Seduction by Design Read Online Free

colleagues fared better should they encounter the owner of the park.
    She walked through the compound quickly, not having to concentrate on where she was going. For the past four years Serendipity had been her turf. She knew its walkways, its waterways, its shops, eateries, theaters, and other attractions like the back of her hand. To do her job well, she had acquainted herself with every aspect of the park’s operation.
    Doing things well was Hailey’s most ardent ambition. She was known for her competence. Wouldn’t everyone be surprised when they learned that she had lost her job for bullying a guest who just happened to be Tyler Scott?
    She had been at Serendipity for a year when it was sold to Scott Enterprises of Atlanta and it became only a small part of that huge conglomerate. The Scott empire included real estate companies, sawmills, a computer firm, a shopping center, a housing development, as well as various other properties.
    It was a standing joke around Serendipity that Tyler Scott wasn’t a real person, but rather a generic name given to a group of doddering old men. Since no one had ever seen him, and all his business transactions were conducted by a battery of subordinates, it was speculated that Tyler Scott, the man, didn’t exist.
    Hailey’s private smile was rueful. Tyler Scott was most definitely a man. In no way could the adjective “doddering” be used to describe him, not with those shoulders and that chest. No, he had been all too real.
    What would such a man do with an employee who was supposedly an expert in handling the guests of his multiacre amusement park, whose sole purpose was to see to the guests’ well-being and enjoyment, but instead had behaved in a curt, uncompromising, unsympathetic way? What indeed?
    It was after nine o’clock when she finally arrived home. Her last official duty of the day had been to see that all one hundred and thirty Boy Scouts on a special field trip were given Serendipity bumper stickers, which they promptly began sticking to each other.
    Her sandals were left at the front door, her blazer was dropped on a chair. Automatically going into the kitchen, she checked the refrigerator to see what forgotten treasure she might uncover, but was vastly disappointed. Another omelet tonight, she groaned mentally as she made her way down the darkened hallway toward her bedroom.
    She had just stripped out of her uniform when the telephone rang. “Hello.”
    “Will you accept the charges on a call from Ellen Ashton?”
    “Yes,” Hailey replied wearily.
    “Hi, sis.”
    Hailey was annoyed that Ellen had called collect again, but pushed aside her uncharitable thoughts with a guilty sigh. Just because she had had a terrible day, that didn’t mean she should take her frustrations out on her sister.
    “Hi, Ellen. What’s going on?” She knew before asking that she was letting herself in for a lengthy discourse on the latest events in Ellen’s life. And at her expense. She sat on the bed and prepared to listen.
    Hailey barely credited herself with being moderately attractive, but had always felt that her sister, younger by two years, was stunning. Hailey’s hair was a glowing copper, but Ellen’s flamed. Hailey was tall and fashionably slender, but she thought of herself as skinny, the way she had been as a figure-conscious teenager. Ellen hadn’t been cursed with adolescent coltishness. She had gone from plump girlhood to voluptuous womanhood without any awkwardness in between.
    Hailey was dependable. Ellen was hopelessly irresponsible. But she was beautiful and bubbly, and everyone adored her. If her flightiness often cost her a good job, she soon charmed someone else into hiring her, despite mediocre skills.
    “It sounds like you’re happier at this job than at the last,” Hailey interjected when Ellen paused for breath after several talkative minutes.
    “Oh yes! The people are much nicer. The women who worked in that other office were so mean to me. I