Curvaceous Heart Read online

  CURVACEOUS HEART

  Terri Pray

  ®

  www.loose-id.com

  Warning

  This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id® e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  * * * * *

  This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable.

  Curvaceous Heart

  Terri Pray

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by

  Loose Id LLC

  1802 N Carson Street, Suite 212-2924

  Carson City NV89701-1215

  www.loose-id.com

  Copyright © August 2007 by Terri Pray

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared in any form, including, but not limited to printing, photocopying, faxing, or emailing without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC.

  ISBN 978-1-59632-528-9

  Available in Adobe PDF, HTML, MobiPocket, and MS Reader

  Printed in the United States of America

  Editor: Sherri Lynne

  Cover Artist: Cover Artist Name: Croco Designs

  Chapter One

  A new week means a new diet, doesn’t it?

  Sue glared at the calendar in disgust. Which one would she convince herself to try this time around? There had to be some new fad out there to lose the pounds that had followed her around since teenage years. A few weeks of sweating in the gym, cutting out all the good things in life and for what? So she could look the same at the end of that torturous time and still not fit into the latest backless, strapless, barely there fashions.

  It would be another waste of time and money. And she’d still be left dealing with men like Bill at work. So why put herself through all of that?

  Between the date and the dream, she’d woken up in a foul mood, and the magazines that had been scattered over the table hadn’t helped. Skinny models, with barely there bodies and wearing little more than a few scraps of cloth in the name of fashion certainly hadn’t improved her mood.

  “Is there something the matter?” Barb patted Sue on the shoulder, her fingers giving a brief, reassuring squeeze. “You’ve been glaring at that calendar for the past ten minutes now. I know you didn’t sleep well, I could hear you calling out earlier.”

  “Nothing much, just…well I’ve decided to change a few things about myself I just had a bad dream, nasty one. Bill was in it.” Sue looked away from the calendar. Whatever happened she wasn’t going down that track again. Her body had only just forgiven her for the last series of sessions in the gym. What had she been thinking of? Fast music, toned bodies and with no one willing to walk her through the basics slowly first; her body had screamed murder for nearly ten days after the first class.

  “That’s just wrong on a dozen different levels. You’re really not having a good day of it. Maybe we should have a girls night out tonight, get your mind off that creep.”

  “No, I’m not having a good day of it but that’s going to change. I can’t let things continue like this.” A night out on the town? Looking at all the slim things walk off with the only decent men in the place. Just what her ego needed right now.

  Not.

  “So, what have you got in mind?” Barb moved back through the kitchen, the clink of cups being set down on the counter soon followed by the rich smell of coffee.

  “Nothing much. Not as though I’ve got a boyfriend to plan on celebrating my birthday with, is it?” Another year older, just what she needed.

  “Now Sue, don’t start knocking yourself again. That’s exactly what Bill and men like him want. You’re better than that. You always have been.”

  “Just wish I felt that way sometimes.”

  “Sue. All right, let’s try a different tact then. Are you planning on letting him ruin your birthday?”

  “No, of course not. I’ll figure something out. I’m just not sure what right now.”

  Sue frowned as she glanced towards the pot; the smell was tempting at the best of times. Coffee wasn’t the best thing she could start the morning off with but if she had one without cream then she would not feel quite so guilt about it.

  Damnit. She was doing it again. She had to break that habit if she wanted to stand a chance to change the way she viewed herself. No one else was going to do this for her. God knows she’d been told that often enough.

  “Don’t tell me, you’re going to tip a gallon of milk over Bill the next time he tries one of his fat jokes?” Barb chuckled.

  Bill. Now there was a man she could happily kill. “That would depend on if the milk had turned sour yet or not. I wouldn’t want to waste good milk. Not when there are so many other uses for it.”

  “Good point. I’d go for three-month-old eggs personally. Right in the face. Or in a bucket over his head, tipped at the last possible moment just when he realizes what you have in store for him.”

  The image of rotten eggs sliding down over his annoying face, messing up his carefully dyed hair and that tan he worked on every weekend he had the chance, almost reduced her to a hysterical pile of sobbing woman in the middle of the floor. “I could sell tickets to that little scene. I think half the office would turn out to watch that.”

  “We’d make a fortune. I think you and I are about the only women he has not tried something on in the office. I swear that bastard knows everything that goes on in the office. Joan caught him rummaging around the boss’s office the other day. He claimed that he was in there fixing the computer. Not something I’d believe. That man would not lift a finger to help unless there was something in it for him. Bah, I’m not going to waste the only quiet moments we’re going to get until dinner time on that asshole.” Barb pushed one of the cups across the table towards Sue. “Come on, sit down, drink up, and tell me just what’s going on in that head of yours. Because whatever it is it must be important to you as you’re frowning.”

