The CEO's Dilemma ; Undeniable Passion
THE CEO’S DILEMMA
Furious and devastated when the project for the prestigious contest she won is canceled, architect Aisha Clark storms into the new CEO’s office demanding he reconsider the decision. Billionaire Roman Sykes was reluctant to take over his father’s firm, but he’s intrigued by the brilliant beauty. Her project deserves a chance, but an entanglement is off-limits. With passion as powerful as their ambitions, can both put career dreams on the line for love?
UNDENIABLE PASSION
Her mother’s wedding brings burned-by-love magazine editor Rita Osgood to Sheridan Falls...where she feels an instant connection to homegrown hunk Keith Burke. A hot fling with the sweet-talking Realtor could be just what she needs. Until an unexpected arrival shatters the fragile bond between Rita and Keith...and their trust in a future together.
Lindsay Evans
and
Kayla Perrin
The CEO’s Dilemma & Undeniable Passion
Table of Contents
The CEO’s Dilemma by Lindsay Evans
Undeniable Passion by Kayla Perrin
Excerpt from Spark of Desire by Sheryl Lister
The CEO’s Dilemma
Lindsay Evans
“Your apology is not worth the air you took to say it.” She blinked hard and jerked her gaze toward the windows behind him.
For a horrific moment, Roman thought she would cry, but Aisha drew herself up to her full height on already high heels and visibly clenched her teeth. “You may be doing this just to spite your old man, but you’re also screwing over someone else. Me. It’s not fair what you’re doing. I—I worked hard on that design and I was the top choice. I won’t let you erase my career the way you’re obviously intent on erasing your father.”
Every word she spoke was like a punch to his gut.
“Ms. Clark, this decision is not about you, so please don’t take it personally.”
Those words came easily to his mouth, but Roman couldn’t stop the pulse of sympathy, of regret, that threatened to turn his lunch against him. Sorry as he was, he wouldn’t change his mind. He wouldn’t allow his father to trap his mother in death the way he had in life.
“How can I do anything but take this personally, Mr. CEO?” Her words were scornful.
Distantly, Roman heard the outer office door open and a low voice talking to his assistant. Aisha looked over her shoulder through the open door and seemed to gather herself. Her tongue wiped over her lower lip and Roman’s stomach dipped as he stared, unable to look away. She grabbed the letter on his desk, neatly folded it and put it back in her purse. She looked at him one last time before sailing out of his office, her heels stabbing the floor with each step.
Lindsay Evans was born in Jamaica and currently lives and writes in Atlanta, Georgia, where she’s constantly on the hunt for inspiration, club in hand. She loves good food and romance and would happily travel to the ends of the earth for both. Find out more at www.lindsayevanswrites.com.
Books by Lindsay Evans
Harlequin Kimani Romance
Pleasure Under the Sun
Sultry Pleasure
Snowy Mountain Nights
Affair of Pleasure
Untamed Love
Bare Pleasures
The Pleasure of His Company
On-Air Passion
Her Perfect Pleasure
The CEO’s Dilemma
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Dear Reader,
When Aisha Clark runs into Roman Sykes in a coffee shop, she’s smitten and imagines dating the handsome hunk. But it turns out that Roman is more than eye candy. He’s also the CEO of the firm threatening to take away the professional prize for the building design she’s worked hard for. The bitter truth of who he really is should turn Aisha all the way off, but she finds herself wanting to find out more about him.
Roman has to prove himself in his new leadership role at his father’s firm. It means handing down tough decisions that are not always popular. He finds himself facing disapproval from Aisha when he rules on her project.
Aisha and Roman will find themselves battling it out in a test of wills. And wondering if love will prevail?
Best,
Lindsay
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 1
The bell above the door jangled as Aisha pushed her way inside the bakery. Smiling wide, she let out a sigh of pleasure at the rush of delicious scents pouring from Baked Good, an indie bakery and coffee shop, aka a little slice of heaven in the Grant Park neighborhood of Atlanta.
“Hmm, this place is so yummy!” Aisha looked over her shoulder at her sister, Devyn, walking in behind her.
“I know you think so.” Devyn rolled her eyes but was smiling back. “You and Mom love this place, which is so weird since you two are all about healthy eating.”
“There’s nothing unhealthy in this place. It all smells too good.” Aisha headed directly for the front counter to join the long line already there.
“You’re talking about a boatload of carbs, Aisha.”
“Carbs get a bad rap,” she said. “Just you wait. In a few years, everyone will be on the anti-paleo whatever diet and kicking themselves for missing out on the basic human right of fresh baked bread for so long.”
Baked Good was one of Aisha’s favorite places in the world, aside from home or anyplace with her family. Like a kid in a candy store, she wriggled with excitement from the back of the line six people deep.
