Claiming His Treasure

Chapter One

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

One week later

There came a point, in dealing with late-night work crises, when stabbing one's eyes out with a pen started to look like a viable—even preferable—alternative to spending even another moment staring at paperwork. Charlotte Carver had passed that point about two hours ago.

Her vision blurred as she gazed down at the pile of files in front of her on the coffee table. Her temples throbbed. Her throat ached. And out of the corner of her eye, her laptop screen appeared to flicker. Was that normal? Or had her mind finally cracked? She rubbed her eyes as she stumbled to her feet. She needed caffeine. Immediately.

The fifteen-foot walk to her kitchen felt a lot longer than it should have. Her gaze flicked to the clock on the microwave as she fumbled with the coffee maker. Midnight. How the hell was it only midnight? It felt like she'd been awake for two days straight.

You nearly have, she reminded herself. After all, her boss had called her at two o'clock this morning to inform her of her giant fuck-up. And even though it was Saturday, she'd spent half of it in the office and the other half of it on her couch surrounded by paperwork. From the looks of it, she'd be pulling an all-nighter—assuming she didn't pass out on the floor.

Ah, the adventures of working for Ingarry Insurance. She let out an exhausted, bitter laugh as her coffee pot burbled to life. Just when she'd thought her job couldn't get any duller, the universe had decided to prove her wrong in the most spectacularly awful way possible: Oh, you hate your job? Let's see how you feel when you're about to lose it! Time to stop taking it for granted, hm? Oh, and by the way—fuck you.

She might be brain-dead with exhaustion, but she'd gotten the message loud and clear.

She rubbed her forehead as she waited for her caffeine fix. The kitchen spun a little, and she steadied herself on the counter as her gaze darted around, looking for somewhere to focus. She finally decided on the large map hanging over her cluttered dining table, and she felt a small but welcome bit of peace as her eyes roamed over the map's hand-drawn lines.

She had a thing for maps the way Mrs. Greaves next door had a thing for cats. Old maps or new, topographic landscapes or Mercator projections—she collected any and all of them, and hung them on her walls for inspiration. This particular one held a special place in her heart—she and her mom had found it together in an antique shop. The thick paper was yellow with age and fraying at the corners, and some of the original ink had faded, but it was gorgeous. The cartographer, whoever he—or she—was, had filled the land with tiny illustrations of beasts and filled the oceans with serpents. When she was in college, she used to stare at it and imagine the day she'd have the money and freedom to go see all of those places for herself.

Now? She was two weeks from her thirtieth birthday and the only time she'd set foot out of the country was when her cousin had gotten married in Ottawa. The only adventure she'd had in recent memory was that disastrous blind date three months ago where the guy had tried to bring his pet iguana to dinner with them.

One day, she told herself. But she'd been telling herself the same thing for years now. One day she'd see the world. One day she'd find a job that didn't threaten to suck her soul right out of her. One day she'd do something exciting. Something crazy.

But in the meantime, she still had credit card debt from her mom's funeral and a student loan balance that didn't seem to be getting any smaller. Charlotte didn't have any extra money to be throwing at lavish overseas adventures. And funds might be even tighter if she couldn't fix her fuck-up with the Richmond Museum's claim tonight. She was lucky Mr. Elliot hadn't fired her on the spot.