The Heat Read online

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  FREE BOOK OFFER

  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  A SNEAK PEEK

  MORE BY ALICE WARD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT AND DISCLAIMER

  The Heat

  FREE BOOK OFFER

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  BOOK DESCRIPTION

  She hates me on sight. I want her on sight. We don’t just argue, we explode.

  As the newly minted CEO of Watts Enterprises, the billion-dollar company with the world’s worst “green” reputation, it’s my job to produce the products consumers clamor for. But Atlee Young, an environmental attorney with more passion and will than I’ve ever seen, thinks differently.

  We meet in the sultry jungles of Malaysia, and when I set out to show her how wrong she is about me, things get wild, fast.

  Then they get dangerous.

  Now, we’re not just fighting each other. We’re fighting for our lives.

  *** This is a full length novel with a happily ever after, no cliffhanger, no cheating, and plenty of steam. ***

  CHAPTER ONE

  Atlee

  Some days, I loved everything about being an environmental attorney.

  Other days, not so much.

  This was definitely one of the other days.

  Roger Stapleton — yes, one of those Stapletons — of the esteemed Stapleton, Stapleton & Foster, an environmental law firm to the stars had been riding my ass all day, wanting to know the status on a brief I was putting together for a meeting that afternoon.

  He needed all four hundred and fifty pages of it sorted, indexed, proofed, given a table of contents, photocopied twenty times, and professionally bound… and he’d given me only three hours of freaking notice. In my rush to do his bidding, I’d spilled coffee on my Target pencil skirt, and I could feel a big stress-zit popping up, right in the middle of my forehead.

  A big FML moment, if ever I’d seen one.

  I sat my wet ass in front of my computer in my grubby little cubicle with a view of storm-gray fabric walls to the north, south, and west. To the east, across the aisle, I had a spectacular view of Johnson Brinkman’s plumber crack. Brinkman was the other clerk in the office, a year into Columbia Law School. He had as dry a personality as a stack of salami, and an obvious ignorance of the magic a good belt could provide. Since he was the only person even close to my age in the firm, my cut loose after work time was… not exactly scintillating.

  Not that I ever had any off-time.

  I jiggled my mouse over the title page in Word, trying to get the margins to align. It didn’t work.

  “Agh!” I clenched my fists, banging them on the desk in front of me, loud enough to shake the whole building.

  I needed to get this done. Perfectly. Yes, I was known as the office perfectionist. All of my work thus far had been perfect. Roger had told me, time and time again, what a “superior asset” I was to the firm.

  But now was not a time to rest on my laurels.

  Brinkman didn’t even come over to ask what the problem was. I could hear his typing mingling with some ho-hum football podcast he was listening to at a deafening volume through his earbuds while his ass crack flew free.

  Thanks, dude, way to be a team player, considering I was the one who trained you for your job.

  Besides, I was a Word ninja. If I couldn’t get it done, it couldn’t be done.

  I took a few deep breaths, the way I’d done before the bar exam, which I’d aced six months earlier. After three years at Columbia Law while clerking at SS&F, stress wasn’t foreign to me. I just needed to own it, embrace it, master it, make it my bitch.

  Time to get this shit done.

  Shoving a lock of springy hair that had escaped my bun behind my ear, I pushed my glasses, which always seemed to be slipping, up on the bridge of my nose. I hunched over the computer, put on my game face, and buckled down.

  Twenty minutes later, I sent the thing off to the printer, leaned back, and exhaled in a rush. I took off my glasses and wiped the lenses with a tissue. Now, all I needed to do was ask our admin to bind the pages and deliver them to the boardroom before three.

  Hallelujah. Finished, right in time for my weekly check-in meeting with Roger.

  But this wasn’t just any weekly check-in meeting.

  This was the meeting I’d been prepping for the past six months, ever since I passed the bar and became legit.

  I grabbed a pen and legal pad. My knees wobbled as I stood, adjusting my still-damp pencil skirt and blazer, smoothing the sides of my milk-chocolate-brown hair back. I’d worn it in a severe bun today, hoping it’d make me look older since people still mistook me for a high school freshman. At five-four, I wasn’t too vertically challenged, so it was probably the dimples, the pixie face with oh-so-pert features. Cute. That was the adjective that always somehow got attached to me.

  But I was hypersensitive to people taking me seriously since I’d gone into the corner store in my Greenwich Village neighborhood three weeks ago. I’d accidentally dropped and shattered a jar of roasted peppers while trying to load it into my basket, and the market owner had frowned at me and yelled, “Where is your mother?”

  Embarrassing? Hell, yes. But life was a bitch, trying to get people to take me seriously, which made me one too.

  I jutted my chin out and fixed my face in a scowl, which I also thought made me look older. When I stepped out into the aisle, Brinkman’s hairy ass crack greeted me. It might have been taunting me.

