Table of Contents
Praise
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Epilogue
BOARDROOM HOTTIES
Earl Grey’s Fifty Shames
AN EXCERPT FROM Fifty Shames in Space
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Author
Copyright Page
Praise for Fifty Shames of Earl Grey
“I’m laughing as much as I was when I read the original Fifty Shades.”
—Alyssa Palmer, erotic romance author of Prohibited Passion
“I’m not telling you to buy Fifty Shames of Earl Grey because I’m banging the author. I’m telling you to buy Fifty Shames of Earl Grey AND I’m banging the author.”
—Tiffany Reisz, author of the BDSM erotica series, The Original Sinners
“Wickedly funny and irreverent. I laughed throughout the entire book and couldn’t put it down . . . Don’t miss this book.”
—Laurie London, author of the Sweetblood paranormal romance series
“Hilarious . . . A super fun read, like going to Six Flags with Zooey Deschanel.”
—Kitty Glitter, author of Wesley Crusher: Teenage F*** Machine
Chapter One
I GROWL WITH FRUSTRATION at my reflection in the mirror. My hair is fifty shades of messed up. Why is it so kinky and out of control? I need to stop sleeping with it wet. As I brush my long brown hair, the girl in the mirror with brown eyes too big for her head stares back at me. Wait . . . my eyes are blue! It dawns on me that I haven’t been looking into the mirror—I’ve been staring at a poster of Kristen Stewart for five minutes. My own hair is fine.
The situation I’m in, however, is still fifty shades of messed up. My roommate, Kathleen, has the brown bottle flu. What a B. She was supposed to be the one interviewing this mega-corporate beefcake for Boardroom Hotties magazine. Since she’s too busy throwing up buckets of puke into the toilet, I’ve been volunteered to do her dirty work. (The interview, not cleaning up her vomit.) I am mere weeks away from graduating from college with a liberal arts bachelor’s degree. Instead of studying for my final exams, though, I’m about to ride my bike three and a half hours from Portland, Oregon, to downtown Seattle to meet with Earl Grey, the fabulously wealthy CEO of the Earl Grey Corporation. The interview can’t be rescheduled, Kathleen says, because Mr. Grey’s time is precious and oh-so-valuable. Like mine isn’t? As I said, my roommate is a total B.
Kathleen is sprawled out on the living room couch watching 16 and Pregnant. This wouldn’t be so bad if she was my age and in school, but she’s old enough to be my mom. If they ever do a show called Washed Up at 38, I’m sure she’ll be the first cast. She’s a staff writer for Boardroom Hotties, a gig she treats as her own Rich Asshole dating service. None of the corporate executives she’s profiled have proposed to her, but she has made sandwiches with quite a few of them. “You have to start somewhere,” she always says. “Why not with peanut-butter-jelly time?” I don’t know what’s wrong with a good All-American HJ, but then again my experience with the opposite sex is almost nonexistent.
Kathleen looks up from her TV show and sees how annoyed I am with her. “I’m sorry, Anna. It took me months to get this interview. Please do this for me,” she begs me with her raspy Christian Bale–as–Batman voice. Somebody smoked too many cigarettes last night.
“Of course I’ll do it, Kathleen. You need to rest. Do you need any NyQuil?”
“Does it have alcohol in it?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Then pour a shot into a glass with some Red Bull,” she says. “And here—take my mini–disc recorder, and ask him these questions. I’ll do the transcribing.”
I can’t believe I’m doing this! I take the mini–disc recorder and notebook from her and hop on my bicycle. It’s only after I’m peddling on the highway for a half hour that I remember her request for NyQuil and Red Bull. Oh, well. That B can get off her sick butt and mix her own drink.
The Earl Grey Corporation headquarters in downtown Seattle is a ginormous 175-story office building that juts into the cloudless sky like a steel erection. I walk through the glass doors and into the lobby, which is floor-to-ceiling glass and steel. This fascinates me to no end, because buildings back in Portland are made of grass and mud.
An attractive blonde behind the receptionist’s desk smiles at me as I walk in. I assume she’s the receptionist, because I can’t think of any other reason she would be sitting behind the receptionist’s desk. Unless maybe she’s filling in for the real receptionist, who could be on their lunch break. But then I remember: it’s almost two, and I doubt anyone takes their lunch breaks that late. So this must be the actual receptionist.
“I’m here to see Mr. Grey,” I say. “My name is Anna Steal. I’m filling in for Kathleen Kraven.”
“Just a moment, Miss Steal,” the receptionist says, checking her computer. I wish I had borrowed one of Kathleen’s suit jackets for the interview. Standing here in this big building in front of this professionally dressed woman, I feel naked in my Tommy hoodie and Victoria’s Secret sweatpants with PINK written across the ass. The sweatpants aren’t pink, though—they’re gray. This always confuses me when I put them on, because shouldn’t they say GRAY—on the backside? Maybe Victoria’s secret is that she’s colorblind.
The receptionist glances up from her computer. “Please sign in, Miss Steal,” she says, pushing a clipboard with an attached pen across the desk to me. “You’ll want to take the elevator to the ninetieth floor.”
I stare at her blankly. We don’t have elevators in Portland. “This will be my first elevator ride. How do they work, exactly?”
She smiles. “The elevator car that you ride in is suspended in a shaft by a steel rope, which is looped around a grooved pulley called a ‛sheave.’
