Sweet Surrender (Sugar Rush #3)(2)

With its coffered ceiling and mezzanine stretching across two walls, the library might have once been nice. But now books and ledgers haphazardly stuffed the floor-to-ceiling wooden shelves, memorabilia cluttered the cases, and open file cabinets overflowed with papers, maps, and photographs. A huge oak desk sat against one wall, the surface scattered with papers and an ancient computer. Everything was dusty, crumbling, yellowing, and old.

Except for Kate. Despite her granny clothing, she was young. And she smelled damned good, like caramel or something. Only better.

Too bad she was a cliché with her severely cut suit, black-framed glasses, and her hair scraped back into a bun so tight it looked like it was stretching her eyebrows up. With her long legs and that perfume, she would've otherwise been appealing. If not almost hot.

He flopped down in the desk chair and put his feet on a low filing cabinet.

"I've been banished here by the king of the realm." He spread his arms wide to encompass his new home. "I got into some trouble recently. Well, I've been in trouble for a while, but this last one was a doozy. My father sentenced me to do penance down here in the dungeon."

He fully expected her to ask, "What kind of trouble?" because that was the only interesting part of his explanation.

Instead she asked, "What kind of work?"

"I'm supposed to whip the library into shape." Tyler scratched his head. "I guess the former librarian wasn't known for his organizational skills."

According to Evan, the Sugar Rush Library and Archives had been Fred's domain for close to forty-five years before he'd passed away two months ago. Since the library wasn't used regularly, Luke hadn't immediately advertised for a replacement.



       
         
       
        

Only when Evan's environmental team had started using the archives to research Sugar Rush's cocoa bean crops and sustainability issues had he informed Luke that they had a "situation" on their hands.

With Fred at the helm for so many years, no one had ever paid much attention to how the library was run or the fact that it was a mess. Fred could apparently produce a requested book or ledger in thirty seconds, and if the place looked more like an old bookshop from a horror movie than the library of a multi-million-dollar global candy company, the other employees neither minded nor cared.

Except for now, when the C-suite actually needed to use the damned archives and found themselves at a total loss without eagle-eyed Fred the Librarian.

And when Tyler's father and brothers needed to "teach him a lesson."

Why they thought he could actually get anything done here was beyond him. It wasn't as if he knew the first thing about libraries.

Then again, this was less about the actual library than it was a way for the Stones to pull Tyler into line. His father had tried to do that over the years with threats, arguments, and cutting him off financially, but the punishments had never stuck.

This was different, though. In the past he'd been caught for minor offenses-underage drinking, trespassing, a few lame attempts at vandalism. But he'd never done anything bad enough to mess with his family's reputation. He'd sure as hell never destroyed property or been arrested.

Until now.

Yeah, he'd fucked up royally. And he was lucky he hadn't been killed, as his father had reminded him multiple times.

Guilt stabbed him. He fiddled with a pen on the desk, aware of Kate watching him.

"So you're the new librarian." Her gaze skirted over him, taking in his torn jeans and white T-shirt. "Good, because we need one. Why are you starting on a Friday?"

"Just to get the lay of the land." Especially since he couldn't remember ever having set foot in the library, not even when he was a kid.

"Well, several projects need library resources at the moment," Kate said. "Mr. Evan Stone is compiling information about education initiatives. He's ready to offer scholarships for students to participate on the Cocoa Bean Team."

Tyler wasn't surprised Evan had recruited Luke's assistant to help launch the Cocoa Bean Team, the sustainability project he'd been setting up for the past six months. This coming summer, a group of Sugar Rush employees, volunteers, scientists, researchers, and students would join a farmers' collective in Venezuela to study and help with local infrastructures and cocoa bean crop production.

Tyler didn't really get the whole thing, though that was often the case with Sugar Rush projects, but the employees had been buzzing with excitement about it for a while now, and apparently the company was already getting tons of great publicity.