Free The Inconvenient Bride by Anne McAllister Page A

of riffling through his mail, hoping if she was ignored, she’d go away.
    She didn’t budge. “Who?” she asked again.
    â€œHer name’s Sierra,” he said finally when it was clear she wasn’t moving until he answered.
    â€œAnd who is Sierra? Sounds sort of familiar?” Shyla got a faraway look in her eyes, as if she were mentally going back through all the women in Dominic’s address book.
    â€œMy sister-in-law’s sister,” he said grudgingly.
    Shyla’s eyes went round. “The purple-haired one?” She clapped a hand over her mouth.
    Dominic glared. “She’s a stylist. It’s her image.”
    Shyla wiped the astonishment off her face. “Of course,”she said solemnly, but her eyes were twinkling and her lips were twitching.
    â€œYou liked her!” Dominic reminded her sharply.
    â€œI said she was the only woman I’d met who could back you down,” Shyla agreed, nodding her approval once more.
    â€œNot the only one, obviously,” Dominic replied dryly. “There’s you.”
    â€œBesides me,” Shyla said cheerfully. Then she grinned. “You and Sierra. How about that?” She looked positively gleeful. “I’ll bet Daddy had a cow.”
    â€œClose,” Dominic admitted.
    Shyla laughed. “I’d like to have seen it. Good for you.” Then she sobered. “But surely you didn’t marry her just to annoy your father. Did you?” she pressed when he didn’t reply at once.
    Dominic glowered at her. “Of course not!” There was the sex, too, but he didn’t see any reason to be specific.
    Shyla looked relieved. She nodded, smiling, and gave him a quick hug. “Then, congratulations. I’m so happy you’ve fallen in love at last.”
    In love? Dominic blanched. Not quite! But he didn’t think a denial was what Shyla wanted to hear. Edgily Dominic stepped away and pulled out one of the letters from the mail pile. “Get me the file on Harker,” he told her. “This is a business. We have work to do.”
    Â 
    And God knew he tried, for the entire day, to do it.
    He studied the Harker file, twisted his tie around his fingers, and found instead that he wasn’t thinking about Harker but about Sierra’s activities with his tie the previous night.
    He tossed the file aside. Obviously he needed to do something, not just read. So he paced his office, trying to compose a reply, something about the advances of the communications industry, but his mouth went dry as all he seemed to able to think about was the ways Sierra had communicated her desire.
    He slammed his fist into his other palm. Then he punched the intercom, and told Shyla to bring the letters she’d finished so he could read and sign them.
    He saw—but scarcely read—the words on the page. In his mind he was seeing instead images of Sierra’s parted lips, her creamy skin, that tiny dusting of freckles just above her breasts.
    â€œDamn it!” He jumped out of his chair again and stood, hands braced on the desk, head bent, as he took deep lungfuls of air and tried to get her out of his mind.
    He couldn’t.
    But not because he was in love with her, like Shyla thought! Absolutely not. It was just his libido. Hormones. All that testosterone which finally had someplace to go!
    He wondered if Sierra was up yet. Maybe he could ring her, get her to meet him at his place for a quickie. God! What was he thinking? He never thought things like that!
    Well, not never. Today, it seemed, he did.
    All the while his assistant Kent Traynor discussed the Harker buyout with him, Dominic’s mind wandered. He found himself idly staring at Traynor’s solid navy tie and wondering if his wife had ever—
    â€œâ€”don’t you think?”
    â€œWhat?” Dominic jerked back to the moment, aware that he felt oddly flushed and disoriented.
    â€œThink it’s a good