I can’t get that damned woman out of my head and I’m starting to lose concentration both at work and at home. Every time I push my thoughts of her away and try to focus on the task at hand, she worms her way back into my head, stronger and more insistent than the last time. If this keeps happening, she is going to be completely consuming my thoughts before long.
Last night, I put a pan of spaghetti on. I sat down to check a few emails while it boiled, and somehow, Sierra got into my head again. By the time I remembered what I was supposed to be doing, I had the subject line of one email written, nothing else. And my pan had boiled completely dry.
It’s driving me absolutely crazy. I’ve never ever been with a woman that stays in my head for this long. I don’t think I’ve ever been with a woman who could get into my head at any time of the day or night, regardless of what I’m doing. I know I haven’t. I’ve always made sure I didn’t get attached that way. I’ve never wanted to before, and I believed I had made the decision not to. I always assumed I was strong enough to resist the ridiculous love sick urges other people seemed so quick to succumb to.
Now I know I had it all wrong. I was never strong, never resisting anything. I had just never met anyone I felt strongly enough about to want to think about them when I wasn’t with them. It turns out, I’m just as bad as everyone else about separating my emotions and sealing them off when it comes to someone I’ve grown to care about.
I know I have to find a way though. Sierra and I can’t be together, so there’s no point in me dwelling on thoughts of her. It’s not achieving anything except distracting me and making me miserable.
I’ve spent the entire week relying on Sandy more and more while avoiding Sierra at all costs. It’s not enough though. Knowing she’s out there, just on the other side of a wall that no longer seems thick enough, is still enough to make me wonder what if. It’s still enough to send me on fool’s errands to retrieve things I don’t need, or to go and talk to someone I don’t need to talk to, just to get a glimpse of her. And every time I do get a glimpse of her, I go back to square one, thinking about our time together.
My phone rings and I manage to focus long enough on something other than Sierra to take the call and answer my client’s question. I end the call, determined to carry on working while I feel a little more focused. I start to fill in an online order form for some fabric we need for one of our designs. As I fill in the sizes, there’s a knock on my office door.
“Yeah,” I call.
The door opens and Sierra walks in.
Instantly, any notion I had of being able to concentrate on anything except my thoughts of her vanishes. She gives me an uncertain smile that makes my heart ache. I don’t want her to feel like she’s done something wrong. She hasn’t. This is all my issue, not hers.
I know she must be feeling some of the awkwardness though. I mean she must have noticed that I’m directing all of my communications with my assistants through Sandy now, something that was unheard of before last week. And if she was pissed off about that, she wouldn’t have held back from telling me about it. Maybe she’s feeling the same inner turmoil as I am. Maybe she’s relieved that I’ve put this wall up and put some distance between us.
She comes forward and stands before my desk, not speaking for a moment.
I see a flicker of something cross her face. Something that looks awfully like the lust I saw in her eyes at Moorfield Mansion. I clear my throat although there’s nothing there to be cleared away, a habit I seem to have formed in the last week. Something I do to try and bring my mind into focus when I feel it slipping away again. “What can I do for you Sierra?” I ask.
Other than give you multiple orgasms and make you go wild with desire all night long.
“I just wanted to let you know I’ve had to reschedule your Monday morning meeting to Wednesday afternoon,” she says. “Something came up at the client’s end, something he couldn’t rearrange.” Her tone is business like, her sentences short and clipped like always.
Obviously, she’s doing a much better job of forgetting our time together than I am. Or she’s a damned good actress. I’m not sure which.
“Okay, thank you.” I turn back to my computer, content to leave it at that, needing her out of my office. Her proximity is making it even harder to focus on anything except her and I just need her gone.
“Chance?” she says.
I force myself to keep my face neutral as I look at her. “Yes?” I say, purposely keeping my tone business like, trying to match her composure.
“Nothing,” she says, shaking her head and giving me a sad smile. She turns and starts towards the door.
In that moment, I feel it. She’s not handling this better than I am; she’s just a better actor than I am. I know she’s happy for me to be avoiding her because she feels the same way I do. It makes the whole situation that much sadder. If I couldn’t get her out of my head, but she was totally over us, then I could accept that. But knowing she wants this too, kills me.
“Sierra, wait,” I say.
I’m standing up as she turns around.
