Midnight Workload: When it comes to business, she comes first.

by Sofia Fox

Rebecca Sterling is a determined business woman, who believes that she has everything it takes to make it to the top. When she's informed that she will have to work along side Eric Bellamy, for the position she's been wanting, she becomes infuriated. Wanting to get rid of Mr. Bellamy, she throws herself into her work; but will she be able to resist Mr. Bellamy's charm that has seemed to take over her every thought? Or will she be able to go about her business as usual?

"What are you--!” Before she could finish her sentence, he had grabbed her other arm, and had gently pinned her against the wall in front of him. He was looking right into her face, with those piercing blue eyes of his. Her whole body was reacting, and she felt herself becoming weak at the knees. Eric was looking down at her with what seemed like something besides business on his mind. What had she gotten herself into?"

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15 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 3, 2016

Reviews

[SweetSweeede · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm doing research on short story structure to figure out what works and what doesn't, so I've downloaded a ton of free e-books, and this was one of them. Unfortunately, this fell in the 'doesn't-work' pile. Now, I can enjoy a smutty read littered with typos and grammar mistakes when the characters are interesting/likeable and the descriptions and dialogue is hot, and some of the best short stories (free books) I've read in this genre have basically only dealt with one scene, possibly two, and taken place under a limited timespan. Free doesn't have to mean cheap or poorly written/constructed. In fact, it shouldn't. (I think I'll copy/paste this paragraph into other reviews of short stories)

Now, on to why this story didn't work for me.

Chapters. Why are there chapters in a short story of 28 Kindle page turns? I understand that this is a stylistic choice to some extent, but I found it odd, as a section break works just fine.

Chapter 1: Big info dump on the main character's backstory and opinions (telling, not showing), proving her to be condescending towards other women. Not a likeable character so far.

Chapter 2: A week has passed. New guy is very flirtatious and main character is obviously affected. Stays late at office and new guy grabs her.

Chapter 3: Sex. Resolves conflict by just 'getting over it'.

Like I said, I would have forgiven the poor plot construction, maybe even the characterization (that's a maybe, I prefer to actually like the people a story is about), if the sexual tension had been believable (or obvious) and the sex scene had been steamier. Meh.