“Work together again?” she whispered. “Oh no!”His head popped back into her office. “And get maintenance to move your office closer to mine. I don’t like you being this far away from me. I’ll need you closer when we start doing additional projects together.”
Her mouth quickly snapped shut but the amusement in his eyes told her he’d heard exactly what she’d just whispered. Cripes!
He disappeared again and she let her head fall onto her open palms. Why did he do this all the time? The man ran a global empire! Why did he feel the need to show her, in painful detail, all the things she should have done on her report? Things she hadn’t thought to include or that he wanted shown in a different way. No matter how hard she worked, she never got out of these sessions. He always wanted more!
She hated these “tutorial” sessions! Her stomach felt like she was going to throw up at any moment when he was around her. It was worse when he stood behind her and pointed over her shoulder, his fingers popping into her line of sight, their shoulders touching and all she wanted to do was yell at the man to back up!
Pulling herself together once more, she mentally gave herself a pep talk. She could master this job and there wasn’t anything he could throw at her that would stop her from succeeding! She gathered up her computer and hurried down the hallway, trying to catch up with him. Unfortunately, she was only five feet, six inches while he was something like six feet, four inches. The man needed to be cut down to size both literally and figuratively. But who would do it? The man scared just about everyone else on Wall Street. No one took on Mitchell Powell and survived. He was the Terror of Wall Street. When he cast his eyes on acquiring a company, the owners started quaking in their board room. Mitch Powell never lost when he set his mind on a goal.
Adriana had come here to learn from the best. Well, the second best since her father, Damien Alfieri, was still the best in her mind. But she’d wanted to step out from under her father’s shadow, to learn on her own and show the world that she wasn’t afraid to do things by herself. She was her own woman!
Well, she would be as soon as she figured out what could possibly be wrong with the reports she’d just turned in. They were fine! He was just being a jerk. Besides, if he wanted something different, he needed to tell her! She couldn’t read his mind.
As soon as she stepped into the doorway of his office, she was lost, not sure what to do. She didn’t want to go into his office, feeling strange when she was so overwhelmed by his personality. But he wasn’t letting her stay in her “safe zone” outside of his office. How he knew she was standing there, she had no idea. “Set up over there on the conference table,” he commanded, not looking up from whatever he was reviewing on his desk.
She stepped inside, her knees slightly weak and her stomach quivering. She’d been in this office too many times and, stepping inside now, she still didn’t like it. It was too modern looking, too big and too sunny. He needed shades to block out the afternoon sun.
She walked in and took a seat at the conference room table that sat in one corner of his office. She took the seat next to the head of the table, not sure what to expect now.
Tossing down the papers he’d been reading, Mitch looked across the room where Adriana was primly sitting at his conference room table. “Okay, let’s get started,” he said and walked over to the chair next to hers. For the next four hours, he went over the reports, showed her what he wanted and how to get the data.
Adriana must have been extremely tired because, a long time later, a knock sounded on the door. Looking outside, she suddenly realized that the sun had already gone down over the horizon. Where had the time gone?
She watched him as he walked to the door then jerked in surprise when she realized that she was staring at the man’s butt! Okay, not just staring. She was silently admiring his butt. Her head was actually tilting, admiring the tight curve and the way his slacks smoothed over the area. Adriana groaned, then stopped herself when he looked back at her. “Are you okay?” he asked with curiosity in those scary-smart, blue eyes.
Adriana jerked her eyes back to her computer screen, refusing to look up at him in case he could read what she’d been contemplating in her eyes. “Yes! Of course,” she replied quickly, sitting up straighter in her chair and praying that he was too far away to see her face turn pink. His butt wasn’t that good! Okay, well, it was. But it was attached to the man so it didn’t count.
He started heading back to the table and she looked down quickly. Don’t stare at his shoulders, she told herself firmly. Don’t stare at his shoulders!
She looked up, involuntarily entranced by those broad shoulders. Good grief, fabulous shoulders and a great butt. What a waste. She sighed as he put several large bags on the table in front of her.
“Pasta okay with you?” he asked, taking a package out of the bag.
She suddenly realized that she was staring at his hands, her mind wondering about their strength and what his long fingers might feel like. When her eyes shifted back up to his, she felt her face turn an even more embarrassing shade of red. “Pasta?” she asked, blinking and trying to focus on the computer screen in front of her.
“Pasta. Food? Do you want pasta?”
She stared at the bag, noticing his long, sexy fingers once more. Sexy fingers? Since when did the man have sexy fingers? Hadn’t she ever looked at his fingers before? Of course not, she reprimanded herself. She was a business woman. She did not notice a man’s butt, shoulders or fingers!
What was he saying? Something about food. Yes, food would be good. Pasta! “Yes. Pasta is great. I love pasta. Red sauce, white sauce. Any kind of pasta. My father is Italian so…” her voice trailed off as she realized she was rambling. “Yes. Pasta is wonderful.”
He looked down at her from his great height, his blue eyes becoming more curious and amused as her silly digressive gibberish petered to an awkward halt. Perfect! She amused him! Just theimpression she wanted to make. It was already bad enough that he thought she was an idiot, now she was entertainment. Her father would be so proud!
He chuckled and handed her a box filled with something that smelled incredibly good. “Pasta with seafood,” he announced and handed her a set of silverware.
She took the box with trembling fingers and her face felt like it was on fire. Where had her mind gone today? She looked out the window and realized that it was now dark outside. Great! She was noticing her obnoxious boss was hot and she was losing track of time. In other words, she was losing her mind.“Are you feeling okay?” he asked as he took another box out of the bag.She sighed and opened the box, smelling the incredible scents of scallops and shrimp in a cream sauce with lots of garlic. “Wow!” she said with feeling. “I didn’t realize how hungry I am.”
