Perfect Fit - Brenda Jackson [44]
At that thought, she continued to hold his gaze, and for the first time in five years, she felt attracted to someone other than Erol. And as Gabe drew closer, she felt her heartbeat stutter slightly … no, more than slightly. She inhaled deeply when a warm feeling flooded her insides. And with that feeling came one of discomfort in the knowledge that she was attracted to another man less than six months after her breakup with Erol.
Okay, she admitted, there may be a driving force behind what she was feeling, considering the fact Gabe was good to look at, and she had already concluded that there was no harm in looking. She reached out for her glass of water when her throat suddenly felt dry, admitting that Gabe Blackwell had definitely grabbed her attention and she couldn’t take it back.
Keep your mind on the issue at hand, Blackwell.
Gabe’s mind was giving him that order over and over again. He had to remember why he was here and why he was not on his way to the job site as he’d originally planned. The phone call he’d received earlier from John Landmark had been more than enough to change his plans. It seemed that Sage Dunbar had come up with a marketing idea that had the older man excited. Gabe appreciated excitement like everyone else … until it involved doing something he saw no need to do. Of all the other things Eden had going for it, adding some expensive dinner theater wouldn’t make or break the place. Besides, the people who would come to Eden would come first to ski and then to be entertained. So why not approach one of the restaurants about expanding their facilities to include such a theater. Instead of taking that approach, Sage Dunbar had come up with a proposal that called for actions that would require more time to complete and could delay the finished product by at least another four to six weeks. There were other projects lined up elsewhere for his men, although he admitted that none was as beneficial to the Regency Corporation’s bankroll. John Landmark had put out a lot of money to be kept happy. So the way Gabe saw it, if Landmark wanted the damn theater, he would get it. But Gabe certainly wasn’t happy about it and had a few choice words to say to the woman who had decided to suggest the changes in the first place. Her company had literally dropped the ball. What she was suggesting should have been part of the original marketing proposal presented in the very beginning before the architect had completed designing the resort.
Another issue he had with Ms. Dunbar was the fact that he found her so damn beautiful, even sitting at the table dressed in a conservative dark brown business suit. For the past four weeks he had tried getting her off his mind—even going to the extent of flying home to Detroit to bed another woman. But that hadn’t worked. He had spent the weekend in bed with Debbie thinking about Sage, and that hadn’t been good. Sleeping with one woman while his mind had been filled with fantasies of another was something that had never happened to him before. Unfortunately, Debbie had picked up on the fact that his concentration level wasn’t where it should be. To be fair to Debbie, he had suggested that they stop seeing each other for a while since he would be spending the majority of his time in Anchorage anyway. Debbie had agreed since she was the type of woman who wanted all of a man’s attention in bed and not just some of it.
So here he was, fighting an attraction for a woman that he didn’t want to become involved with. He wouldn’t balk at the opportunity to get to know her better if he was certain that she wasn’t on the rebound.
Yet he couldn’t stop the pounding in the center of his chest when he reached her table. He had thought of her often—although he hadn’t wanted to. But she would not get next to him, he assured himself. They were associates who worked together and nothing more. The only time they had spent together had been for