I’d lived in Tampa all my life and never once had I heard of any club named that, and I’d spent my fair share of nights celebrating everything from birthdays to bachelorette parties to my friends’ promotions. The real name on the envelope should have said Club X. Printed in big letters, the name of my new employer stared up from the envelope at me. Picking up the envelope, I thought about the frigid New England winters and muttered, “I hope he freezes his ass off up there.” So Tony Galente and his lovely wife and three kids moved to Boston while I got a weak excuse for being fired and stayed right there in Tampa. The economy just isn’t what we hoped it would be. So after five years dedicating myself day and night to climbing the corporate ladder at the nation’s newest sports apparel company, the fine folks who sat in cushy corner offices at Premier Sports decided to promote the other guy to regional sales manager of the northeast and gave me a pink slip. Unfortunately, I hadn’t realized thousands of others just like me had the same plans, many of whom had attended even better schools and had a jumpstart on me with even better internships than mine. After four years of college, I’d graduated magna cum laude from a good school with a degree in management in hand ready to conquer the world. Whoever said a degree meant a sure job must have been living in a different century. But after being out of commission for so long, all that was running through my mind was pure, unmitigated fear. After nearly six months of being unemployed, it was time to join the ranks of the working again. The large, manila envelope sat on the coffee table with the ticket to the next chapter in my life.

Temptation by km scott