Beauty and the Barracuda Read Online Free PDF Page A

passed. The first time they’d met, despite her utter fury at being fucked over by a partner at a firm she’d been vigorously working for, Nyssa had been caught and held in that incredibly strong amber gaze of his. The moment they shook hands and his fingers curled around her own, she felt her anger melting away simply because of his smile. Then she was reminded of why he was there, what he was doing—stealing her job.
    One of the dumbest decisions Nyssa had made in her career was getting involved with a superior, and throughout her entire relationship with James Woodard she’d somehow blinded herself to the possibility that he could crush her. And then he had. Her climb in the sports industry had started with one simple spark to do more, be more. The thrill of convincing someone she could better their career, take it to new unimaginable heights, had held an appeal for her from the moment she figured out what her career goals were. Between herself and her sister, Nyssa had always been the one girl on their block interested in running with the boys. She’d run track and played basketball the majority of her school career but knew a life dedicated to being an athlete wasn’t for her. It was more what went on behind the scenes that piqued her hard-to-win attention. She’d gone through several majors in college before finally discovering she didn’t have to pigeonhole herself or be afraid she would be playing a game that was operated strictly by men.
    Every push out, every rejection, simply made her that much harder, that much more determined to prove that not only was she a damn good agent but that her sex didn’t affect her decision making nor her capabilities at bargaining. She’d had days where she’d climbed into bed and Samara had to convince her to get out, but it had all been worth it in the long run because she no longer had to seek out clients—they began to find her. She’d become bigger than what she’d hoped for, bigger than Beyond the Goal and James knew it, he saw it, he felt it. Much longer and she would’ve slipped through his proverbial fingers and found her own way.
    She’d purposely kept their relationship under wraps, preferring to not have others speculate that she’d slept her way to the top even though that she believed herself and James to be in love and planning a future. But it had been all for naught in the end because he’d done the very thing others had—he’d devalued her all for the sake of his ego. He couldn’t handle that she wouldn’t run to him, so he’d attempted to put out the fire she’d started. When Nyssa managed to coax one of the biggest point guards in the NBA to sign with her after giving James a firm no to the one question most women waited a lifetime to hear, he decided to let her know who had the bigger dick between them and hired Sansone in lieu of giving her a promotion. Rage wasn’t a precise enough word to describe what she’d felt. Her relationship with a man she’d thought she could trust imploded, and her days at Beyond the Goal Lines had been pretty much over in her mind. At least until later that week when Sansone saved her, despite the fact she didn’t want his help.
    They’d sat in her old apartment and simply talked. It was something Nyssa wasn’t exactly used to doing with people she’d marked as her arch-nemesis but when she realized the insanely handsome uptown boy had no intentions of letting Woodard push her out , her viewpoint changed.
     
    “You leave and I quit.”
    She stopped running a towel through her hair to stare at him as though he’d lost his mind. “What?”
    Sansone smirked. “You heard me, sweetness. If you go, I’m going with you.”
    “Which means you’re off your fucking rocker. I know how much that position pays.”
    He shrugged. “Don’t care.”
    Nyssa slowly blinked. “Okay, what’s your game here, Sultana? Sex? Because I have to tell you, I’m sure you have no problem finding that everywhere you go.”