For His Taking (For His Pleasure, Book 2) (The Submission of Miss Masters, Domination, BDSM) by Kelly Favor

can arrange that,” with a little smile.
    Later, Remi dropped by and invited Nicole to have lunch with her, which she immediately agreed to.
    During lunch, Remi apologized for being so horrible. She told Nicole that her mother had fallen ill the past weekend and she’d been so upset about it, she’d obviously taken her anxieties out on Nicole.
    They made up, and Remi once again promised to see if she could convince Edward to let Nicole come back to work for her.
    That greatly eased Nicole’s mind. Meanwhile, she tried her best to work diligently on the tasks Edward had assigned her, which were plentiful and dull.
    She wasn’t sure whether she was hoping to see Red again or not. Part of her definitely wanted to make sure he was okay, the other part was scared of what he might say to her if they did run into each other.
    But she didn’t see him.
    In fact, she didn’t see him for a full week. Nicole had no idea if he was even in the building at all, but if he was, he certainly didn’t set foot in her neck of the woods.
    Other people started to notice that Red wasn’t coming around her desk. There were those furtive looks again in Nicole’s direction from her coworkers, only now the looks were pitying, as if people already knew what had occurred and assumed she was dumped. Women especially were inclined to give her a sad face and tilt their heads just so, without uttering a word.
    They knew how to make her feel low.
    She stopped wearing the engagement ring. It was at home, packed in tissue paper and stuffed in the tip of one of her shoes in the back of her closet.
    Things had even returned to normal between her and Danielle. Nicole got the distinct impression that it was far easier to have friends when you were scraping the bottom of the barrel. Then everyone could feel superior and act really sorry for you, instead of wondering why you’d gotten something they hadn’t.
    She was becoming cynical, and she hated it.
    More than that, she was confused and sad and lonely. She missed Red.
    She missed his calls, his humor; the way he looked at her and made wry comments and little observations about things she said or did. He was so attentive, so watchful over her.
    She wished again and again that somehow she could have erased that first night at the house when everything had gone so inexplicably and horribly wrong.
    Nicole still didn’t understand what had happened.
    The weekend came and went, and Nicole spent the majority of it on the couch with Danielle, watching television and trying to act like she was fine. However, the nights were long and mostly sleepless, as she went back in her mind to the good nights with Red, and the way he’d looked at her and touched her.
    The next Monday morning, after their weekly team meeting , Edward approached Nicole at her desk. “I just got a message from Red,” he told her.
    Instantly, her heart skipped a beat and she couldn’t speak. She simply nodded at him.
    “He wants me to come up to his office at eleven, to present the organizational changes I’m making on the network. Since you’re kind of taking the lead on that project, I figured you should come too.”
    “Red wants us to tell him about the new file structure?” she asked, flabbergasted.
    It was hardly a major undertaking relative to the company as a whole. Sure, it would mean some changes for the creative group, but nothing that should concern the CEO.
    Edward laughed. “Red’s always been this way. Sometimes you can be working on a two hundred thousand dollar contract and he doesn’t want to hear a peep about it.
    Other times, you’re doing some pro bono work for a local supermarket and he’s totally involved in every last piece of the thing.”
    “That’s…” She shook her head. “I don’t know what that is.”
    Edward smiled sympathetically. “Also, I just want to say that you don’t have to do this if you’re uncomfortable. Red didn’t specifically ask for you to come.” At the last sentence, his