LITMIR.BIZ

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before, yet with Shawn she noticed every little detail. She nervously played with her hair, awaiting his response.

      After one more look at her outfit, he finally decided to answer. “You agreed to let me take you on a tour of the building.”

      “No, I didn’t.”

      “Yes, you did,” he said, standing a little closer than before. “And you also agreed to let me escort you to your hotel to ensure that everything is well with your accommodations.”

      Cyd took a step back from him. “No. I. Didn’t,” she said a little slower than before. That was probably what Mr. Vallant meant when he’d asked her if she was okay with something. She just hadn’t known what that something was until now.

      “Look, Mr. Miles, I—” Cyd stopped talking when Shawn let out a hearty laugh.

      “Mr. Miles? Seriously? After everything we’ve done, you want to be formal with me? Tell you what. How about you call me Mr. Miles when we’re around everyone else. But when we’re alone,” he said, stepping back into her personal space, “I want you to call me Shawn just like I plan to call you Cydney.”

      Was that a request or an order? Cleary Shawn didn’t know what type of woman she was. Cyd did not take orders from any man. “Listen, Mr. Miles. Had I known you worked for the Peter Vallant Company, I would have never...” Her words trailed off when he leaned in toward her ear.

      “There is no way you wouldn’t have been intimate with me, so save yourself the trouble and don’t deny something you know was bound to happen, anyway.”

      Talk about cocky! He really thought he had her eating out of the palm of his hand. Although she was the first to admit that part was true, the fact that he wouldn’t let her finish her statements was nerve racking.

      “Tell you what,” Cyd said, crossing her arms over her chest, not caring that his eyes followed her movement. “How about you be the good golden boy and tell Mr. Vallant that you showed me around the building and made sure my room was okay. In the meantime, I will head to my hotel without you and I’ll make sure I have Mr. Vallant’s assistant give me a tour some other time.” With that she walked away, got on the elevator and hightailed it out of the Peter Vallant Company.

      Only when she had paid the cab driver, checked into her hotel and settled into the confines of her luxury room did she absorb the situation. “For the next month or so I have to work with Shawn Miles,” she said aloud.

      A quick call to her sister in her cab ride to the hotel had eliminated the notion that Daman and her partners had known that Shawn worked for the Peter Vallant Company. Too bad Imani was laughing so hard that Cyd didn’t have the chance to vent to her.

      “Truly comical.” She would be laughing at her situation, too, if she wasn’t too busy freaking out. Cyd walked over to the floor-length mirror positioned on the wall to give herself a pep talk. “You can do this!” she chanted a couple times, taking deep breaths in between chants. “You’re damn good at your job and you can definitely handle a man like Shawn Miles!”

      But could she really? Could she handle a man who brought her to her knees with just one look? It may sound conceited but she didn’t lust after men—men lusted after her! Yet somehow, Shawn had managed to make her crave his touch...and his touch only.

      She cracked her neck as she placed her arms on each side of the mirror. “What I need to do is take control of the situation,” she said, getting closer to her reflection.

      “Why can’t I enjoy Shawn while I’m on the tour? Participate in a little sweet seduction in between planning?” She was an adult after all, one who could enjoy sex with Shawn if she wanted to. Cyd always did as she pleased, but she was beginning to realize that there were some things she should have thought about before taking action. This definitely wasn’t one of those times.

      She sprinted to her suitcase and pulled out one of her grandmother’s old diaries. When Faith “Gamine” Burrstone had passed away years ago, Cyd had been devastated. Her mother, Hope Burrstone-Rayne, could barely function after the loss. The entire family was shocked by Gamine’s death, but luckily, Imani had stepped in and helped the family through the tragic time. While the death had affected Imani in ways she’d never admit, Cyd admired the strength that her sister had. The Burrstone clan was a loving, yet overwhelming, bunch at times. There were many reasons why Cyd was glad that her sister had found a man like Daman, the main reason being the fact that he helped Imani realize that she wasn’t responsible for everyone’s life.

      Although they were sisters, she never did have the type of responsibility to the family that Imani did. But that didn’t make things any less complicated for Cyd. Her role in the family was always a little more rebellious. She was the go-getter and adventure seeker. The one you ran to if you didn’t need someone to bail you out of jail, but rather needed someone to sit in the jail cell beside you. Cyd had long ago decided to dance to the beat of her own drum rather than follow directions or fulfill obligations. As her mother affectionately told her, Cyd’s antics oftentimes brought her parents to the brink of heart attacks. She had it all, brains and beauty. Class valedictorian, prom queen, and she was voted in high school most likely to run the world one day. She had a big heart and wasn’t at all selfish, but she also didn’t really care what people thought about her decisions. Men sometimes feared her confidence, falling into the friend category and staying there. And with each and every romantic downfall, she told each man the same thing: “I’m not the relationship type. I enjoy being single and free entirely too much to spend my days engrossed in a man. Trust me, you don’t want to go there. But we can still be friends.” To this day, her friends and family didn’t understand how she convinced so many guys to actually agree to be friends with her. “What can I say... I have a gift,” she’d often respond. But having that gift made the fact that she secretly longed for a storybook romance so out of character.

      Lying on the bed, she propped herself up on her elbows and began flipping through pages of the diary. Gamine had left her a few things in her will, but the most important had been her diary collection. As soon as Cyd had dived into the pages, she became engrossed in the life of a woman she realized she hadn’t really known. She knew Gamine the mother and grandmother, Gamine the community activist, Gamine the best friend to all who graced her presence. She even knew Gamine the romantic since her relationship with her grandfather, Edward Burrstone, had been one that everyone in the family had admired. What she hadn’t expected to find in the diaries was a woman who understood her more than she thought. A woman who used to be just like Cyd when she was her age and a woman who’d dared to dream big and live on the edge.

      Cyd’s fingers graced the page of her favorite entry, written during a time in Gamine’s life when she had first discovered true love. Cyd was never much of a reader, but she’d read Gamine’s diaries so much that every crème page was curled at the corners and tea stains were evident on more than a few places.

      “So romantic,” she said aloud as she reread one of her favorite lines. She wanted to find her Mr. Right, which was the reasoning behind her creating her love-versus-lust lists. Gamine’s diaries had opened up a side of Cyd that she’d often kept concealed...even from herself. Hidden in the pages of Gamine’s deepest thoughts were feelings Cyd longed to experience. An escape into a world that showed her, although she was one of a kind, many women shared her thoughts and feelings of finding the perfect man. It may not fit the persona that people were used to when they thought of the infamous Cydney Rayne. But it was how she felt, nonetheless.

      She turned on her back and closed the diary, holding it close to her chest. Once again, the pages had given her the answer she desired. Shawn may have more “I don’t” traits from her list than “I do,” but a girl had a right to have fun. Who knew what things she could learn about herself through a man like that. Even though he’d caught her off guard and put her in her place a couple times, she liked that he was aggressive and not afraid to take her head-on.

      Cyd got off the bed and put the diary back in her bag before heading to the shower. “Shawn Miles, wait till you meet the likes of Cydney Rayne.” And she was certain he wouldn’t know what hit him.

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