Fighting Heart: Fighting Heart Erotic Bad Boy Romance Series Book 1 Read Online Free Page A

up.”
    “What are the hours and when are the shifts?”
    “Tuesday to Sunday, 12 midday until midnight. You do lunches and dinners, with a break in the middle.”
    I thought about the hours and my college commitment. That wasn’t going to work, but I needed the money. Maybe I could play work and college off for a little while to keep it going…
    “We do a work trial, yes. See if it suits you. Try it for an hour.”
    “A work trial?”
    The guy stuck his thumb between his smiling teeth and leaned forward over the tray of coffee. He looked straight at me. I didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t feel good.
    “You’re pretty.” His eyes dropped to my chest. My flowery top wasn’t cut very low, but it was kind of suggestive. You could see the beginning of my curves, and this guy was staring at them. I sat back and drew my jacket around me.
    “I tell you what. Kiss me and you have the job. No work trial. We’ll have fun working together. I promise.”
    I stood up and the chair creaked on the floor behind me, which scared the crap out of me again. The guy stood too and suddenly I realised how tall he was compared to me. Skinny, but tall. 
    “Just one kiss. I am handsome, yes?”
    He moved around the table and I snatched up my application forms.
    “Stop. I’m leaving. I don’t want a job here, not now, not ever. Okay.”
    He moved again, so what I did next I did without even engaging my brain. I grabbed the little cup of putrid coffee and tossed the contents at him. Hot black water and coffee gunge landed on his stomach and the crotch of his jeans. It looked like someone had catapulted a wad of mud at him.
    “Stay away from me!”
    The guy groaned and tilted his head down to look at himself. I used that second to back away toward the door. I backed out into the traffic noise and the rush of the wind, grateful that I didn’t like Turkish coffee at all and grateful I was due to meet Penny any moment. But the clock was ticking and I still needed a job. A decent job, one without lechers and idiots which paid at least the minimum wage. I just wasn’t sure such a thing existed in South East London. Man, did I need a drink.
     
     

Four
     
    The University Union bar is a place to lure the badness in all students right to the surface. So it was probably not a good idea to organise a motivational meeting with Penny in the place which so often becomes the rocks on which student dreams are wrecked, but after my near miss at Yemek’s a drink was definitely in order. It was around four o’ clock by the time I showed my student ID and clambered the stairs to the main bar. For a Monday afternoon the place was rocking. It was after the time when most of the lectures and seminars were finished, and before the time when the hardcore drinkers would go home, dress up and come out again. The Union was painted green and yellow, was slightly dingy and filled with the smell of beer and the din of music from the jukebox by the bar on the wall. Loud laughter and chat filled the gaps between songs. Penny was sitting on one of the wall-edge seats by a round metal table. There were loners and couples near her, and I could tell she was worried if one of these loners was going to make a play for her unless I arrived. Hey presto, when I came to the table she smiled like the summer sun, and I took up my seat. There was a half pint glass of cider ready and waiting for me. A prop to put off the chasing males, no doubt.
    “How did it go, Ash? Let me guess. You’re an astronaut with NASA now.”
    “Not quite.”
    “A page three girl for The Sun.”
    “Close, but I turned them down.”
    “Umm. You’re the new Mayor of London.”
    “No. The selection process is a little long for my needs.”
    “What then?”
    “I am the most hacked off girl in London, that’s what.”
    “Interesting. Is the pay any good?”
    “Not to start with. But leching is on tap.”
    Penny made a face. “Uurrrgh. Do tell.”
    I recounted the tale of