"I didn’t mean for it to happen, Abigail. I swear!"
"You are my whole life. You’ve always been my whole life. Always!"
"I love the outdoors. I grew up on a farm and have spent years baling hay, throwing bags of grain, and hauling buckets of water for the animals."
"I’ve run my own landscaping company for five years, operating out of Greenbank, Pennsylvania, maintaining commercial properties with excellence."
"Because I’m smart, hardworking, diligent, and ethical. I respect people and I love a challenge."
"It’s kind of refreshing, getting to be whoever I want to be."
"Look where it has gotten me? Alone, while the guy I’ve loved for years is having, I’m sure, copious amounts of sex."
"I haven’t been able to bring myself to remove it. Now, I slip it off, letting the cheap metal rest in the palm of my hand."
"I’ll make new friends here, I assure myself. Ones who know nothing about me, about my life back home."
"I’ve spent far too much time worrying about those things."
"Just don’t forget who you are, and how you’ve been raised."
"It feels good, the attention, given where my confidence has sunk to over the past few months."
"I loved teasing him, and I used to do so mercilessly."
"I can feel my face turning red at the crassness of their conversation."
"But if I’m going to be living and working with these ladies for the next few months, I probably should start getting used to this now."
"No way. Word around the Wolf is that he’s an arrogant, controlling prick who fucks women and then ditches them."
"I don’t want to be cute," I grumble. "Cute gets left on the sides while ‘hot’ gets bent over the couch by my boyfriend because he can’t control himself."
"You’re drunk and I know exactly where this is heading. It can’t, that’s all. Don’t take it personally."
"To places a girl like you shouldn’t go tonight."
"I don’t want to be pathetic. I don’t want to be there for him if he does come back. I want to be over him, moved on."
"He would have cheated on you whether you fucked him or not. Be glad you didn’t."
"By spending the next four months fucking someone in every position imaginable."
"Apparently some people call me the big bad wolf," he whispers. "But I kind of like it."
"Satan does live at the bottom of a bottle of booze."
"And wiping urine off toilet seats isn’t? How about ‘disposing of used condoms with discretion’?"
"There’s something sinful about being in a stranger’s private space."
"I’m not sure how the hiring team made this mistake, but it’s hardly fair that you flew all the way here and we screwed up your position."
"I’m pretty predictable when it comes to sleep. Every night around 3:00 a.m. I’ll wake up, lying on my stomach, hugging my pillow."
"You’re going to plant all these trees yourself?"
"I have a hotel that cost me twenty million of my own money opening tomorrow, with plenty of investors’ money tied up and my family’s name behind it."
"I spent my summers in Alaska when I was growing up."
"Does me staying for the summer make you happy?"
"You’re back to being Mr. Wolf when we pass those gates, aren’t you?" "Yes." No hesitation.
"I trust you know where you’re going this afternoon."
"Don’t worry, I doubt you’ll find it as awful as you expect."
"I’m glad I can trust you to keep things to yourself."
"Because it looked like you really needed this."
"You wipe their asses if they ask you nicely enough."
"And, depending on how demanding the guest is, you may be expected to stay overnight and cater to them at 3:00 a.m. if they buzz."
"But I think you’re exactly what I’m looking for while I’m here."
"You’re not here to serve my rich guests. I want you to work for me."
"I need someone to keep me organized. Someone I can trust."
"I’ve signed a thousand in my lifetime already."
"I’m your boss, and you’re my employee, and I know you won’t cross any lines. While you’re sober, anyway."
"I’m not a tyrant. I will give you time off, Abbi."
"Deepest apologies for allowing a grizzly bear to eat your clothing. And your turkey jerky."
"You’ve picked up even faster than I expected."
"Exactly how I expect the person managing my calendar to answer."
"Of course I do. That’s why I’m doing this job."
"He’s your boss, he’s your boss, he’s your boss..."
"You should be more confident in your own skin. You have no reason to hide that body."
"I manage his calendar and his email, I clean his cabin, book excursions for him and whoever he’s entertaining that day."
"Trust me. He can smell that virgin pussy from a mile away and he wants it."
"Sometimes I’m forced to say things I don’t mean."
"Because every time I’m sure I have a handle on you, you surprise me."
"I don’t know, Henry. Between this and the Alaska gamble, I’m beginning to wonder about your ability to make sound decisions."
"This summer, I will prove to him and every other asshole out there that the Alaska location is a fucking brilliant move."
"You shouldn’t do that. Discredit yourself like that. Especially if you want your business to succeed one day."
"Must be a real problem, when you have to fight over an international hotel chain and a gold mine."
"There are people, including my own family, who want this hotel to fail. They want me to fail."
"Great to hear from you! I’m having an amazing time in Alaska."
"I don’t even like sweet. I like filthy and unemotional."
"I don’t bother redressing right away. I watched Henry’s boat float away with him, Belinda, and a dozen guests on board."
"Peaceful silence fills the cabin once again. I heave a sigh, giving my sore neck a rub."
""This uniform is not meant for maid work. I should be wearing a maid’s uniform, if you’re going to expect that I clean this place," I say in weak defense."
""I didn’t realize I’d have to check in to make sure my assistant was fully dressed before coming home," he says dryly."
"I should, for so many reasons. "No," I whisper shakily. All of me is shaking, even my legs. But it’s not with fear. It’s with anticipation."
""One of the guests on the boat had a family emergency that they needed to tend to. Given I had already done plenty of socializing, I decided to hop off when we returned."
""It was not supposed to be like this. You were not supposed to have this kind of impact on me," he whispers."
""I thought you didn’t like sweet." I don’t know how I’m even capable of answering."
""Is every day here going to leave me reeling?""
""I have a hotel to get off the ground so I had to either fire you or fuck you.""
""You’re getting over an idiot ex and fucking your boss for the next four months. I’m running a hotel and fucking my assistant for the next four months. That’s all.""
""Don’t take anything I say or do while we’re outside these walls personally. Okay? I don’t mean any of it.""
"Because everyone reads those kinds of articles."
"I like confident women, and I think that beneath all this insecurity, there is a strong, self-assured woman."
"I can’t have your naked tits in my face anymore or the outline of my cock will be on the cover of World Hotel."
"Most Americans will never venture this far north to see the foreign part of their own country."
"I’m doing exactly what I wanted to do: forgetting the past and encountering things I’ve never experienced before."
"He’s like steel. You can see the power he wields in his steady jaw."
"You can’t be trusting men like that. They lie and cheat until they get what they want."
"I swear that’s the case, because the moment we step through the door of Penthouse Cabin One, my personal phone rings."
"My grandfather started a luxury hotel chain and yet he preferred the simple life."
"Make sure you spend a lot of time thinking about what I’m going to do to you tonight when I get home."
"I like watching you sleep. And because I needed time to think."
"I fuck supermodels and CEOs. Women who tell me they want my cock five minutes into a conversation, and who don’t give a shit whether others approve."