Read The Billionaire's Secretive Enchantress (The Berutelli Escape) for Free Online

irritated and…yep, there was that word again: vulnerable. 
    No, she was just nervous about meeting strangers.  She wasn’t a good people pleaser, not able to play the political office games well.  She preferred to stay in the background, do her work and enjoy the thrill of watching her buildings come to life.  She enjoyed speaking with her clients, but generally left the glad-handing to Todd and the others. 
    She tried once again to get her hand free, but he only held onto her hand more tightly, his other hand actually coming up to cover hers, trapping her fingers in his large palm with the roughened calluses that had always seemed so sexy when she’d held his hand before. 
    Why wouldn’t he release her hand?  U nless she wanted to have an embarrassing tug of war, she had to just stand here and endure his irritating touch while Todd droned on about her accomplishments, going into awkward details about her ideas and how they’d been implemented on various projects.
    When her hand was finally free, she took a deep, calming breath and looked down.  She suddenly remembered the designs Todd had mentioned she should show to Drake Harrison and jumped on that as an easy excuse to step back slightly.   She bent low over a cabinet to find the file.  “Here’s the file Todd mentioned.  I’ll just leave this with you and if you have any questions, feel free to give me a call.  I’m sure you’ve seen much more impressive designs from your more experienced architects and designers.  This might be a bit of a letdown from what you’re used to,” she replied, desperately wishing Todd would stop talking and this man would just walk away.  She felt like she needed an ice pack to recover from the heat stealing up her arm after his touch. The whole episode had probably lasted seconds but to her befuddled mind, it seemed like hours, hours upon which she didn’t understand why Todd couldn’t see the tension, couldn’t sense her nervousness. 
    “On the contrary,” his deep voice countered.  “I’ve heard about you and thought your work was excellent.  I’m eager to work with you.”
    “Work” with her?  Why would he be working with her, or any of the architects in this firm?  He was one of the big guys.  He was the one that set the standard in the industry.  Todd’s firm took on national projects, but most of their efforts were very small, very niche oriented. 
    Sierra ’s startled glance pulled away from his dark eyes and glanced over at her boss.  “I don’t think I can take on another client right now,” she said to Todd, nerves coming out as she frantically tried to think of a way to avoid working too closely with this man.  She needed to be as far away from him as possible.  For so many reasons!  “I have four houses in various stages of completion at the moment.”
    It was no longer just about him discovering who she was, but that was definitely a part of it.  With Todd’s words, her new worry was more about working closely, spending long hours with this man to discuss his project needs.  She spent hours discussing a project with her clients, ensuring that she captured exactly what they wanted in their home or office space.  She didn’t want to do that with this man. 
    There was something about this man that, in Sierra’s mind, made him dangerous on a more personal level .  She had no idea how she knew that, but something inside of her told her that he wasn’t the kind of man who would be satisfied with a chaste kiss at the end of the night. 
    Now why would she think about kissing him when he was simply going to be a client? 
    Her eyes accidentally moved to his lips and her breath caught in the back of her throat.  She thought she might have gasped as her eyes took in his firm lips that were smiling slightly.  Her mind immediately jumped to what those lips would feel like…on other places of her body instead of just her mouth. 
    What?!  How had she gone from not wanting to