More than anything else the bakery carried, she loved their cupcakes. Her favorite, the red velvet with cream cheese frosting, she could literally eat every single day and not get tired of them.
“You’re ridiculous,” Devyn said, laughing. “But I’m glad you could spare me a little bit of your Saturday morning so we could celebrate you winning the freakin’ Sylvia Sykes Architectural Prize.” She said the name of the award in a tone of awe and admiration that made Aisha blush and smile even wider.
It was kind of a big deal, wasn’t it? Aisha thought with pride. But she kept her cool.
“Oh my God, you know I won the thing months ago and celebrated maybe a little too much back then.” Well, maybe it hadn’t been too much. Just enough fun with plenty of drinks, her proud family and a guy she’d been seeing at the time. Drinks, the people she loved around her and a little nookie at the end of the night. Kind of perfect, actually.
“Well, I was so caught up in my own craziness that I didn’t congratulate you properly,” Devyn said with an apologetic bump of Aisha’s hip.
“Okay, none of that talk.” She leaned in and smoothed the delicate skin on her sister’s brow. “We’re in the
presence of cupcakes.”
“Of course!” Devyn gave a little laugh and her pretty eyes sparkled. “I don’t want to blaspheme.”
Aisha slung an arm around her sister’s waist and squeezed her tight. It was so good to see Devyn laughing and enjoying life again. She’d been going through a lot with her former boss at the art gallery where she used to work. Now she was free of that controlling witch and, in a few weeks, would open her own gallery. This was a dream she’d had since forever. It didn’t hurt that Devyn also had a brand-new husband warming her cockles every night.
Her sister wore her happiness well. Always a fashionable dresser, Devyn now exuded confidence and cutting-edge style in everything she wore. Today’s iron-gray dress with slashes of red at the waist and shoulders was no different. The purse she carried, probably a gift from her yummy hubby, was an art piece in itself. It looked like the color wheel done in leather and was big enough to brush her hip from its elegant drape over her arm.
Dev looked amazing. She looked content.
“Seriously though, thanks for bringing me here,” Aisha said. “Obviously you know this place is my favorite.”
Devyn laughed again. “Obviously.”
Aisha and their mother loved absolutely everything about Baked Good. From its owner, Aspen, a girl barely twenty-five who was making her own way in the world despite a million challenges, to its location near a ton of other stores to visit on a Saturday afternoon, including a yoga studio, an early morning farmers market and a little pet shop that hosted animal adoptions a few times a month.
Aisha loved the neighborhood where she lived with her family and couldn’t imagine residing anywhere else.
Aisha and Devyn moved up further in the line. Devyn patted her purse and gestured to the bakery case full of drool-worthy pastries. “Order whatever you want, sister dear. My treat.”
“Ooh, big spender!”
When it was finally their turn at the counter, Aisha picked two red velvet cupcakes and a glass of sparkling water while Devyn got herself a savory scone and a cup of coffee. Aisha eyed the coffee the woman behind the bar poured for Devyn with more than a little java lust.
But no, she didn’t need any more caffeine for the day. It was barely ten o’clock and by the time Devyn had come by her house to pick her up less than half an hour ago, she’d already had two cups.
Just as Devyn finished paying, a bistro table by the window in the back of the café opened up. They quickly took it before anyone else could.
At the table, they arranged the plates so they could share their treats.
Aisha slowly unwrapped her cupcake and sank her teeth into the corner, getting an explosion of flavor from both frosting and cake on her tongue.
“God, this is so, so good.” She moaned around the dessert with closed eyes.
“You know people are staring at you, right?” Devyn sipped her coffee.
“I don’t care.” She licked away the bit of frosting she could feel at the corner of her mouth and made another pleased sound. “This cupcake makes all the worries of the world float away.”
“As if you have any worries right now.” Devyn smiled over the rim of her mug.
Once upon a time that comment would have been tinged with envy, but now, swimming in her own happiness after years of thinking she’d made nothing but wrong moves, her sister looked as happy as Aisha felt. Although Devyn would probably feel even better with a cupcake in her hand, she thought.
“I do have a few worries,” Aisha said once she finished chewing the delicious bite.
She thought of her bosses at Wainwright and Tully, two old men with outdated ideas about women in the workplace despite having hired her and two other women. Even though she’d been over the moon with happiness when she’d first got hired by one of the best architectural firms in the country, now her feet were firmly on the ground. After five years of having her plans get passed over time and time again in favor of those belonging to men—and white men at that—she realized that her dream job had turned into a nightmare. It was time for her to wake up.
Although Devyn already knew all about that, Aisha reminded her.
Her sister held the coffee mug in both hands, elbows on the table. The steam from the coffee rose up, hot and fragrant, between them. “The Sykes Prize is a game changer. With that on your résumé, you can tell those backward-thinking guys stuck in their high castle to kiss your behind.”
