Alexandra’s life changed the day her father’s cousin kidnapped her from her eight birthday party a year after their tragic death of her father. As days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months hope of finding her alive faded, but against the odds Alexandra survived her capture after been buried alive. Her father’s cousin Eugine was never caught and has been on the run ever since. Seventeen years have passed since little Alex was taken but not she has returned to the country of her birth on a mission to rid the world of people like the one who took her one dirty pervert at a time. She has trained and prepared for this secretly since the day of her best friend was taken but never returned. Alexandra vowed that day that she would rid the world of as many of them as she could as long as she drew breath. With the wealth and influence of her family she has pretty much been able to stay off the radar, but her anonymity is threatened the day her world collide with her reclusive boss Duncan Trent. The attraction between them is explosive but Alex knows instantly that a relationship between them is a car wreck waiting to happen.
It’s Monday morning 8.00am rush hour in mid August I’m standing on the northern line platform at London Bridge waiting for the next train to Angel, and if the Met Office is to be believed its going to be record breaking temperatures today and the rest of the week. I can’t help but feel jaded and deflated although at a glance you’d be hard pressed to tell that from my appearance with my naturally curly hair swept back into a neat bun my face perfectly made up a black pencil skirt, white shirt and jacket draped over my arm with 4inch red heels completed the look. I look every bit the confident self assured executive, though I’m any thing but I’m a bundle of knots inside I’ve always hated travelling by the underground something about been in a crammed into a computerise tin can hurtling along at high speed through small dark tunnels hundreds of feet under ground as never appealed to me, the rising temperature is only adding to my anxiety. I’ve never done well in the heat and at 7.30 in the morning the temperature is already getting on for 100 degrees.
The platform is already packed with commuters, with their head phones plugged in and steering straight ahead not that there is anything remotely interesting on the walls of the London underground they seem to be all lost in their own little world of smart phones or or whatever else it is they use these days to keep themselves entertained and their minds off the journey and the work day ahead. Maybe I should follow suite and invest in one of those it might go some way to help ease my daily battles with this mode of transport as it seems I’ll be doing it for sometime. Glancing at the over head train time arrival it displays 2mins before the next train, god it was going to be a crush to get on the next train which would probably be full already. I hate this part of my now daily commute all because my twat of a director could not handle been blown off. Neil Parker was a man used to getting what he wants when he wants in both business and personal. women threw themselves at him at every turn to be totally fair I could see why, he was more than your average joe when it came to his looks, handsome but not heart stopping, easy on the eyes as my mom would say. I still find it hard to understand why they tripped over themselves to be with him no matter how deplorable he treated them he made no secret of his exploits. The man is a womanising self serving narcissistic bastard who has gone out of his way to make my life miserable for no other reason than I turned him down when he prepositioned me at the annual staff retreat that was four months ago. Before that weekend Neil Parker was only a name on a piece of paper we’d never met, though I had worked for the company for the better part of three years. I had worked as a junior architect in the design and plan department that was De-Sylva and Ray-Bourne which was based outside the head offices of Trent’s.
De-Sylva and Ray-Bourne is a small but profitable architects firm that was acquired by Trent Corporations a few years before I started with them straight out of University. For three years I enjoyed going to work, now I just wish I was at home indulging in my first love, baking and making hand made chocolate instead here I am surrounded by a hundred drones been herded into over crowed carriages and fighting the urge to curl up in a corner and escape the crush of bodies around me god knows how Neil found out about my phobias. The heat I can handle even the cursed underground but crowds and the feeling of been trapped was setting my nerves on edge and today of all days when I needed to be cool calm and collected I had all three to deal with.
In little over an hour’s time I was presenting my drawing for a new development in Barbican to the directors I can’t afford to mess this up for some unknown reason they had chosen me to head the design of the very extensive and expensive project. I was dumb struck when my manager Drew Manning called me into his office and told me I was personally selected to do the designs for the Barbican project I could tell by the look on his face and the tone in his voice that he was none too pleased about delivering the news. I can’t say I blamed him this project was a career maker and should have gone to one of the senior architects and not the office junior I can still recall my response to his news word for word.
“What? Drew if this is your idea of a joke it’s not very funny so you can wipe that look off your face as I’m not falling for it. Beside isn’t it a bit late in the day for this kind of prank I have been here for 3 years so if you were going to pull a prank like this you should have done it 2 years ago don’t you think?”
A shadow of a smile crept across his lips but disappeared as quickly as it had appeared sighing heavily he leaned back into his heavy leather chair and motioned for me to sit in the chair I had recently vacated .If its one thing I hated was practical jokes in the work place especially at my expense, there was a time and place for every thing and this was definitely not it.
“Give me one good reason why I should?” I said tilting my chin up in defiance
“Alex for god sake will you just shut up and sit down, there are times when I admire your no nonsense attitude that’s one of the reason I hired you but this is not the time for you to get on your high horse. You should know by now that I haven’t got much of a sense of hummer more over to joke about something like this, so shut the hell up and sit the fuck back down.”
He was lying of course he was the funniest person I know that ‘s why we became friends shortly after I started working at the firm it didn’t take long before we became best friends even though he was my boss. I’ve never seen him loose is cool before, this must really be eating at him. Licking my now dry lips and swallowing hard I retake my seat feeling a bit flushed and foolish for flying off the handle. I should have known that Drew wouldn’t have joked about something like this.
“Sorry I didn’t think before I spoke i didn’t mean to offend you Drew it’s just that been the only female I’m use to been at the butt of the jokes around here”
“No harm done but you really need to learn to control your temper Alex that’s why they do what they do, not that I condone it but you make it easy for them to wine you up when you react off hand.”
“I know I really am trying but its hard going I’m so use to been on the defensive I didn’t think I’m sorry” I saying feel like I’m been told off by the head master.
“I know it is hard for you but you really need think before you engage that sharp tongue of yours ok”.
I nod in agreement.
“Good now as I was saying the design of Barbican project as been assigned to you and no before you asked I had nothing to do with it the orders came directly from the head offices of Trent Corporations., at first my reaction was just like yours not that I don’t think your capable but this kind of project is normally assigned to someone with more experience”.
“I don’t understand Drew there is no way I’m ready for that level of work I still have a year to go before I’m fully qualified you know that, cant you talk them out of it”?
