Read Because He Steals Me (Because He Owns Me #6) for Free Online

doors opened onto our floor, but Kiersten made no move to get off.
    Instead, she just stood there in the elevator.
    I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just stood there too, not saying anything. My blouse was still stuck to my skin from where Aubrey had dumped her coffee on me, and I resisted the urge to pull on it.
    The elevator doors closed again, but the elevator stayed in place.
    “It’s over for you,” Kiersten said quietly.
    “What? Kiersten – ”
    “No.” She shook her head. “No, I told you from the beginning that if you had anything to do with Callum Wilder, you would be fired immediately. Now you’ve put me in a horrible position, because obviously I can’t fire you. Callum’s book is too important to us, so I’m stuck with you. But you’ve made an enemy in me, Adriana. And that is not something you want to do.”
    “Is that a threat?” The words were out of my mouth before I realized they probably weren’t the best thing to say to my boss a second after she’d pretty much told me she should fire me.
    Kiersten shrugged, seemingly unfazed by me calling her out. “It’s a fact, Adriana. This is a very small industry. People talk. And if you make the wrong move, if you decide to be a little baby tattletale, I’ll make sure that what they’re talking about is you.”
    A little baby tattle tale? It too me a second to realize what she was talking about, and then I got it -- telling Callum. She didn’t want me to tell Callum, because she knew he might do something about it.
    But Kiersten wasn’t done. “So if you value your career, even just a little bit, you’ll keep your mouth shut and get back to work.”
    The elevator doors opened again then – someone on our floor must have pushed the button for the elevator.
    Kiersten stepped out and started down the hall toward her office, leaving me standing there for a moment, trying to catch my breath.
    A girl stepped onto the elevator, young and harried-looking. She was wearing a flowered skirt and a peasant blouse, and she was clutching a maroon folder in her hand.
    She had a dreamy look on her face and a laminated visitor badge clipped to the pocket of her blouse. She must have been interviewing for a job.
    She started to push the button for the lobby, and then her glance fell on me, frozen in the corner.
    “Going down?” she asked, her cheerful tone faltering as her eyes drifted down to my ruined shirt.
    “You have no idea,” I sighed.
----
    K iersten kept me doing busy work all day, scurrying around to different toy and party stores around the city to pick up things for a book signing Archway was having that night for one of their children’s authors.
    She communicated with me only through email, one after another, including a particularly terse one instructing me to get a new shirt, which I did, at a GAP near the office. I did the best to do as I was told, buying tiny little toys and favors for the children who were coming to the book signing, and toting them all up to the Barnes and Noble on the Upper East Side.
    The signing was at five o’clock, and I was sure Kiersten would expect me to not only attend, but to stay and clean up after. I was all ready to text Callum and tell him that I wasn’t sure I could make dinner, but Kiersten surprised me by sending me home early. It definitely wasn’t a reward for my hard work – it was a punishment for what she’d found out this morning.
    But I wasn’t going to fight her on it.
    I still had a couple of hours before it was time for Callum to pick me up for dinner, so I decided to take the subway back up to my apartment in Morningside Heights so I could pick up some of my things. If I was going to be staying with Callum, or at least, at a place of his choosing, I wanted to make sure I had some of my own stuff. (Although he hadn’t mentioned where I would be staying tonight – if I couldn’t go back to his satellite apartment, then where would I stay? I wasn’t sure, and it made me slightly