Drake put his arm around her waist and brought her deeper into the room, closing the door behind the two of them. “Todd is already gone. He wanted to move on with his retirement as soon as possible. His wife was anxious that he might change his mind if given the chance to think about it and worry too much.”
Sierra looked around, feeling sad, as if her boss moving on with his life was the end of an era. It was, in a way. Although she didn’t want it to be the end of an era in her world. She liked her life. She wanted it to stay exactly the same. And that meant that this man was not in it!
Taking a deep breath, she turned around to face him, holding her notebook in front of her as if it could protect her. “I thought I was supposed to meet with Todd at nine o’clock.”
His grin was her first indication that she’d been tricked. “No, you were only told to be in Todd’s office at nine o’clock. There was no mention of who you would be meeting with.”
Her eyes narrowed at his statement. “That was on purpose wasn’t it?”
He chuckled softly. “Of course. I didn’t want you running from the building in terror.”
She straightened her shoulders, feeling uncomfortable with his description of her possible reaction. “I wouldn’t do that.”
He paused before he said, “Wouldn’t you?”
She huffed and took the other seat but continued to hold her notebook in front of her like a shield. “Of course not. I’m a professional. So,” she started off, “despite my already heavy workload, you said you had a special project for me. What is it?”
He looked at her long legs encased in the sleek, black slacks and her pretty, floral shoes with the killer heels. There was no way around it, this woman was beautiful, both inside and out. “I’ll bet you wouldn’t believe that I lured you in here to talk to me because I enjoy your company?” he teased.
She immediately snorted, her cynicism coming out strong and hard. “I look in the mirror. I’m not the raving beauties you normally date.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “I accept that you’re out of my league. And I’m very thankful for that fact.”
Drake studied her lovely features for a long moment, amazed that such a beautiful woman could be so unaware of her own appeal. “I’ll just have to show you as we get to know each other then.”
She crossed and uncrossed her legs, disagreeing with his confident statement. “Since we’re not going to get to know each other, that’s going to be rather difficult.”
He grinned slowly. “There you go, throwing those challenges out to me. It must be that you don’t understand my personality very well, which I’m more than willing to rectify.”
“I don’t want to get to know you.”
“That’s just your fear of what we feel for each other coming out. But I’m sure I can make you feel more comfortable about this attraction we have for each other. Given time, we’ll both be comfortable.”
Before she had a chance to contradict him, he launched into a discussion about a large project in a small area outside of Denver. It wasn’t exactly a new city but it would be by the time he was finished with it. Over the past two years, he’d slowly purchased all of the buildings in a four street section in one of the run down areas of Denver. It was right on the outskirts of the up and coming section of the city, but still not a good place to be at night.
His plan was to renovate all the buildings, put in apartments, retail space, commercial offices as well as playgrounds, medical buildings and a community center.
As Sierra listened to Drake explaining it, even showing her the initial drafts of the layout, she was in awe of his vision. The man was literally taking apart a ghetto type area and replacing it with just about everything anyone could need. He even had agreements with the city to build a fire station and new police station next to the area, both of which would enormously increase the property values of the area.
“How did you get all of this land?” she asked.
He shrugged, looking down at the designs and Sierra could see the eagerness, the excitement in his eyes and even feel it in his body. “Most of the buildings were already for sale and at dirt cheap rates. It just took getting the other owners to sell as well, most of whom were more than eager to sell their burned out buildings to anyone who they considered stupid enough to buy them. Now, it’s just a matter of getting things rolling. I’m guessing it will take approximately five years to finish all of the remodeling and rebuilding. Most of the buildings are structurally unsound. What I want you to do is figure out which ones are salvageable and determine how to make them safe and which ones need to be just torn down and built over.”
Sierra had never had such an opportunity and she was thrilled with the possibilities. Drake watched her lick her full, lower lip in anticipation as she slowly bent lower over the designs.
He almost groaned at the sight of her. He’d thought she was fascinating just when she was fighting this attraction between the two of them. Seeing her now though, bent over the designs, her eyes alight with all the ideas that were obviously pinging around in her head, he could barely contain his body’s reactions.
They immediately started discussing the options, both of them tossing out ideas and they spent the rest of the day talking about possibilities, bringing other people into the conversation either in person because they were here in the office or calling them on the phone. Drake’s assistant ordered lunch for them and Sierra didn’t even mind sitting across from him while they devoured the meal because she was so interested, and hungry, and didn’t want to leave the brainstorming session. At times, there were up to ten people in the office tossing around ideas and at other times, it was just the two of them bent over the plans, both of them with a pencil in their hand as they sketched out the various possibilities.
It was after ten o’clock that night when she finally stood up and realized what time it was. “Goodness,” she gasped as she glanced at her watch. “I didn’t realize that it was so late. I’d better head home,” she said, obviously reluctant to leave. She quickly started picking up the Chinese food containers from their dinner, tossing them into the trash cans.
“Sorry for keeping you so late. Did you have plans for the evening?”
Sierra laughed and shook her head, tossing the broccoli and chicken away. “Definitely not.”