she’d done similar work on her own dream house. She absolutely loved designing homes, creating either small or large living environments for the way each family lived. Designing buildings and sports complexes was interesting also, but her favorite projects were those where she got to sit down and talk with a family, find out what they did each day or during the year so she could create the perfect area for each member of the family.
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