Parting Gift

Morgan has had a crush on Josh for years, but the married man has never shown the slightest interest in her. When his last day at work comes and they are the last to leave the office, she cannot resist giving him one last parting gift: her body. But without protection at hand, she might be the one getting the real gift. In nine months...

Excerpt:
“His wife wants to go back home. You know that.”

“Selfish twit.”

That was a good description, though said in a lot nicer way that I might have done. “From what I understand, she never liked city life.”

“So she’s forcing him to leave his career to go work for her daddy dearest in some small town that nobody’s ever heard of. That’s ridiculous.”

True. Josh was fucking brilliant, one of the best guys that we worked with. What he was going to do in a small family business, I had no idea. It spoke of a devotion to his wife that made me more than a little uncomfortable—and jealous.

Not that I was going to admit it to Julie. I scowled at her. “Don’t you have work to do?”

She rolled her eyes, as if she was still a teenager rather than a woman in her late twenties. “So cold, Morgan. No wonder—”

“Don’t say it.” I turned my back and slid on my noise-cancelling headphones. I was often mocked by my co-workers for using them, since we were in more old-fashioned cubicles rather than an open layout, which tended to make it more difficult to overhear much of anything.

But they did what they were supposed to do: allowing me to ignore what I had to in order to function.

The last thing I needed now was another round of joking about my lack of a love life.

Because no one knew—no one could ever know—the real reason behind it. A reason that had everything to do with the man who would be leaving.

Even if he didn’t know it.

I sighed and had to blink several times as tears filled my eyes, making it difficult to see my work. But I forced myself to do so, to close my eyes and type when necessary, taking refuge in the only thing left to me.

The only thing that I’d ever had. All because I couldn’t get over…

The office was growing unusually hot. I took off my headphones long enough to unbutton the top of my blouse. Lower than I would normally be comfortable with in public, but it was not as if anyone was going to come into my cubicle.

Not this late in the day.

It was still too hot. I heard some not so subtle grumblings from my co-workers, their raised voices lamenting the fact that the air conditioning had apparently died. There was talk about how long it might take to fix, as well as speculation about whether they could get away with leaving early because of the heat.

I swiveled around in my chair, turning to the low filing cabinet to my right. In the top drawer, I had one of those battery-powered fans. It wasn’t much, but it might help. As I leaned over, searching for the cover to the battery compartment which had fallen off at some point, someone cleared his throat behind me.

I turned.

It was Josh.

His face immediately reddened and I realized that I’d just given him a good look at the lacy, highly impractical bra I was wearing underneath my plain white shirt.