She thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “Or maybe we would have. Your vitals definitely were better when she was sitting next to you, holding your hand.”
His foreman and best friend was standing outside the room, ready to bring Drake home for the first time in thirty days. Drake wanted to ask the nurse more, to get a description of the woman he only knew was beautiful with dark, brown hair and tender eyes. He didn’t even remember what color her eyes were, only that they were filled with compassion and hope. Her image had gotten him through the worst of the pain and the hope of seeing her each time he woke up had pushed him to recover more quickly.
When Tony stepped in again, he had a grim expression on his face. “Ready?” he asked.
That reminded him of his plans. Joe Berutelli had done this. He’d remembered the questions, the demands from the shorter man to take bribes, to use different vendors, vendors Drake knew distributed cheaper, inferior materials. Those materials wouldn’t hold up under the long term use of any building and could cause injuries. There had been an argument that afternoon in the man’s office and Drake had stood firm, refusing to relinquish his good name despite ominous threats of chaos and brutality to himself, his family and his workers if he didn’t cooperate with the organized crime gang. After Berutelli had accepted that Drake wasn’t going to play ball, the beating had started.
There had been three goons roughing him up at first. But when Drake was winning, tossing the guys off of him and knocking them out, two more guys showed up, this time with bats. That had been the end of his ability to fight them off. He’d gone down, feeling every punch and smack of the wooden bat.
Drake looked up at his friend, fury raging through his mind now that he was going home. “Absolutely. We have a lot of work to do. Namely, take down one mafia boss,” he replied. “And I’m going to enjoy every moment of this.”
Tony shook his head. “Why don’t we just leave things as is?” he suggested nervously. They had been in the middle of a huge construction job when he’d received word that Drake had been badly beaten and was in the hospital. They all knew who had done it, but Joe Berutelli had come up with a perfect alibi, claiming he had been hosting a party at the time of the attack with numerous witnesses who said that Joe had never left, and also that Drake had left on his own two feet. So the police couldn’t do anything about it.
Drake shook his head, rolling himself out of the room simply because he could now. He had just finished a period in his life when he’d been almost completely incapacitated. He wouldn’t let that happen again. “I can’t let this go, Tony. And don’t worry about anything. I have this all figured out,” he assured the older man.
Chapter 1
Six years later…
Drake watched with fascination as the woman in the pencil skirt shifted to a different angel, her body bent over the architect’s drafting board and providing him with a very enticing view. It wasn’t so much the woman’s concentration or the fact that she was humming softly to herself. It was the way she was almost dancing with her sexy skirt pulled against her very cute, very round derriere, her long legs ending with pretty shoes that made her legs look even longer, showing off her slender, muscular calves. Every few moments, her bottom would wiggle as she hit a high note on whatever song was going through her headphones.
He tried to listen to the notes in order to decipher the song, but she only sang a few lines, then danced or wiggled again while the song continued in her head.
He could tell that she had dark brown, shiny hair that curled softly at the ends but, besides her great legs and adorable butt, there wasn’t anything else he could see of the woman. Even her hair was pulled back into an elaborate twist on the back of her head. It looked feminine and professional, but gave nothing away.
He watched her, enjoying the view for several moments, only cringing a few times during her song when she really missed a note. Her lack of ability to sing well didn’t diminish his capacity to enjoy the view. It was just too interesting to tear his