Afterward, I wash my hands and return to my desk. I fold the picture up carefully, tucking it into my coat pocket.

With the edge off, I try to think through the unexpected happenings of today.

Daniel is going to come at this HQ2 fight with both barrels loaded like the strategic, battle-hardened business executive he is. He’s bold, brash, and in your face. Rather like his daughter, I think. But where it is delightfully refreshing and intriguing in Elle, it’s bothersome in Daniel when he’s sitting on the opposite side of the table from me, the obstacle to my getting what I want.

While I’d considered that Daniel was using Elle as a means to get at me, if that’s not the case, perhaps the better option is the reverse? To use Elle as leverage.

The question is how do I use that leverage? I could just expose her, drop a hand grenade on Daniel’s day and reputation and secure the HQ2 project while he’s picking up the pieces.

But that’s not guaranteed, is rather unsportsmanlike in our professional competition of one-upmanship, and more importantly, it’d hurt Elle. I don’t know why, exactly, but I don’t want that.

In fact, I’d fancy seeing her again.

I mean, who wallpapers an executive’s office with copies of their arse on a dare? It’s wild, and I find myself intrigued, even wanting a little bit more of that.

Maybe there’s a better way to leverage Elle Striker—for me, for her, and against Daniel.

Chapter 6

Elle

Dear Universe,

I am SO dead.

Signed,

Elle

I’ve always loved the bedtime story, Little Red Riding Hood. There’s just something so dangerously exciting about the wolf pretending to be nice . . . before revealing he’s anything but.

And that’s exactly how I felt underneath Colton’s gaze as he paced around the room, staring at me like I was a piece of fat, juicy steak. He was the Big Bad Wolfe, and I was Little Red Riding Hood, wondering if he was going to eat me up.

Or eat . . . something else. I couldn’t stop looking at his mouth the whole time. I’ve never reacted that way to any man, but if he’d ordered me to prove it was me in those pictures, my clothes would have hit the floor before he could have said the ‘t’ in skirt.

I’m not usually so wanton, am in fact rather discerning about who lies in my bed, metaphorically speaking, but Colton brings out some sex-hungry goddess in me. And I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing. Weakness, in any form, is not something I like to experience.

It was frightening, shivering in my seat, withering beneath his gaze, torn between desire and terror, the whole time literally counting the seconds until he exploded, screaming at me for daring to desecrate his office . . . before sending me home with a pink slip.

But he didn’t.

Surprisingly, he was mostly calm, cool, and controlled . . . and oh, so sexy.

And I could’ve sworn when he looked at my ass on that paper, he got excited, his tailor-made dress pants looking extra tight in the front. But I’m not sure if that was just my imagination and wishful thinking.

Whatever the case, my need for adventure and thrills has finally landed me in hot water. Scalding, boiling hot, and I’m both the crazed stalker and the bunny in this ugly scenario.

What was I thinking?

You weren’t, my traitorous brain answers.

For all the blissful buzz successfully completing a dare brings, the failure of one has never felt quite so acutely sharp.

The elevator, never the fastest of machines, seems to take even longer. When it finally dings and lets me out on the ground floor, Tiffany’s already waiting at the doors, almost hopping back and forth in nervous excitement.

“Where have you been?” she whispers urgently. “It’s been over thirty minutes since you went upstairs!”

“Let’s go,” I hiss, pushing her out the door and toward my car in the parking lot. I start Cammie up and gun it for the open road.

I glance in the rearview mirror, admitting to myself that I’m checking for Colton’s blue Lotus. When the road behind us is empty, I quickly relay everything that happened, and Tiffany’s jaw drops open further and further, first with delight and then horror.

“Close your mouth, Tiff, or you’ll go catching flies. Or dicks,” I say, tapping under her chin with my fingertips.

“Please say we’re not fired. I so do not want to be slinging wings down at Hooters or something.”

“Don’t go dry cleaning those orange bootie shorts just yet,” I reply, reminding Tiffany that between her freshman and sophomore years in college, she did ‘sling wings’ for money. “And I think you’re safe, at least. I’m definitely not, though.”

Tiff lets out a long, pent up breath before tugging on my arm. “Well, what happened then?”

Making the turn toward the highway, I shake my head. “I don’t know what happened. He grilled me for a few and then told me to leave. Said I’ll have to wait and see?”

“Wait and see?” Tiff fumes as she roots around in her purse for her omnipresent emergency packet of peanut butter cheese crackers. She’s a stress eater and always has a snack with her just in case the shit hits the fan, which it most definitely has. “What the hell does that mean?” she asks through a spray of orange crumbs.

Tiff offers me one of her crackers, a massive generosity on her part, so I take it, even though my stomach’s too tied up in knots to really want food right now. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it. I think he’s going to fire me, but I think he wants to fuck with my head some before he does. Honestly, I think I’m gonna be the one wearing orange shorts! Worse than that, though, Dad’s gonna kill me!”

Tiffany stews for a second, her brain working through everything I’ve just told her as I take the exit for her apartment. “Okay, calm down, chica,” Tiffany says, suddenly relaxing and waving away my worry. My hands tighten on the wheel in response, doing the opposite of what she says.

“I think this is actually a good sign. If he was going to fire you, he would’ve done so already. He would’ve called security and HR immediately and done it all right then, escorting you out in a blaze of shame and glory. That he didn’t do that probably means that he’s not going to. The question is . . . what is he going to do?”

Tiffany casually pops a peanut butter and cheese cracker sandwich in her mouth and munches loudly, swigging from her water bottle to make sure she doesn’t have any orange flecks on her teeth. “He’s a cocky, arrogant bastard who has you dead to rights. How’s he going to use that?”

One does not disrespect Colton Wolfe like I did and get away with it, it appears.

Which means he’s up to something, and it must be worse than getting fired. It just scares me what it could be, especially considering how interested he was in the fact that I’m Daniel Stryker’s daughter.

I drop Tiffany off with a promise to let her know if anything happens to change things. As she goes inside, I hear her loud voice. “Ace, did you even move off the couch today?”

I cringe, thinking that she’s got her own drama to deal with. Maybe she should give those orange shorts to Ace? I think I heard about a male version of Hooters once? Tallywackers, it was called, I think. Dad bods are all the rage, so maybe Ace could work there and do a little wing slinging of his own, far away from Tiffany’s screeching.