Snow Job by Tara Wyatt (best large ereader .txt) 📗

Kayla closed the door to her hotel room behind her and then slumped against it, dropping her laptop bag onto the floor. She’d just spent the past two hours in a marketing seminar and she hadn’t absorbed a single thing the presenter had said, which was a shame because when she’d originally planned it, she’d been looking forward to it. But all she’d been able to think about was Sebastian.

With a sigh, she pushed off of the door, kicked her boots off and then turned the fireplace on. She stood by the sliding glass doors, watching the snow fall in a gorgeous blanket of swirling white from the sky. Snow in New York was pretty until it touched the ground, where it instantly turned into a grayish-brown slimy sludge. Here, everything stayed so white and pristine. It was beautiful. Peaceful and serene. Soothing.

She let out a long breath and then shook her head. She’d done the right thing turning Sebastian down. His life was a mess, and, um, hello, he’d been trying to get her fired only yesterday. She wasn’t exactly jumping up and down at the prospect of going on a date with him. And besides, he was all wrong for her. He barely met any of the criteria on her list.

So then why did she feel like she’d made a mistake? Maybe it was just because she’d seen the hurt and disappointment etched on his handsome face and regretted that she’d been the one to put it there.

She strode back to where she’d dropped her laptop bag and fished her phone out, calling Willa.

“Hey,” she answered on the second ring. “What’s up?”

“Hey,” said Kayla, clearing her throat when her voice came out a little creaky sounding. “I…I need to talk. Are you busy? You’re probably busy.”

“I always have time for you. Always. What’s wrong? You sound upset.”

“Yeah, I’m okay. I’m just…having a weird few days.”

“Weird how? No, give this to Max, please. He has to sign off on it. I don’t know, ask his EA. Sorry. I’m here.”

Kayla sank down onto the floor in front of the fireplace, the warm air comforting on her back. The snow fell steadily outside, making her feel like she was in a wintery cocoon. She sighed and then told Willa everything. Sebastian’s efforts to get her fired, how Stammler was probably going to demote her when they got back to the city, the kiss, how he’d asked her out. Everything.

“I did the right thing, saying no, didn’t I?” She asked, tracing a whorl through the plush carpet with the tip of her finger. “He’s not…he’s not right for me.”

“I don’t know. I mean, if you knew turning him down was the right thing, I don’t think you’d be calling me for reassurance, would you?”

Kayla snorted out a soft laugh. “No. Probably not.”

“Do you like him?”

“I…I don’t know. I’m attracted to him, but I only seem to know the bad stuff about him. The shitty boss, the asshole trying to get me fired. And yet…” She shook her head. “I have this weird gut feeling that that’s not who he is, underneath. But I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the real Sebastian. I think he got lost somewhere a long time ago.”

“Okay, hang on a sec, I’m just going to pull up your list.”

“My list?”

“Yeah, the perfect man wish list. I emailed myself a copy from your phone because I had a feeling we’d be having a conversation almost identical to this one.” There was a brief pause and then Willa came back on the line. “Okay, so. First off, we’ve got a physical description. Hot, dark hair, blue eyes, awesome bod, tall, big hands and hung.”

“Well, yeah, he’s hot, but any woman with eyes can see that. And he is my type, in the looks department. Dark hair, blue eyes, tall, and from what I can tell he’s got an amazing body. Big hands.” Goosebumps shivered over her skin as she remembered the feel of his hands on her face, on her waist, warm and strong. She swallowed thickly as she remembered teasing him about the size of his package after the itinerary debacle and the hint of an outline that had indicated he probably exceeded her criteria in the dick department. “And yeah, he might be hung, but obviously I don’t know. He might also have a micropenis.”

“Um, doubtful. From what Lauren has said, Theo is packing, and I saw Max in wet swim trunks last year at the company beach day. The Prescott men do not disappoint. It’s genetics.”

“Okay, fine. So he meets the shallowest of my criteria.”

“Is he funny?”

She bit her lip, remembering the pranks, the teasing. “Yeah. I think he is, when he wants to be.”

“I’ll just put a little checkmark here. Next we have hardworking, passionate, generous, kind and sensitive.”

“No. I can’t say with any degree of certainty that he’s any of those things.”

“Smart? Patient? Supportive?”

“He’s smart, but he gets in his own way all the time.”

“Financially secure with a good career.”

“Nope. I’m pretty sure he’s broke, and he’s a thirty-four year old snowboard instructor. So.”

“Um…”

“What?”

“He’s definitely not broke.”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, so his dad is Quentin Prescott, who’s one of the founding partners of The Whitestone Group.”

Kayla’s mouth fell open. “I didn’t know that. You mean the investment firm, right? The one that’s worth hundreds of billions of dollars?”

“That’s the one. Anyway, they each have a trust fund worth two hundred million dollars.”

Kayla’s hand went limp and she nearly dropped her phone. “What?”

“Yeah. Max used some of his to start Tapp, Lucian used some of his to start his businesses. I mean, Lauren and Theo were friends for ten years and she only found out about it after they got engaged. They don’t really talk about it, but they’re all multi-millionaires, including Sebastian.”

“But…I don’t understand. What’s he doing working here? With that kind of money, he could be doing anything he wanted.”

“I don’t know either, but there’s no way he blew two