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Stanton Family Boxed Set,

Falling for the CEO,  Book One in the Stanton Bundle,

by Audra North

Copyright © 2016 by Audra North. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Chapter One  
 
“I don’t want to keep discussing this, Amanda.”

Meredith Klaus was just rounding the corner, laptop clutched to her chest, when she heard Andrew’s voice coming from his open office door. He sounded tense and tired. Oh, dear. She had no idea who Amanda was, but the conversation sounded like a personal one.

So instead of continuing forward and entering his office, as she had been en route to do, Meredith skidded to a stop. Should she hover nearby and wait for him to finish his call, or turn around and walk away?

“Frankly, I don’t think this relationship is working.”

Oh, goodness. Very personal. It was definitely time to walk away. But even though she turned to tiptoe back toward her own office, Meredith couldn’t block out his voice, deep and carrying.

“No, it’s not just because of the lack of sex.”

Dear God, had the corridor always been this long? It felt like it was taking years to get back to her office. She was even tempted to clap her hands over her ears and sing, just to fight the flame in her cheeks at the feeling that she was doing something wrong.

At least no one else was here at this time of night, and not just because it was only a week until Christmas. Andrew was usually the only other one who worked past six thirty on a regular basis. The other executives had spouses, lively children, and frolicking pets to get home to.

While she had the Travel Channel, a massaging showerhead, and dust bunnies.

“No one insults my family. Ever. Consider us over.”

At those words, Meredith stumbled, the toe of her low-heeled pumps catching on the carpet. Her arms instinctively flew wide, trying to brace herself against a fall. Except the only thing thatmanaged to accomplish was for her laptop to drop directly onto her foot. “Oh, darndarndarn!” she gasped, trying to muffle her yelp as pain exploded in her toes, bright and wrenching. It would be beyond embarrassing if she screamed and her sexy, elegant boss were to rush out of his office, only to find that Klutzy Klaus had been her own downfall. Again.

She slid her glasses, which had fallen down to the end of her nose, back into place and hopped toward the nearest wall to slump against it. Despite the sturdy leather of her shoes and thick weave of her tights, it felt like someone had chopped her toes off with a dull blade and then sewn them back on crooked. She forced herself to take deep, calming breaths, some of the tension slowly leaving her body as the sharp, shocking pain faded to unpleasant throbbing.

No one insults my family. Andrew’s words seemed to ricochet around her, though his voice had gone silent now. He must have ended the call with Amanda, which meant that Meredith could probably turn around again and go back to his office to show him the reports that had just come in today and deliver news that would surely get her fired. Or possibly even blacklisted from any other financial position in Manhattan.

There was also the matter of her toes, which still ached quite a bit. And…she looked over at her laptop on the floor. There was a piece of something hanging off the back that she was certain hadn’t been dangling like that before she’d dropped it. Clumsy fool, she chided herself.

She slipped off her shoes and stared down at the toes of her right foot, flexing them to assess the damage. No doubt they were red and a bit swollen under the fabric of her tights, but at least she could move them without too much pain now. They were probably just badly bruised. Along with her pride.

She squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden clenching in her heart. She should be used to this feeling by now and not having a hard time resisting the urge to curl up right there on the industrial-grade Berber in a little ball of despair, lamenting that even at thirty-one years old, Meredith Klaus was still more than deserving of her high school epithet.

Klutzy Klaus! Klutzy Klaus! She could still hear it being shouted in the hallways of her high school. At least it was better than “Little Orphan Annie.” With her curly red hair and gangly limbs, the kids in the grade school where she’d been assigned after her parents died had wasted no time in renaming the shy new kid. At least she’d grown into her long legs and arms. But she’d never managed to find another family.

Let it go.

She had bigger things to think about right now. Like, how she was going to tell Andrew that thousands of charitable organizations chosen by Harbor employees were going to get proverbial coal in their stockings instead of fat, feel-good donations. Even though Harbor Technologies built superior products and delivered the best service in the industry, the company owed its success to the wild publicity around the Christmas Bonus Fund, from which each employee could draw five hundred dollars during the holiday season every year to donate to a charity of their choice, Without it, they were just another tech company.

She slipped off her glasses, held them in one hand, and applied the palm of the other to her head, trying to mash her growing headache into submission. Not working. She tried closing her eyes and shifting a bit, tipping up her chin and leaning her head back against the wall before moving her hand to her neck, but the awkward position of her arm only made her back arch and tense even more.

A frustrated whimper escaped her. Maybe it would help if she imagined that these were someone else’s hands. Big. Long-fingered. Skimming over her skin, rolled-up cuffs baring his arms to the elbow as sexy brown eyes watched her squirm—

“What are you still doing here?”

She started as the very voice from her fantasy sounded in the hallway, and before she could think to stop it, his name pushed past her lips on a breathy sigh.

“Andrew.”