Taken By The Hero (Hero Romance 2) by Kalena Lyons

conservatively cut grey wool knee length skirt. Even though the conference was work-related, she recalled last year and witnessing scores of women heavily made-up, in tight revealing dresses and power suits, all of which displayed as much dedication to body sculpting as it did to the intricacies of performance management and operational strategies. She wondered why she should even bother. Although it was her regional director’s insistence she represent the company alongside Gloria and some of the girls from the benefits team, she felt woefully understated compared to the aggressively composed women at the top of the corporate food chain. She knew she could never compete with these heavily accessorized denizens of industry, all of whom seemed (with the exception of Gloria) to weigh 98 pounds and bathed in as much mid-market opulence as they did in artifice. She knew that these conferences were not only a step up on the ladder, but were an ideal breeding ground for networking; and subsequently, a highly competitive breeding ground for cattiness. She knew her career was at a dead end, no matter how many conferences she might attend; the world of HR was essentially Darwinian, where only the most ruthless (and cosmetically enhanced) survived. She knew she no longer cared. She wanted something more from life; a drive for creation, spontaneity, for the element of unpredictability that was more than her professional life could ever warrant. But she resigned herself to being there, in the same sense that she resigned herself to a loveless marriage where the sex had all the rote charm of a spin cycle. Old habits died hard, after all.
    Nevertheless, she peered into her makeup mirror. Nothing fancy; a pearl-pink lip gloss that brought out the wide contours of her mouth, a hint of mascara, and a deft touch of blush to bring out her still high cheekbones. She spent almost an hour combing the tangles out of her hair, before blow-drying it until it fell in layers, a slight bob cut just meeting her chin. Though she had no way of knowing, she looked as radiant as she did when she was 22 years old. Even more so.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Laura made her way down the stairs, where she caught up with Audrey and Liz—the two members of her benefits team. The younger women looked up to Laura as being a relatable middle-point between their junior level of responsibility and upper management, while Laura looked upon them for what they were; party girls, fresh out of college and with all the vistas of youth and beauty before them. The three couldn’t have been more ill matched. Laura, who looked classically beautiful and dressed as subtly and gracefully as always, standing next to two bubbly and vacant women who were dressed one notch above a club girl. Laura had little in common with neither Audrey nor Liz; but they were fun and helped her laugh on their nights out.
    As the crowd of office blazers, liberal use of hairspray and Avon cosmetics milled about the lobby, Jack stood near the side, helping himself to the complimentary coffee carafes. He looked at Aubrey and Liz, both in form fitting dresses, with the same patronization as he had the two women he encountered at the bar of the Omni the night before. He felt a blasé sort of allure, about as average these days as skin cancer. Still, they stood out from the teeming women before him if solely on account of their youth. But Jack wasn’t here to play the Lothario. No, he was waiting for his nephew and his wife—who by now, were predictably over twenty minutes late. He stifled a yawn, looked as his watch, and sucked in air. Then, as she returned from the lobby bathroom, his eyes fell on Laura.
    He instantly recalled her from the scene in the elevator earlier that morning. But if she was merely pretty then, to Jack’s eyes she was positively devastating right now. Where he had only noticed an exhaustion some eight hours earlier, he noticed the vulnerability in her posture, her eyes, her uncertain smile; he