  He spun in his chair and blinked up in my direction, tenting his hands over his midsection in a way he must’ve thought made him look contemplative. Typical first-year. I’d been there too. It was a weird jump to make. One minute, you’re surviving off ramen noodles and going to classes in what you slept in. The next, you’re thrust into a world of custom suits and Wall Street Journal readers and expected to have your shit together.

  I was, slowly and surely, getting there, but Brinkman had a ways to go. His hair was a nest of unruly black curls, and his desk was littered with Diet Coke bottles. He constantly smelled of Doritos. When I’d been chosen my first year in law school to clerk with SS&F, I’d been proud. I’d thought it was a huge honor, given to me because I’d graduated from NYU summa cum laude in only three years and was the best of the best.

  Then, I met Brinkman and the glow kind of tarnished.

  Not that he wasn’t smart. He was. Wicked smart. He probably had the grades. But he was also… quite possibly… the most annoying person on the face of the planet. He always treated everything like some kind of competition between the two of us. Like stapling. I wasn’t kidding. We’d eac
h had a stack of packets to staple, and when he finished first, he gloated for a week.

  Plus, everyone in the office always put us together. They’d say, “Hey, you two!” and “Oh, sorry, am I intruding?” whenever we were discussing work like they were interrupting us about to get busy on the desk.

  Gag me.

  We were the only two interns in the place, but we weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend. It wasn’t that I was miffed most people in the office didn’t think I could do better, but… okay, yeah, it was that.

  My mother, on our weekly phone calls, was always trying to get me to make an effort with my appearance. She’d say, “Contacts, Atlee! Blush!” like she could sense my homeliness, even from six states away.

  First of all, I had major astigmatism and wearing contacts for an hour not only made me look twelve, they made my eyes red for a week. Second of all, most blush was made from animal carcasses. Everyone knew that.

  “You got your meeting with Stapleton?” my alleged boyfriend asked, his jaw working to chew something, some of which spit out onto the knees of his Dockers. Mmm, attractive. The kid was always eating. I didn’t know why I just didn’t grab that Dorito flavored guy.

  I nodded. “Just my weekly thing.”

  He laughed loudly, showing me the electric-orange mashed mess inside his mouth. “Hope you don’t run away crying again.” He slapped a knee as if he’d said the funniest joke on earth, leaving orange fingerprints on the material.

  I scowled at him.

  I’d cried once. Just once.

  To say the job was stressful was an understatement. On that one occasion, I’d been training Brinkman while also putting together a bunch of briefs for three different cases. Because of the ass-crack-flashing bastard, they’d all gotten mixed together. While I’d been madly sorting everything out, I got a call that my apartment had flooded when some a-hole on the floor above me left his water running, ruining my entire wardrobe. Oh, and yeah, I’d been on my period. It was a wonder I hadn’t walked out with an, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” rant.

  But I’d held it together. I’d retreated to my cubicle where I’d shed a few tears, which I’d easily wiped away with a tissue. I hadn’t run away crying. Please.

  I’ll show you. The mental challenge raced through my mind, and I straightened my spine as I walked to the bank of corner offices that I hoped to reside in one day. Stapleton, Stapleton, Foster & Young had a certain ring to it, and I could practically hear our receptionist answering the phone that way. I strode with purpose, my chin high, positive vibes radiating from every cell in my body while no betraying tears dared to gather anywhere in my vicinity.

  Today, I, Atlee Young, will be one step closer to my ultimate goal: Partner.

  The doors to the executive offices were all closed, foreboding, screaming Go away, ye mortal fools. There was a barricade of desks, all manned by pretty females at the front. Willa, Roger’s executive assistant, lifted her chin from her phone. “Go in, Atlee. He’s expecting you.”

  Taking a fortifying breath, I went to the imposing wooden door and knocked before boldly entering.

  This was my domain. Rawr.

  As if fate was determined to take my confidence down a notch, a curl sprang from my bun and bobbed on my forehead with each step. Damn. I shoved it back, hoping the sweat from my palm didn’t glue it straight up in the air in some type of corporate spoof of There’s Something About Mary.

  Roger was in his early fifties and had been practicing law for a quarter of a century. His father founded the firm about forty years ago, and after clerking while he was in law school, Roger’d become associate after passing the bar, then partner, thus the two Stapletons. It was the path I wanted to take.

  I’d heard he was a real ballbuster, but he was nice to me, at least. Demanding, yes. But during late nights, when we’d been preparing for cases over cartons of cold pad thai, we’d had a few heart-to-hearts. He was Columbia Law too, which was why he had a soft spot for fellow alumni. It’d taken him three tries to pass the bar. He was divorced, had three kids in Jersey he never saw, and breathed environmental law. He and I shared a passion for protecting Mother Earth, and that was what made me respect him the most.