“That’s not very PC of you, sister,” Aisha said, but she giggled at the image of Albert Tully at his desk, wrinkled mouth all puckered up and ready to smooch her rear end as she slammed her resignation letter down on his desk.
“What they’ve been doing to you isn’t very PC.” Anger snapped briefly in Dev’s eyes. “They should be sued for the number of times they passed you over when your project was obviously better.”
“It’s fine,” Aisha said, though it wasn’t. “Like you said, getting the Sykes Prize has already changed some things for me. I haven’t even put out any résumés yet and a firm from London has already reached out to me.” She’d been shocked when she’d opened the email, although, in the end, not too impressed with that they were offering.
“That’s fantastic! Are you going to take it?” Devyn took another sip of her coffee, obviously enjoying her drink the way Aisha enjoyed her cupcake. It was just cruel of her sister to drink that in front of her when she knew Aisha was cutting back on her caffeine intake.
“Maybe.” She eyed her sister’s quickly emptying mug. “Listen, I’m going to grab a cup of coffee before I snatch yours and gobble it down.” She stood and grabbed her purse.
With a flash of her laughing smile, Devyn shoved a ten-dollar bill in her hand. “No need for that. Take the cash. I told you everything is my treat today.”
If she thought her sister would let her get away with it, Aisha would push the money back in Devyn’s hand. Even with the foolishness at work, she still made more money than what Dev took home every month.
She took Devyn’s ten. “Fine, I’ll be right back.”
As she headed toward the front counter, the bell over the door chimed. She got in line behind two other people just as someone else stepped there. Aisha looked up and nearly choked on her next breath.
Wow.
The man who walked up to the line was, in a word, scrumptious. Much taller than her five feet ten, he stepped close with a sexy walk and straight back, frowning down at his phone before shoving the device into the pocket of his gray workout pants. Despite the frown, his deeply set eyes had laugh lines around them and the corners of his defined mouth were gently creased. Like icing on a cake she wanted to devour with both hands, a glinting silver frosted the temples of his neatly trimmed back hair.
He was basically every daddy fantasy Aisha never knew she had come to life.
Like a greedy kid facing a second helping of cake, she licked her lips. God, to have a taste of that...
With his height, people probably asked him if he played basketball—if basketball players walked around with bagged yoga mats slung over a wide shoulder and wore tank tops advertising the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum. She idly noticed that he wore the same black Nike high-tops her brother had. And, thankfully, no wedding ring.
Wow, Aisha thought again, her throat drying up.
“Are you all right?” Hot Yoga Daddy asked in a deep and luscious voice, directly meeting her eyes.
She had to swallow a couple of times to stop herself from stammering like a complete idiot. “Um...yeah. Just shook by all your sexy.” Brilliant, Aisha. He probably thinks you were dropped on your head as a child. Aisha cleared her throat and stuck out her hand. “Hi, I’m Aisha.”
A smile slipped into the creases around his mouth and eyes. “And you’re forward.”
The line moved up a little as the person in front ordered and stepped aside to wait.
“If you don
’t ask for what you want in this life, you never get it,” she said, smiling back into his eyes. There was something in his face that reminded her of gargoyle statues perched atop Notre-Dame. His features were too strong to be called handsome, but the strength in them was also what made her want to grab on to his wide shoulders and never let go.
Down, girl.
“You realize you’re young enough to be my kid?” He arched an eyebrow in her direction.
“Only if you started procreating in middle school,” she said.
He huffed a laugh. “Now that’s a disturbing thought.”
“Exactly. Which is why you should stop saying that to girls trying to get your number.”
“Is that what you’re trying to do?”
Giving up any lingering subtlety, she gave his toned arms a long and appreciative look. “Absolutely.”
“What can I get for you?”
Aisha turned around to face the woman at the counter. Damn, she wasn’t ready to let this conversation go. “A large coffee, please, with a shot of French vanilla and room for cream.”
When the woman moved away to make her coffee, Aisha turned back to Hot Yoga Daddy with a flirtatious smile.
“You’re very, very sweet,” he said with a regretful shake of his head, still smiling down at her. “But a little too tender for me.”
“That’ll be four dollars even.” The woman came back with the coffee, looking with interest between Aisha and the man she wanted to be the father of her children.
Hot Yoga Daddy slid a five across the counter before Aisha could move. “Let me get your coffee instead of that number you want.”
So not an equal trade.
Chuckling, the woman snatched up his money and put the change in the tip jar at his nod in that direction.
Swallowing her disappointment, Aisha picked up her coffee and slowly stepped back so the man could get to the business of ordering whatever he’d come for. “A pity you’re not up to the challenge,” she said once he’d placed his order for half a dozen assorted cupcakes and a large hot chocolate with cayenne pepper and whipped cream.