“Next time, don’t throw your lunch away.”
She took the napkin he handed to her and smiled weakly. “It was just peanut butter crackers,” she explained. “No great loss.”
He froze when she said that, astonished that she’d eaten so little during the day. “Why were you just eating peanut butter crackers for lunch?”
She shrugged and spread the napkin carefully over her lap, trying very hard not to dive into the food like a starving, voracious hooligan. But her stomach growled at that point, giving her away.
“Eat,” he told her, not waiting for her response, and pulled out the chair next to her again. He’d been sitting there before but he was closer now. Or maybe he was the same distance away from her, but the lack of afternoon sunshine made everything seem more…intimate. This new position was scary. Different scary, she realized.
“Okay, look at these numbers here,” he said, using his own fork to point to some numbers on the screen. “They need to be over here in this data.” He pointed to several other tables that needed to be updated. Unfortunately, Adriana was acutely aware of his broad shoulders that bumped hers several times. And that smell! His male scent was driving her crazy. Her body was doing something weirdevery time she smelled that citrus scent! It was like…
“Are you listening to me?”
She jerked her head around and…whoa! His face was much closer than she’d thought. In fact, he was so close, she could almost feel his breath on her cheek. Good grief the man smelled incredibly good! No man should smell this…delicious. She felt almost dizzy as she inhaled his strong, male scent, wanting to close her eyes and savor the smell.
She suddenly realized that he had stopped talking and she was just staring at him. “What?” she asked when she saw the strange look in his eyes.
“You’re not paying attention, are you?” His voice sounded deeper. Huskier. Or was that just her imagination?
“Yes,” she whispered, not sure what was going on right at the moment. He was still a jerk and she really, really didn’t like him. So why was she wondering what it would be like to kiss him? Why was her mind wondering if his lips would be soft or firm? Would his kiss be demanding or gentle? She wasn’t sure which she would prefer but she’d like to experiment. With him!
Adriana suddenly realized that her thoughts had veered away from business once again and she shook her head. Numbers! Data! Focus on the reports!
She swallowed and looked down. “Sorry. I guess I’m hungrier than I thought.” She tried to take a bite of one of the plump scallops but as soon as the meat was in her mouth, she couldn’t chew. He was watching her with that strange light in his blue eyes. She didn’t understand and the smell, the heat of his body was starting to make her feel uncomfortably warm.
He pulled back and glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how late it was. Why don’t you eat your pasta and then we’ll pack it up for the night?”
She looked at the clock on her computer and was surprised to realize it was after eight o’clock. “Yes.” She replied. Stuffing a shrimp in her mouth, she stood up. Putting the pasta to the side of her computer, she gathered up all of the papers, stacking them into a haphazard pile. Swallowing the shrimp so quickly, she almost chocked on it, she closed the box nervously and stood up. “I’ll get out of your way, sir.” She grabbed all of the papers, her computer and the box of pasta, about to hurry out of the office. She suddenly stopped and looked back at him. “I’ll have revised reports to you by the time you come in tomorrow morning, sir.”
She was almost to the doorway when she heard him call out her name. “Adriana,” he said, that deep, sexy voice that had suddenly started to send crazy images to her mind. Images that she really, really shouldn’t be thinking about! Not with this man! Well, honestly, not with any man! Erotic images were…well, she’d never had any erotic images or fantasies. Not like…shoot! She was now wondering what this man’s chest would look like without that shirt on!
She finally forced her eyes to look up into his, nervous about whatever he was going to say this time.
“Don’t call me ‘sir’. My name is Mitch.” She nodded and was about to turn away, to head out of his office as quickly as possible, but he started speaking again. “And have the reports to me by noon. Not first thing in the morning. We’ll go over them together at that point.”
She nodded again, not sure what to say and not completely sure what was going on inside her head. She’d never imagined any man without his clothes on. Except Brad Pitt. Oh, and Chris Hemsworth. Well, and Daniel Craig. But for all of those guys she could explain her fascination. This sudden interest in Mitch’s physique didn’t make any sense. Adriana peeked back at him, then blushed when she found that he was watching her steadily, a strange look in his eyes. She turned around and hurried out the door, feeling foolish and not sure what was happening to her.
Mitch watched the beautiful woman walk out of his office. He would have paid a great deal of money to know what had just gone through her mind. That tempting blush was alluring and revealing, but not revealing enough. He wanted to understand her, to read her mind and know what shew as thinking.
Adriana Alfieri was amazingly lovely with a sharp intelligence and a quick wit that had hooked him from the start. Two months ago, she’d almost knocked him over when she’d walked into a meeting and he’d been fascinated ever since. Adriana had taken a seat off to the side during that meeting, but he hadn’t been able to concentrate on anything that was said. He’d been too focused on looking at her legs.
They were long, slender legs with sleek muscles, as if she was a runner. He hadn’t been able to control the x-rated fantasies. Not during that meeting, and they’d been getting more intense since.
Unfortunately for his peace of mind, she wasn’t just a lovely body. She had brains too! Several times since that fateful day, he’d overheard her in conversation and he’d walked away chuckling when she’d let a zinger fly. She found humor in the most interesting issues, like when someone had asked if she’d gotten coffee as she’d walked out of the kitchen with a steaming cup. She’d just raised her cup and said, “Could be. Might be vodka. I’ll never tell,” and just moseyed down the hallway.
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