“Just doing my job.”
“Well, thank you. Have a great weekend.”
“You too, Ms. Sterling.”
Sandy left and Tara got to work, reading over the report and making notes to herself of which sites had the biggest upside, in order to narrow her choices. She wanted to go to Grant with the best possible project, one that would bowl him over and hopefully convince him that she had what it took to be great at her job. She glanced at the clock on her computer when she was finished. It was already nearly six. She got up out of her seat to stretch, knowing it was time for her to call it a day and head home. She should be out on her balcony right now, gazing at the ocean and drinking a glass of wine. The only trouble was there wasn’t anything or anyone waiting for her at home. Just like there hadn’t been in so long.
“One more thing,” she muttered to herself, plopping back down in her seat and opening up the binder for the Seaport project. She carefully scanned the pages of their draft proposal, getting more excited about presenting it to the city next week. Yes, she was biased, but she was proud of the work they’d done. It was innovative and smart. Surely it would be a slam dunk for them to pass this first round and move on to the finals where the sizable field of developers would be whittled down to three. Then they would take feedback from the city, make revisions and submit a final plan.
She was just about to close the binder when something caught her eye—a detail so essential it would have been impossible to miss—the orientation of the buildings on the site. It could be windy down by the water, and the city had been specific with what they wanted.
Tara could’ve sworn that the original spec information had said they wanted buildings facing to the northwest. But this said southwest. She flipped back and forth, between the pages from the city and the small-scale renderings Clay had done—all of which faced the northwest, the wrong direction.
Tara shot up out of her seat, grabbed her phone and marched down the hall. She’d worried that something could go wrong with this project at any moment. She just hadn’t expected it would be now. Six fifteen in the evening on a Friday, with only a week until presentation day. The office was eerily quiet. Almost everyone had gone home. She wound her way around to Clay’s office, hoping this was all a mistake. Maybe the drawings in the binder were old. Except that didn’t make sense at all. Everything had always been to the northwest. Her original concept had been that way. Was this all her fault?
She knocked on Clay’s door, but there was no answer. She rattled the doorknob and it was locked. Her heart was pounding, her pulse racing so fast it made it hard to think. But she had to do exactly that. Sandy. She pulled up her assistant’s number, but it only rang once before going to voice mail. “Dammit.” Tara looked to her right and then to her left. The light was still on in Grant’s office. He was her only hope.
She drew in a deep breath and steeled herself for his reaction. She had wanted so badly for this project to go perfectly. She had wanted Grant to see her as fully capable, not just the woman who’d had a sizable chunk of a company land in her lap. This would have been an easier conversation a month ago, when she and Grant were still enjoying the warmth of their friendship. But everything had gone cold, all because of sex.
Tara barged into Grant’s office like a tornado in heels. “We have a problem.”
Yes, we do. Grant nearly uttered the words out loud, but he knew better. He was having little luck getting used to the idea of them being nothing more than colleagues. It had been three weeks of that exercise, and Grant felt as though he was experiencing the slowest, most painful death possible. It killed him to be around her. It killed him to keep her at a distance, but that was what was required. “I was just about to head home. Maybe we can talk about this on Monday?” He shuffled papers on his desk so that he wouldn’t have to look at her. He’d damn near perfected the art of avoiding the vision of her. In meetings where she was present, he’d stare at documents, and when she dropped by his office, he typically resorted to directing his attention to his computer. Anything to avoid looking at what he couldn’t have.
Tara dropped a large binder on his desk with a thud. Grant jumped. He couldn’t help it. It wasn’t like her to be so forceful. The cover of the folder said Seaport Promenade. “Grant. I’m serious. We have a crisis. And I need you to look at me. We need to talk. Now.”
He begrudgingly did as she asked, his sights traveling from her hands and up her toned arms, to her sculpted shoulders, graceful neck and ultimately to that face. The one he had no answer for. He didn’t know why looking at her made him feel so powerless, but it did. Her lips were ridiculously kissable right now, even when the corners were turned down with an expression that spoke of nothing but being unhappy. “Yeah. Okay. You have my full and undivided attention.” Even if it kills me.
“I made a mistake with the Seaport project. A big one.”
“So fix it. You still have a week. This stuff happens all the time. It’s always a fire drill when you’re at the finish line.”
She shook her head slowly from side to side, as if she