  “Hey, Atlee,” he said, motioning me in as he looked up from his computer. His eyes were narrowed into black pinpricks, and the early afternoon sunlight slashed down through the open window, bouncing off his receding hairline and the crown of almost clown-like orange hair around it. “Come on in. Sit down. You get that brief done?”

  I sat in a leather circle-shaped chair across from his desk. “Yep. Off to be bound.”

  “Good. Good,” he said, swiveling so he was facing me. “So, what’s up?”

  I looked at my legal pad, at the note I’d scribbled there. You deserve this.

  Not the best lead-in. I’d save that discussion until after I went over my projects for the week.

  I started, detailing the different cases I was researching. There was a big case shaping up out of New Jersey; a possible cancer cluster in twelve children that might have been caused by a big pharma company that was improperly disposing of its waste. I was gathering up the contact information of all those affected for a possible class action suit and working on the initial correspondence.

  Other than that, I had to research a list of witnesses for a possible asbestos exposure case in a workplace upstate, gather all the info I could about a company in Connecticut whose shipping fleet might or might not have been violating the Clean Water Act of 1990, and start working on the design for the invitations to the annual Christmas party.

  These meetings were usually quick and efficient. Roger nodded along, interjecting a question or two here and there. I was prepared with every answer, as usual. When I got to the end of the list, I took a deep breath.

  “All right,” he said, turning back to his computer. “Looks like you’ve got your hands full. I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Actually…” I began, and my heart started to hammer. I looked at my legal pad again, reading the words I’d circled thickly with black ink.

  You deserve this.

  He studied me over his bifocals. “Yes, Atlee?”

  “I was wondering if I could discuss something with you.”

  He gave me a confused look, lacing his fingers in front of him on the desk. “Of course.”

  I cleared my throat and met his gaze. I did deserve this, and hell yes, I was going to get it. “As you know, I graduated from Columbia at the top of my class six months ago, and I passed the bar on my first attempt, scoring in the top ten percent.”

  He nodded, and something flashed in his eyes. Disgust? Surprise? Bone deep envy?

  My stomach fell to my toes. It was my first inkling that I should turn back. But I couldn’t. I’d pulled out the first stone from the dam, and now I had to see this through, even if it swept me away.

  “That’s true, Atlee. You’re very bright, and I’ve always said what an asset you are…” He shrugged, his fingers splaying wide.

  A superior asset, I mentally corrected him, even if it sounded like there was a “but” in there. I refused to back down.

  “I want to be promoted to associate attorney with the firm,” I blurted in a rush.

  This shouldn’t have been a shock to him. He’d been expecting it. After all, clerking was fine for a law student, but I passed the bar in July. Over four months ago. And this was the path… clerk, then work your ass off to become a junior associate, then a senior associate, and then the holy grail of your name being added to the letterhead as partner, hopefully before you’re old and gray.

  “I understand that,” he said, leaning back in his overstuffed chair, tapping his fingers on the leather arm. “We all want to advance in our careers. But have you ever taken into consideration how many lawyers are working on your average environmental case?”

  “I… could google it,” I offered, not sure where this was going. Google had always been my friend. My lifeli
ne. That was why I was such a good researcher. I googled at least fifty times a day, just about anything.

  He shook his head. “A lot. Not everyone gets top recognition, is what I’m saying. There have to be people in the back, making the magic happen. Do they get the recognition? No, maybe not. But they’re no less important.”

  Right. They were paid peanuts, didn’t get a cushy office, and people stepped all over them eighty hours a week, but they were soooo important.

  I frowned. I’d paid my dues. I was now full-fledged. This was simply the natural progression of things. The man across from me had gone that path, and he’d freaking failed the bar three times. Of course, his daddy had founded the company, but still.

  And not only that, he’d told me the day I was hired as clerk, that once I graduated, they’d make a permanent place for me. All my friends from school were now becoming associates… and I’d smoked all of them on the bar. The firm was lucky to have me.

  I deserved this.

  The only thing that told me I didn’t deserve this? Roger’s face.

  His big, fat, punchable face.

  “I understand that’s where you would like to be headed. But being an attorney doesn’t mean you have to be the one taking the lead. Behind every good attorney on the front lines is a team of researchers, thinkers, bright minds who—”

  “But I want to be at the front. I want my own cases.”

  He held up one hand while the other continued to tap, tap, tap the leather armrest. “I know, I know. But this isn’t a good time. There simply isn’t a spot available for a new associate at this time.”

  “But you promised me that when I passed the bar, I’d—”

  “I did. I promised you that. But…” he threw up his hands and shrugged, “what can I say? It’s not the right time. There are quite a few big cases going on, where the extra manpower is needed. We need you where you are.”

  “You need me where I am?” I repeated to myself. So basically, he needed me mopping the floors. Sitting behind the scenes, googling my little heart out so other people could get the recognition and monetary reward.