okay?’
Dee inhaled a loud breath. ‘Not really. My friend Queenie has had a nasty fall and broken her hip. She’s alone, with no one to care for her animals, so I need to drive up to Byron Bay now. But the owner of the building where I keep stock for my business is coming to inspect it later today and I need to vacate the lease space.’
Her heart sank. As if this day couldn’t get any worse. Sorting through her aunt’s questionable ‘stock’ for her kinky online business wasn’t one of her favourite activities on the planet. Aunt Dee had enlisted her help on more than one occasion to stuff envelopes for orders and Charlotte blushed just thinking about some of the apparatus people used in their sex lives.
‘You need me to pack everything up and store it at home?’
Dee sighed in relief. ‘Could you, sweetie? It would mean I could be at Queenie’s today rather than tomorrow and she really needs me.’
Charlotte’s inner child wanted to say ‘I need you’ but that was selfish and untrue. She’d learned from an early age to depend on no one but herself. She valued her independence, wore it like a badge of honour. Except that lately, her closest friends Abby and Mak had found great guys, leaving her to ponder whether being alone was something she cherished because she could or because she had to.
Shaking off her melancholy, she said, ‘Leave everything to me.’
‘You’re a lifesaver, Charlotte.’ Dee made smooching sounds. ‘Not sure how long I’ll be gone, maybe a few weeks. I’ll let you know.’
‘Okay—’ but Dee had already hung up, leaving Charlotte to face the inevitable.
An afternoon of packing up vibrators, nipple clamps and edible underwear.
Oh, goody.
ALEXANDER BRONSON HADN’T been back in Sydney for a year and as he traversed the Harbour Bridge he couldn’t help but glance at the Opera House on his left and remember the first time he’d been there. The first time he’d felt like he’d finally broken free of the shackles of his past.
Sydney had a unique vibe, far removed from his claustrophobic upbringing in outback New South Wales. It was the city where he’d studied, where he’d launched his career, where he’d ensured he’d never have to end up like his father.
His unofficial home, a boutique hotel in the Central Business District, beckoned. But first he had to check out his last property for the day, a warehouse on the outskirts of the glitzy eastern suburbs. He’d already been to Manly, Mosman and Balmoral Beach today, ensuring his investments were running smoothly. This last warehouse had to be cleared asap for a new tenant to move in tomorrow and his manager had informed him there’d been some kind of hold-up.
He didn’t suffer incompetence lightly. He liked order in all aspects of life. Which was why he’d sort out this complication today and face the shake-up at The Number Makers tomorrow.
Crazy name for an accountancy firm. Then again, considering the mess the initial owner had made of the business, it didn’t surprise him. Thank goodness for workers like Charlotte Baxter. Working offsite could be tough, but she’d made everything much easier than expected. He admired her work ethic, the way she questioned him and proposed solutions to problems he might not have anticipated.
He also liked the way she brought out the worst in him.
She sounded so prim and proper, so damned disapproving, he couldn’t help but tease her.
He shouldn’t make assumptions but he knew her type. Conservative wardrobe. Conservative views. Conservative life. She probably had an equally reserved husband, well-behaved kids and knitted on her lunch break. Though this was at odds with the fact that he’d registered her marital status as single when he’d dug deeper into his rising-star employee.
He’d deliberately called her Charlie during their first call and she hadn’t hesitated in reprimanding him—ensuring he never called her anything but. Because there was an underlying hint of playfulness in her sharp reprimands and retorts, as if she wanted to cut loose but didn’t know how.
Not that he was the guy to help her do it, but if he could make his work environment more pleasant, he was all for it. He’d had enough of morose, stifled environments back home to ensure he went out of his way to foster the opposite in all aspects of his life ever since.
Oh, yeah, he was looking forward to meeting the woman who’d smoothed his entry into the company. He had grand plans for her. Management plans. Because The Number Makers needed to be turned into a profitable business again and that meant appointing qualified staff. Staff like his introverted Charlie.
He couldn’t wait to meet her.
CHARLOTTE STEPPED INTO her aunt’s rented space in a cavernous warehouse and immediately wished she’d said no to helping out.
She wasn’t a prude, but seeing evidence of how much fun other people had in their sex lives always made her feel lacking somehow.
Her aunt’s online business, Dee’s Delights, did a roaring trade in all things sexy. From dildos to condoms, beads to fetish wear, her aunt dealt in it all. And if the lavish lifestyle her aunt enjoyed was any indication, many people were return customers.
Dee had told her about the business when Charlotte turned eighteen. Initially mortified that her aunt even knew what a cock ring was, Charlotte had studiously ignored anything to do with her aunt’s line of work. Now, at the ripe old age of twenty-five, and never having had a long-term boyfriend, Charlotte wondered if having to handle all this stuff today was the universe’s way of telling her to lighten the hell up.
Thankfully, most of the raunchier stuff still resided in boxes, leaving her to pack only the vibrators, handcuffs and lingerie. She’d booked a courier for six tonight, meaning she had three hours to get every box filled and taped.
As she held up a pair of fluffy fuchsia handcuffs and smirked, she glimpsed a full-length mirror on the inside of a partially open wardrobe door. Probably a remnant of the last tenant—she couldn’t imagine her aunt wanting to try on any of her merchandise and didn’t want to—but the moment the idea of trying stuff on popped into her head she couldn’t dislodge it.
Her gaze fell on the lingerie. A turquoise chemise with lace overlay. A purple halter baby-doll. A wet-look corset. A pink body stocking. An ebony faux-leather bustier and thong.
Heat flushed her cheeks as she picked up the latter and held it up. Would her sedate life change if she wore stuff like this? Not that anybody would see it, but it might give her more confidence to shake things up a little. And she wanted that, craved that, with every cell in her lonely body.
Her flatmate Mak had jetted off to New York with her delectable guy Hudson last week, leaving her more alone than ever. Charlotte rarely dated, didn’t go out clubbing and preferred reading to sexting. On the odd occasion she dipped her toes into the dating pool, she went for boring guys like...her. Because ultimately, that was the kind of guy she could see herself marrying,