  With the robe wrapped tight about her body, Sue settled down at the table and that same frown still creased her brow. She knew that without even looking in a mirror. Just what had affected her so badly? Bill, the day, the number the scales had revealed before she had stepped out into the kitchen, or all the expectations that had been shown by those damn magazines?

  She should have known better than to pick them up in the first place. Half the women in the pictures had been airbrushed; the rest, well, they had to starve themselves in order to look like that, nothing else made sense.

  “I’m not sure where to begin.”

  “Well, let’s see if I can work this out. It’s Monday, start of the month and I know fully well that you spent the weekend muttering every time you flicked through one of those wretched magazines. So I’m betting you were planning on starting a new diet but something has changed your mind.” Barb spoke over the rim of the coffee, her long blonde hair caught in a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck, soft blue eyes fixed on her friend’s face.

  To say Barb was pretty would have been an understatement. And unlike most women Barb did not need to work out, or watch the carbs, calories, or anything else in order to keep herself looking well. It came as naturally to her as breathing did. Right down to i
nstinctively knowing which fashions would look good on her and which were a waste of time.

  Just what a woman like Barb was doing sharing an apartment with a woman like Sue had been the talk of the office for the first two years and more. And like all other forms of gossip, the topic occasionally drifted back into favor before being laid to rest again for a few more months when a more interesting subject stumbled into the hapless grasp of the office bobble heads.

  “Well, how close am I?”

  “Spot on,” Sue admitted, curling her fingers about the steaming cup. “I started thinking about all the money I’ve wasted over the years on those damn diets and gym memberships.”

  “Well, the gym side of things isn’t such a bad idea, but you could take a better attitude towards it, find a class you like instead of living in the gym for six straight weeks. Or jumping up to the top level. Even if you just did one class a week until you got the hang of things it would work. But keep to the low impact stuff.”

  “Thanks, I thought you’d be happy about my decision.” Typical, the one person she had come to rely upon for support and…

  “I am, if you gave me the chance to finish what I was trying to tell you then you’d be aware of that.” The warm look in Barb’s gaze took the sting from her words. “You know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

  “Oh, I just…never mind, go on with what you were saying then.” Heat flushed across her cheeks as Sue fought against the instinct to take an extreme interest in the table top instead of looking at her best friend.

  “I’m trying to tell you that you’re fine just the way you are. Sure you’re a little heavier than the fashion models but let’s be honest here; a stick insect weighs more than those women. I’d be seen as heavy next to them. Needing to firm up, and get into some good habits with exercise is not the same as saying you’re ugly, Sue. Just remember that sometime.” Barb smiled, nodding towards the coffee cup.

  “It’s easier to think the worst, even with friends sometimes.” Sue admitted, unable to meet her friend’s gaze. Ugly was an easy label to deal with -- fat, slob, unattractive -- yes, they all came too easily to mind when she looked in the mirror. Bill would like that, he’d get a kick out of knowing his words hurt, those nasty, snide little comments that wormed their way under her skin. Fuck him. She didn’t have to take that. Not anymore. “Sorry, I should have let you finish before jumping like that.”

  “It’s understandable. I know you’ve been edgy ever since having to deal with Bill. But you’d be better off remembering that not every man, or woman out there, fell from the same branch as that prick.”

  “I’ll try.” More than try, or else Bill would not just win in the short term, but for the rest of her life. Not just him, but every man and woman like him. There were enough of them. It wasn’t just the ones that tossed comments her way, but the ones that shot those disgusted, or worse, pitying looks when she went shopping, or stopped in a café for a bite to eat.

  She knew what they were thinking. That a woman of her size didn’t need to have that piece of pie, or a sandwich, that maybe she’d be better off trying to starve herself and eat nothing but grapefruit or whatever the latest fad diet was these days.

  What did they know?

  Did they really think that if she kept cutting down her food, and cutting it down further, that she’d be able to lose weight? It didn’t work that way. The more you cut out, the slower the body worked and the more weight it horded. That was the first mistake she’d ever made as far as trying to conform to fashion had been concerned. Fifteen hundred calories had been cut down to a thousand, then eight hundred. By the time Barb had slapped some sense into her she’d gone down to around five hundred a day and had almost keeled over at work.

  Not something she’d do again.

  “Drink up, you need it, we’ve got a pretty long day ahead of us today.” Barb nodded towards the cup of coffee.

  “Don’t we always on a Monday?”

  Chapter Two

  “So, where do we stand?” His father’s gaze narrowed on the files scattered across the desk.

