Showing results by author "M Robinson" in All Categories

The night she showed up at my bar with a fake ID, I kicked her out. On her birthday, the following week, she showed up again. Except this time, she was demanding a job and willing to do whatever it took to get it. Against my better judgment, she got her way, but I'm not going to make it easy on her. Neither are the guys at my bar. I have two choices: Pretend she's mine to protect her. Or deal with the consequences when her five older, overprotective brothers find out what their little sister is up to.

Because they're doing the day-to-day work, front-line employees see many problems and opportunities their managers don't. But most organizations fail to realize this potentially extraordinary source of revenue-enhancing ideas. The authors of Ideas Are Free use real-world examples from their work with hundreds of organizations to show how to exploit the virtually free, perpetually renewable resource of employee ideas.

I once read that every warrior hoped an honorable death would find him. I always went looking for mine, but not even the Reaper wanted me. I was trained to kill. I was trained to not ask why. To take orders and just march in line. Hoo-ah motherf--ker. Life or death. Ride or die. And I'm not only talking about the military. I'm talking about the life that led me on the road to nowhere. My life. I fought for my brothers. I fought for my family. I fought for my country. And I fought for her...Never realizing I might die for them too.

Sebastian kept his addiction to the water under control, wanting to keep his time with his wife and son his number one obsession - that was until he saw her. This new addiction haunted him, the one compulsion that he couldn't control no matter how hard he tried.

In a world where I had no say, violence became my refuge. Nothing else mattered, not even my own life, until her: Skyler Bell. It all started the first time I heard that voice, giving me hope for tomorrow. My first love was everything all at once - consuming, maddening, forever, mine. Except I never imagined there were secrets that needed to be shared, lies that needed to be confessed, truths that needed to be told, demons that needed to be buried. Once I realized that the depth, the longing, and the sadness and sorrow in her eyes mirrored my own, it was too late.

For 2,000 years, the starship Astron has search the galaxy for alien life - without success. Now, just as the ship is falling apart, the only direction left to explore is across the Dark, a 100-generation journey through empty space.The ship's captain - immortal, obessed - refuses to abandon the quest. He will cross the Dark, or destroy the ship trying. Only Sparrow, a young crewman uncertain of his own past, can stand against the captain, and against the lure and challenge of the dark beyond the stars....

So here you are.... Opening the next chapters of my life - wanting to know the next truths of my sins. As if the first half of my life wasn't enough. You. Need. More. You want my redemption. My heart. My soul. Your happily-ever-after.... You. Want. Answers. And I will grant you the very first one you're dying to know. Why did I leave her? So go ahead. Press play. I dare you. You just might not like the answer. Don't say I didn't warn you.

We were together since we were fifteen, and we were supposed to be forever. But sometimes love isn’t enough. I couldn’t let her go without one last night, to remind her that every part of her body and soul still belonged to me - she belonged to me. For better or worse, she’s mine. The day we go before the judge to make it official, I find out…She’s pregnant. All she wanted was a family, all I ever wanted was her. No way in hell, I’m losing them both.

Trust. Loyalty. Family. The tangled web of mafia life. We grew up together. Me, Eden, my brother Tristian. He was always the safe bet, the sure thing, the good guy. And me? Well, I was the Casanova, the killer who flirted with anyone and anything, breaking Eden’s heart again and again. We both loved her. Mind. Body. Soul. Until I gifted her to my brother as if she meant nothing, when she meant everything to me. Tristian was safer. Better. Could give her the life I never would be able to. But things changed. We changed.

After two decades of fighting for my country, all it takes to finally bring me to my knees is a woman half my age. She's got herself mixed up with the wrong people: my enemies. Now, the only way to save her life is to pretend we're married. Forcing her to play my twisted little game will make her hate me even more. She'll follow my rules, and I'll take her hate because her love is what could destroy us both.

I fell in love with her when I was 17. She brought me to my knees when I was 20. I loved her against reason. I loved her against hope. I loved her against all odds. Now she's back, a constant reminder of what I lost, what could have been. I hate her. I resent her. I still love her. Can I forgive her? Will she be my end once again or my beginning?

I didn't know darkness and evil lurked inside me until I had to murder to survive, forced to become my own worst enemy. With so much blood on my hands, I was surprised I could still see my own skin. I killed, I tortured, I loved. I played God while I was rotting in a fiery inferno. Thriving on control and power was the only way I knew how to live. There were no other options. If you weren't my friend, you were my foe. If you weren't with me, you were against me - traitors, as I called them. There were no imaginary lines. I'd crossed them all.

We were friends, she and I. Best friends. It was easy, simple, and comfortable; that was our dynamic. We had a system, an understanding, an unspoken arrangement. We were there for each other through thick and thin. We had an unbreakable bond. Nobody understood our friendship. Because a guy and a girl couldn’t just be best friends without emotions getting involved, right? Without noticing, everything shifted, and I was experiencing all these new feelings....

The only thing I was looking forward to more than marrying my enemy was seeing her pregnant with my baby. But I guess that’s why I’m the bad boy of my family—but she’s always played the good girl. If they only knew the things she begged me to do all those years ago, when I was sneaking in through her bedroom window. Before I left. Before I broke her heart. Before she hated me.

The Power is a science fiction classic from the 1950s. After the book's initial publication, it was produced as a TV special starring Theodore Bikel and later as a George Pal film starring George Hamilton and Suzanne Pleshette. It is the tale of a mutant superman in hiding and the terrifying search to find him.

Mia Ryder was a woman to love. To cherish. To f--king claim. Now, forever, and every day in between. If there was anyone I'd go to hell and back for, it was her. Even if it meant going to war with...my f--king brother.

Being the man of honor in my best friend Livvy's wedding wouldn't be such a big deal—if I wasn't in love with her. But I won't turn her down. No matter how much it'll tear my heart out to watch her walk down the aisle toward another man. It should have been us—from friends to lovers and back again. But after college, I was so busy building my empire that I let her slip through my fingers. She was my first. And once she realizes he's the wrong one for her… I'll be her last.

Using numerous examples, Robinson and Schroeder argue that the employees who interact directly with your customers, make your products, and provide your services are in the best position to see where problems exist and what improvements and new offerings would have the most impact.

The discovery of a previously lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot has electrified the Christian community, portraying this despised man as someone who saw his role in the Passion of Christ as integral to a larger plan, and bringing new clarity to the old story. If Judas had not betrayed Jesus, Jesus would not have been handed over to the authorities, crucified, buried, and raised from the dead. Could it be that without Judas, the Easter miracle would never have happened?

Whether people want more government or less, everyone wants an efficient government. Traditional thinking is that this requires a government to be run more like a business. But a government is not a business, and this approach merely replaces old problems with new ones. In their six-year, five-country study of 77 government organizations—ranging from small departments to entire states—Alan Robinson and Dean Schroeder found that the predominant private-sector approaches to improvement don’t work well in the public sector.