Seducing powerful men into telling her all of their secrets is Scarlett Ambrose's specialty. Ace Hardwood is probably no exception.
*
The gorgeous, confident and charismatic Scarlett Ambrose is perfect candidate to help Terrence Burke take down the...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
In the cab on the way to Terrence's office during her lunch break, Scarlett wanted to hurl out the entirety of her breakfast whenever she thought of what she was doing.
When Ace's face wafted into her mind, she wanted to reach inside her, pull out her intestines and knot them, just to have something else to focus on.
Earlier that day, when she had asked Ace whether she could go and meet Danielle for lunch, he hadn't even batted an eye; he hadn't even looked up from the document he was going through before agreeing.
He had just nodded and waved his hand, dismissively. "Sure, Ambrose. Just try and be back on time."
She had half a mind to be late on purpose just so that he would yell at her.
Ace had even noticed that she was behaving strangely when she wasn't her usual cheerful, witty self.
He had eyed her, but said nothing.
When she was distracted by her gruesome thoughts, he had stopped speaking and looked at her. "Ambrose," he had said, "Are you alright?"
Scarlett had nodded, but apparently not very convincingly because Ace had added.
"Is it about Kaius?"
Which had made Scarlett want to slam her head against Ace's gleaming mahogany desk.
Guilt and disgust at what she was doing mixed into a toxic feeling that filled her as Terrence Burke's office building loomed in front of her, dark against the light blue sky.
She had an idea of what she would do; how the conversation would go.
As she stepped out of the cab in the underground parking, she steeled herself for what might go down.
Terrence Burke hadn't seemed like he wanted to meet her out of social concern.
As usual, she was flanked by his goons as she rode the elevator silently, up to the floor of doom.
Scarlett's mind, which was usually flooded with various thoughts, was empty. She tried to focus on something, anything, but she kept drawing a blank, like a teacher had called on her to answer a question.
The heavy breathing of the two men on either side of her did nothing to calm her jittery nerves.
She stepped out on to the landing and rolled her shoulders as the men motioned to the door that she had become accustomed to.
As she walked inside and closed the door behind her, the two men stood on either side of the door.
Terrence Burke was seated at the head of the table, his hands steepled, gazing at her. He looked at her through hooded eyes, shadowed by his thick salt-and-pepper eyebrows.
