Not Planning on You (Danvers #2)
Sydney Landon
Chapter One
“Crapple Dapple, are you kidding me?” Suzy looked at her best friend Claire in horror.
“Crapple Dapple?”
Waving her hand in a vague way, Suzy said, “Oh yeah, I’m trying to stop cursing so much at work. The new receptionist they hired for our section crosses herself every time I roll out a four letter word; it’s kind of creepy.” Suzy gave Claire a few moments to recover from the laughter shaking her body and got back to the question she’d asked. “Claire, earth to Claire, come back.” Wiping the tears from her eyes, Claire finally composed herself enough to continue.
“Um, yeah, sorry Suz but you heard me correctly. Gray is going to take over daily operations at Danvers for the foreseeable future and Jason prefers that he relocate here to Myrtle Beach to do that. He trusts Gray, and although he will continue on as the CEO of Danvers, Gray will step up as the President of Operations.”
Last year, Danvers International had merged with Mericom creating the largest communications company in the United States. Grayson Merimon, or Gray as everyone called him, was the CEO of Mericom which was based in Charleston, South Carolina. Much to her chagrin, he’d been spending a lot of time at the Danvers Headquarters since the merger was complete. Tall, dark and handsome—yes he had it all. The man looked like sex on a stick and he’d made no secret of the fact that he was very interested in her. Suzy however wasn’t interested in him or so she kept telling herself. After being cheated on by her high school sweetheart, the man she thought she’d be spending the rest of her life with, men were now only good for one thing and that one thing was something she wanted to avoid in the work place.
“It’s the kid isn’t it? It hasn’t even been born yet and already it’s turning my life upside down,” Suzy groaned.
“Well, Jason does want to be able to spend more time with me and the baby when it’s born so yes that has something to do with it.”
“I knew it!” Catching herself least she offend Claire, Suzy tried to get control. She also tried to understand why she was suddenly terrified at the thought of seeing Gray daily. She’d spent a lot of time in his company since the merger. She was always careful to have someone else present, though, when meeting with Gray. The strong, gutsy person inside her wondered why that was necessary, the woman inside her knew. There was something in Gray’s eyes that called to her, seemed to devour her soul every time she looked at him. He scared her, he made her want to run and do everything she could to save herself.
Suzy realized that Claire was watching her, a knowing look in her eyes. Quickly putting her defenses up, Suzy did what she did best, bluffed. “Ugh, well no biggie I guess. Just another uptight geek to grace our presence here, right? I mean, why should it bother me, I haven’t given him a thought since he was here annoying me last time. Maybe he will actually buy himself a pair of jeans or something though. Those uptight, heavily starched suits are so depressing. He should really lay off the hair products. Do you think a hurricane could move that hair?” Ending her tirade, Suzy grimaced as she looked at Claire. Ok, maybe she should have limited those comments to no more than two. She was rattled and when that happened, the words kept flowing no matter how hard she tried to stop them. She was grateful that it was Claire though, someone who would never judge her or try to peel the layers back to see what all the protests were hiding. Claire didn’t have to, because she knew.