Shaking her head, she focused all of her attention on the building she was currently working on, pushing aside the possible motives of a mega-billionaire with dark, piercing eyes and shoulders that were….she closed her eyes and pursed her lips, irritated with herself for even picturing the man’s shoulders. At least it was just his shoulders, she told herself. She hadn’t gone down the road of picturing the man…Ugh!
Okay, so he probably looked amazing without that dark, tailored suit covering his tall, muscular body. That was no reason to break her concentration and picture the man naked. She had an important meeting in only a few minutes and she needed to get some last minute details into the design.
Chapter 2
Unfortunately, her meeting time arrived and she was still unable to focus on the issues so she had to speak to her ideas instead of having them incorporated into the design. Another mark against Drake Harrison since he was the reason why she hadn’t been able to focus on her work. She could blame herself, especially after her gluttonous reading on the man’s career and the tidbits of personal life the media had been able to dig up, but she’d never had this issue before.
After the meeting, she stomped into her office, slapping down her papers and still irritated with Drake for his interruption this morning.
She never had this problem! In fact, most people teased her that she focused too much!
“Are you coming to the luncheon?” Dave Anderson asked, poking his head into Sierra’s office.
Dave was a very sweet guy who had been consistently inviting her to the weekly happy hours at the bar around the corner from their office. Sierra hadn’t wanted to encourage his interest, so she’d declined all of the invitations so far although she went out to lunches with some of her co-workers. She didn’t want to be antisocial but she didn’t want to encourage Dave when she felt nothing more than friendship for the man.
“I just had a difficult meeting,” she said, rubbing her forehead. “I’m going to pass on the lunch. Can you cover for me?” she asked, feeling slightly guilty for asking him to do something like that.
“Sure can,” he replied, eager to finally have a task from her.
Sierra almost groaned at his enthusiasm. It wasn’t like she was asking him to kill a dragon or anything, but Dave hadn’t been subtle about his interest in her. Had she just given him unintended encouragement?
She slumped down into her desk chair, feeling like a horrible person. How could she kill off the man’s interest? He was a sweet guy, but she just wasn’t interested.
She almost groaned as she squeezed her frustration ball with her left hand while her pencil sketched out the details of her next idea with her right. She wasn’t aware of the ball’s eyes bugging out. All of her attention was on trying to figure out her next move. How could she keep Drake Harrison away from her, keep him from discovering who she was? She simply couldn’t let him connect her to her father!
Biting her pencil, she stood back and surveyed the work she’d done on her drawing board. She bit her lip slightly and surveyed the changes she’d incorporated so far and smiled with satisfaction. She bent over the table, grateful for her ability to focus only on work, kick out all the other details that made her uncomfortable. Life was suddenly too complicated, she thought as the words to Miranda Lambert’s “Mamma’s Broken Heart” spinning through her mind.
Hours later, Drake looked around at the empty offices, his eyes alert to anyone who might still be working at this hour. It was Thursday night and he knew that most of the staff had left to head to the local bar for drinks and to gossip about the news of his takeover. He understood their anxiety and had tried to limit their worries over lunch today, but he knew that there would always be some people in an office environment that would perceive the worst in any kind of change. They were usually the less talented workers, trying to find justification for their lack of accomplishments by gossiping about the others who were more dedicated.
He wasn’t overly concerned about those people, thinking that he and his transition team had done a good job of minimizing the anxiety over lunch today.
But now it was after hours and he was intent on trapping his fly-away butterfly. Sierra Colbert had avoided him all afternoon but now, he was going to get to know her a bit better.
“You’re here late,” a deep voice said from behind her.
Sierra jumped out of her chair and spun around. When she saw the tall, awe inspiring man leaning against her doorway, she gasped and almost fell sideways.
Trying to regain her composure as quickly as possible, she stepped to the side while at the same time, hide the papers she’d been working on.
Unfortunately, her composure wasn’t having such a good day and she started to slide over, her feet not properly braced far enough apart.
With a swift move, Drake moved forward, catching Sierra before she could fall on her face to the floor.
With his hands wrapped around her, she couldn’t help but grab his arms, her hands wrapping around surprisingly large biceps hidden by the relatively tame-looking dark suit.
Slowly, and with great reluctance, she looked up at him, her entire body tingling with awareness of this moment. Her body was plastered against his, even his right leg was pressed between her legs, pushing her skirt up higher on her thighs. A part of her wanted to die of humiliation but a larger part of her wanted to press her hands against his arms, to slide them higher, testing for other muscles. Perhaps if she could slide her fingers over, feel his chest…
“I’m sorry,” she gasped, suddenly realizing what she was doing and pulled herself out of his embrace, her face flaming with color at both her thoughts as well as her clumsiness. She wasn’t usually like that but he’d surprised her and she really didn’t like surprises. “Thank you for your assistance.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper now and she tried to step backwards, but the table was behind her and his huge body was blocking everything in front of her.
“My pleasure,” he commented, his voice deep and husky.
They stood like that for a long, pregnant moment, both of them staring, neither moving. Sierra tried to breathe, but his touch was making that impossible. She wanted so desperately to feel him, to examine those muscles underneath the deceptive suit, to find out what it would be like if he were to kiss her…
Drake’s mind was reeling with how incredibly soft she was. His hands were still holding her waist and his leg could feel the muscles in her own. He wanted to lean forward, to feel her breasts against his chest again and taste those pink lips, to find out what she tasted like.