2. Instant attraction

CHAPTER TWO

Nicole rubbed her palms before letting out a long puff of warm air. Knocking timidly on the CEO’s office, the sweet voice of a middle-aged woman answered. Walking in, the lady looked up getting rid of her reading glasses, her piercing gaze landing on Nicole. She was a prim woman with a small frame but with firm authority. She could smile on your face while firing you and you would do nothing about it.

"Tell me you already have a best seller idea," she stated point-blank.

"Not yet, Mrs. Forbes but if you give me more time, I’m pretty sure I would deliver," the words stumbled out of Nicole’s light pink coated lips. Didn’t someone understand the meaning of writer’s block?

"It’s already been eight months since your last hit book was released. We are running out of time Nicole and we are losing buyers to Vienna publishers. The one book we published after turned out to be a total crap. We are already losing a lot of money at the moment. You signed a contract remember? So hit us with your best ideas," Mrs. Forbes the CEO of Blooms publishing house. Nicole wanted to point out that she had done a lot for the company as the junior editor but she knew better. Mrs. Forbes was just as stubborn as she was strict when it came work.

"Okay, I'll see what I can come up with," she sighed.

“I gave you three months and every single day you keep telling me that same thing. I’m running out of patience Nicole so you have only have tonight. Next week moday I’m expecting an idea from you. If you don't come up with one then I'll have no option but to fire you. There are a couple of really good authors whose submissions I’m already considering and I’m also considering them for your position in this company. So if by tomorrow eight I don't get an idea from you ready then say goodbye to your career," Mrs. Forbes ordered as a matter of factly.

Nicole was about to protest but Mrs. Forbes already had her head buried in some files. Knowing that was her cue to leave she sashayed out of the office. After work, she met up with Julian, her twin brother and only sibling, in the bar where he bartended.

"Hey," she muttered plopping on the bar stool, placing her purse in the counter.

"Hey. Is everything okay?" Ever the concerned Julian.

She shook her head, leaning it on the palm of her right hand while gazing up at the ocean of blue in Julian's eyes. They both inherited the eye color from their father.

"Did you get fired?" he pushed on.

"Nope but I will be fired very soon if I don't come up with a good novel idea during these seven days," she sighed in frustration.

"You could start your own publishing company. Isn't that what you have always wanted since when you were like eleven?" That wasn't a lie.

"That would require a lot money and right now I feel like I’m already on an edge with my boss not giving me some breathing space. I’ve almost exhausted all my current salary and now all I got is just the money in my savings account. It’s not even that much and I have no idea what I’ll do if I get fired," I sighed

"You are Nichole Wilde and you always come up with grand ideas. Come on, I have some spare minutes so hit me up with your amazing ideas," he sat down a sparkle of interest in his eyes.

"Julian," she trailed off.

"I’m waiting,"

"There is no way out of this, is there? Okay, how about a girl who is almost raped but a guy saves her? Then it turns out he is-" Julian cut her off.

"A billionaire with a bad childhood but they still fall in love. Too cliché," how could that be so predictable?

"Ugh! Okay how about a journalist who gets caught in a storm while travelling across the sea to an island then she is saved by a lonely ex-marine who has been stuck in the island?"

"I don't know what is your obsession with marine characters is but it still sounds to me like another knight in a shining armor cliché tale," Julian countered.

"Julian, I don't have any more ideas and your constructive criticism is of so much help right now," she stated sarcastically.

"Hey, I’m just trying to help you. The last thing I want is you running to me with tears all over the place because you got fired. It will be like eleventh grade circus all over again when Toby took Bailey to prom instead of you," she cringed at the memory. It was one of those bitter high school memories that made you recoil.

"Well, maybe I could switch to writing New Adult then or just teen fiction, you know, just put up some drama in it and boom! You get a best seller," her blue eyes sparkled as though she had just won the best award anyone could ever get.

Julian stared at her sister a pathetic look all over his face. She always does that whenever she gets to an edge.

"Dear sister, I think you are letting the pressure get to you. Do you remember the first time you wrote a teen fiction book then submitted it to seven publishing companies? What was their reason for rejection?" only he could force reason into his sister's head.

"The teens in my novels acted so much like adults which made the novel too unreal. They said it looked like the characters acted like they were in their mid-thirties with the bodies of seventeen year olds," she sighed.

"Exactly, that's why they all suggested you major in adult romance. So now you are going to go home, take a warm bath, eat some really healthy food, relax your mind then let the ideas flow. You are under so much pressure right now so you need to unwind first," he advised placing a comforting hand on her exposed shoulder.

"How could I forget Julian's famous remedy for a good flow of activity in the brain?" she grinned.

"Mock my remedy all you want but it has worked on you several times in the past," he stated as a matter of factly.

"Okay, fine. I’m leaving now," she picked up her purse while standing.

"By the way mum and dad are coming over next week on tuesday," Julian just had to have the perfect remedy for making her mood even worse. The parents coming over did not augur well with her and this just had to be the worst timing.

"Crap! Really?" Julian nodded affirmatively.

"God! We are so dead. I don't think I can handle the pressure of them wanting us to get married. For God's sake, we are only twenty four and half years," she stated as Julian shrugged.

"Well I guess I’m going to deal with that later. Good night and next week on Monday, I'll be back either to celebrate for not being fired or drown my sorrows at losing my precious job,"

"You not going to lose your Job. You are the most hardworking, determined woman I know. Night too Nicks," Julian bid her goodbye, a warm smile on his face.

At that very moment Dominic walked in with four of his bodyguards tailing him. Nicole walked past him without noticing his presence but Dominic had surely noticed her. Never in his life had Dominic laid his eyes on a woman that stunning. There was weariness on her face but that didn't stop her picture of natural beauty being stuck in his mind. There was something about her that drove his primal sanity to the edge, like he wanted to have her. Damn! He really did want to have her as his all of a sudden. What the hell was wrong with him? He has never cared and what was this that made him want to claim a beauty he had barely caught a glance of?