coffee mug in his hand. Cold.

  “Belle, when you have a second, another cup of coffee would be great,” he said sweetly into the intercom on his desk.

  “Sure thing,” she said. A few seconds later, she returned to his office. “Anything else?”

  Her tone was more snappish than usual, so he shook his head. “No, that’s all for now.”

  He watched her leave, gripping his mug so hard his knuckles were white and muttering under his breath. He considered following her, maybe finding his chance to make a move, but an IM showed up on his computer and he groaned. Time to focus on his work and worry about women later.

  By the end of the day, Greyson and his team were no closer to figuring out the problem, and he insisted everyone go home before they ruptured their brains trying to find the issue. Tim was beside himself, and Greyson patted him on the shoulder. This was his baby, after all, and he knew the man wanted to get it off the ground.

  “It’ll be there in the morning,” Greyson told him firmly. “Get some sleep and start fresh.”

  “We’ll have to push back development again,” he groaned. “We can’t even get the startup screen to run properly now.”

  “The morning, Tim,” Greyson repeated. “Night everyone.”

  He waved as they told him goodnight, too, and walked to gather his things from his office. He saw Belle at the bus stop across the street. The streetlight close by lit the corner block, but he didn
’t like her being out there alone at night, waiting for the bus. He quickly grabbed the rest of his papers and haphazardly shoved them into his bag. This might be the chance he was looking for.

  Once inside his new, leather-interior, dark blue Mustang, he revved the engine as he pulled out of the parking garage and drove to Belle. “Hey,” he called out the passenger side window, and she jumped. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Her jaw clenched. “You didn’t,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “Offering you a ride. Where do you live?”

  She shook her head. “No thanks, I’m fine with the bus.”

  “Where’s your car? Kelly said she gave you a permit for the garage,” he asked, debating if he should get out and find a better way to convince her.

  “Really, this is fine,” she insisted. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He gripped the steering wheel, his chances of a possible moment alone with her in his car slipping away. “See you then, I guess,” he muttered and pulled away. He hated leaving her alone, but the glimmer of suspicion in her eyes said she was not the type of woman to get by pushing. He’d just have to try a different approach.

  Chapter 2

  Belle glared at her monitor, frowning. Barely two in the afternoon, and she was done for the day, ready to storm out of the building and not look back. She had taken this job assuming she’d be working with Greyson and his team, not being a lackey and fetching him coffee. She was nothing more than a glorified assistant, and if it wasn’t for the pool on her lasting more than a week, she would’ve quit that morning.

  Greyson was rough around the edges, but the flippant way he assumed she would handle his schedule, his coffee, his meals—hell, even taking calls from his mom when he wasn’t in the mood to talk to her—was pushing it. Last night, however, made her realize he was not the man she’d hoped.

  Tim told her that the designs and sketches she had were impressive and that she needed to show Greyson. He was probably making her his lackey because he didn’t realize her potential, but Belle knew he’d seen what she could do the first day they’d met. He chose to be silent, but she was finished playing this game. She might want a job here, but she wasn’t going to waste her talent by answering a phone and drafting e-mails. She had worked her ass off for far too long to be pushed aside by some hot-shot CEO.

  So yesterday evening, she sucked it up and waltzed into his office to show him all her work over the years. She’d waited quietly as he browsed through the portfolio before handing her laptop back to her.

  “And? What do you want me to say?” he’d asked as he leaned back in his chair.

  “I… uh, just wanted to know your professional opinion,” she’d said tightly.

  “They’re not bad,” he told her with a shrug. “Though they're nothing I could use and completely different from what’s going on at this company right now.”

  “You can’t even give me an opinion on them?” she’d asked quietly, her gut clenching.

  He’d smiled that predator grin and leaned on his desk. “You’re good at what you do now. Why do you want to change that? This is a great relationship. Maybe one day, you can do something with those, but right now, I’m not impressed.”

  He had lied. He had glanced away at the last sentence, and his eye had twitched. She knew he thought her designs were great. Her latest works blew even Tim away, but Greyson was too arrogant to admit that she had talent. He didn’t think an assistant like her could be anything more, even if she was working her ass off. Either way, she was sick of him and it’d only been a week.

  “Belle? Can you come in here for a minute?” Greyson’s voice echoed over the intercom.

  She gritted her teeth but pressed the button. “One minute.”

  Part of her hoped he had reconsidered. All day, she had given him the cold shoulder in the hope he would at least realize he was ruder than necessary yesterday, but as she stepped into his office, he didn’t even look up. Instead, he picked up his coffee mug and held it out to her.