  Business. Right now, Alan wanted to just shut the files and walk away. “It doesn’t make sense except in one way. We have a mole. Just -- well, the information that’s leaking out doesn’t fit with the standard plant situation we’ve dealt with before.”

  “In what way?”

  “The information that’s being leaked is almost random. It’s been ranging from bland coffee meetings to full-fledged deals. Shit, when I have someone asking me what type of paper we’ve decided to use for the official letters now, or someone asking me if I’ve hit on the new girl in the office yet because they hear she’s a good lay, then I wonder if its coming from someone on the pay of one of our rivals.”

  “Great, just what we need right now.”

  “I’ll get to the bottom of it sooner or later. I just don’t know where to start. If the leaks made sense then it would be easier.” Who wanted to know what weight paper they used? Or what flavor coffee he preferred to drink? It just didn’t make sense, yet some of the information that had filtered back to him appeared to cover trivial matters that no professional office mole would have bothered with.

  “So maybe it’s nothing more than someone just trying to start trouble for kicks instead of an actual problem.”

  “It went beyond that the minute they soured the Harper deal for us.” Fifty thousand pounds down the drain. Wonderful. Not something he wanted to have to deal with every day. Sure it wasn’t huge compared to some projects but it was still enough that he winced every time he thought about it.

  “We earned that back within a week.”

  “That’s not the point, Dad! We can’t keep brushing off losses like that. How long will it be before this leak blows everything for us?” Alan grabbed one of the papers from his desk. “Look at this! We have three complaints from women who used to work for us about someone stalking them, harassing them via anonymous emails. They claimed it had to tie in with us. I’ve not been able to find a damn thing that traces back to us.”

  Neil rubbed his thumb along the edge of his jaw. “And there’s nothing conclusive?”

  “Just hints, rumors that it could be one of a dozen people currently working for us. I’ve implemented a new policy though, to be on the safe side. Any visitors are to be escorted in and out of the building from now on. They can sit in the lounge, that’s not a problem, but walking through the building will be done with an escort or not at all. It won’t stop what’s going on, but might help us rule out any outside elements, such as people going into the file rooms, or hanging out in the break room when they have no right to be there.”

  “It’s a start but I don’t think you’re on the right track, it can’t be an outsider.”

  “I never said it was, Dad. This is just a way of making sure that whoever is behind this is working for us. The first thing any solicitor is going to say is that we didn’t check all the options before firing the jerk. So I don’t want to end up facing those types of allegations just because we were trying to protect the company.”

  “Oh, I see.” Neil leaned back in the chair and nodded. “Makes sense now you’ve explained it fully. So what are you doing to stop the rumors flying?”

  “I’m keeping information to those who need to know and no one else, as much as possible that is; the problem is that every time I write a memo it passes through a dozen hands. Then it ends up in the file room. Even via email there’s no way of knowing for certain just who else sees it. We installed the keystroke program, but that doesn’t stop someone calling a friend over to read it on their screen.”

  “Keystroke?”

  “Dad, when are you going to join the digital age? Keystroke records every stroke of a key, or command on a computer and keeps a track of it for us, so we know whose using our time, connection, and computer system to goof off.”

  “Damn, I remember the days when we had to track who was using the phone system to make overseas and long distance
calls; that was hard enough to deal with until that new exchange system came in. System X I think they called it. Something BT brought in a good few years ago now.”

  A slight smile tugged at the corners of Alan’s lips. “Keystroke is something like that but for a computer.” All right, it wasn’t quite the same thing, but his father’s knowledge of computers, servers, and programs could have been written on the back of a postage stamp. Not that he was unintelligent but for the most part computers didn’t interest him, beyond the capability of using them for email and the occasional web search.

  “Good, but everyone knows about this program?”

  “Yes, Dad. First time we caught someone out with it the word got around. Still, it’s cut down the wasted online time and productivity has increased.” And now this problem had appeared, less than a year after Keystroke had been installed; he couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if he had held off on using it. Would it have caught the person behind their current troubles?

  No, he couldn’t think like that. It wouldn’t help him sort things out now.

  “All right, then, I’d best get myself back home.” Neil Martin pushed to his feet and straightened his jacket.

  “Sure, Dad. I’ll take care of things here.” Or he’d at least make a damn good attempt to. If he ever got his hands on the person behind their latest round of troubles he’d squeeze the life from their scrawny necks.

  “And I’ll see you on Friday night?”

  “The cocktail party, sure.”

  “With Victoria?”

  “Dad…”

  “You can’t blame an old man for trying.” A wicked grin flashed across his father’s face. “Besides, she’d liven the place up a little.”

  “Dad, for the last time. Stop trying to fix me up. I’m fine. If I want to date someone I’ll choose them, is that clear?”