  “Mind grabbing me a refill? And add some sugar. Oh, and I need you to call my mom and let her know I have to cancel my plans for this weekend. I have a date I can’t avoid.”

  The curl to his lips told her exactly what type of date it was. She’d heard enough rumors around the office to know what type of man he was with the ladies. He’d even flirted with her a time or two, though she’d pretended not to notice.

  Calling his mom? Does he really think I’m that desperate for this job? she thought, but another voice whispered in answer, what else are you going to do?

  Greyson tapped a few more keys before he glanced up and frowned. He was still holding his mug, and Belle hadn’t moved from the door to take it. “Belle? Did you hear me? Coffee and phone call, come on. I don’t have all day.”

  “No,” she said before she could stop herself. He might be damn good looking with his beard and rugged demeanor and a voice she could listen to all day long, but she had not taken this job to be treated like this.

  He set the mug down slowly and stared at her with one raised brow. “No?”

  “No. I came here to learn about your company and understand the ins and outs of what it takes to create an MMO and other games,” she said, taking a step forward. Her voice grew louder with each word as her annoyance spilled over. “I’m done playing your secretary.”

  “That’s what you were hired for,” he told her. “You were to work here as my assistant—”

  She argued, cutting him off. “The internship was to work with your team of designers and learn from them. You changed the job to benefit your needs! You’re selfish and arrogant and, my God, do you really think you’re so good at what you do that you can look down on everyone else’s hard work?”

  She yelled her last words, and behind her, she heard the subtle talk throughout the office fall silent. She should’ve stopped, apologized, and done what he’d asked, but watching him stare at her openly and smirk as if he was going to come out on top of this infuriated her.

  “You have this job for college credit, and you’re being paid a stipend,” he informed her simply. “Take it for what it is, do the work, and reap the benefits. I don’t see the problem.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t,” she snapped. “You don’t know what it’s like to come from nothing, to work up from nothing.”

  “You think you know everything about me?” he argued and pushed to his feet.

  Belle didn’t back down, and her hands fisted at her sides. “I know enough to recognize a self-fulfilling, arrogant bastard who can’t find the good grace to be nice!”

  “I have been nice,” he growled. “What have I done that wasn’t nice?”

  “Everything! The first time you spoke to me, you dismissed me like I was just some girl who happened to be working in your office!”

  “Aren’t you?” he shot back, and Belle threw her hands up in frustration.

  “No, I’m not, and you know that. You saw what I can do, and this is what you’re going to do with me? Have me get you coffee and call your mother?” She shook her head and laughed sharply. “Who the hell does that?”

  “I do because I’m the CEO and can do whatever the hell I want!” He leaned on his desk and glared steadily at her.

  The predatory look in his eyes revealed that he did always get what he wanted. His company was where it was because of that attitude. He had numerous female employees hanging around him all day at the office as he flirted, and he was wealthy enough to buy whatever he might ever desire. He treated everyone in his office with respect except her.

  “Is this because I refuse to flirt with you?” she asked quietly.

  He swallowed hard and straightened. “This has nothing to do with that.”

  “Sure it doesn’t, because you always get what you want,” she muttered. “Get your own damn coffee and call your own damn mother. I’m done playing games. I need serious work so I can learn and this place… you? You’re just not cutting it.”
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  Her heart pounding and mind racing in disbelief, Belle stormed out of his office, grabbed her bag, and rushed through the office to the stairs because she didn’t want to wait for the elevator. She shoved open the door and made it to the bus stop just as it pulled up. As it drove away from the curb, she turned back to the office building. The romantic in her wanted to see him rushing out the doors to catch her, but he wasn’t there. No one came after her, and Belle sank down in her seat.

  The ride back to campus was short, but it was long enough for immediate regret to fill her about what she had done. She would have to call her old place of employment at the library and see if she could get her job back. Money would be tight again, and she would have no time to do her homework. Not that this internship really opened up any, but at least she felt like she was working towards an end goal. What if he told other companies about her blowup? They’d never hire a hot-head.

  She opened her dorm door and found her roommate there, working on her laptop across the room. Belle didn’t say a word, just stomped inside and flopped down face first on her bed.

  “What’s your problem and why are you home?” Carrie asked. “It’s the middle of the day.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Belle replied, muffled by the pillows.

  “Is that code for ‘I messed up big time?’”

  Belle shrugged and heard Carrie’s sigh. “Wasn’t my fault.”

  “Was it your temper?”

  She sat up and cringed. “It might have been part of it,” she admitted, playing with a thread on her comforter to avoid eye contact.