The Billionaire's Secretive Enchantress Page 0,1

and, all too quickly, her father was leading the handsome stranger in the opposite direction. When the two disappeared into the house, heading towards her father’s office, Sierra felt her heart melt because the only people who went into her father’s office were underlings or business associates. Either option was…unfortunate.

She felt her body deflate as if it were a balloon, disappointment at the reality that the one man she’d met who looked fascinating, who instantly made her heart race with excitement simply because he was close by, was nothing more than a minion or yet another petty criminal in a pathetic army of unintelligent, irresponsible brutes.

In the past, she had tried very hard to love her father, but it was difficult when she completely disagreed with everything he stood for. The man had built an empire on crime and brutality and the more she discovered about his business enterprises, the less she respected him.

It wasn’t even that he brought the brutality home. After her mother’s death from cancer when she was two, Sierra and her sister had basically been raised by nannies. Her father was negligent at the best of times.

But that one man, with his tall, confident stride, his square jawline and intelligent looking eyes, he’d been different! Surely he couldn’t be…

She stopped commiserating her loss when she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye.

Why were three of her father’s men walking towards his office? And why the rush?

She stared at the door through which her father and the stranger had disappeared, trying to tell herself not to worry. Something told her to go through that door, to stop…whatever was happening inside that dreaded office. But one of her older cousins chose that moment to come over and tease her about school, obviously trying to distract her from what might be happening.

She kept up the chatter but her awareness of the ongoing conversation never left her mind. Looking around at the cluster of men surrounding the bar, she didn’t like the way they were all watching the door either. It looked like several of them were expecting something dramatic to happen, something that might be hazardous to one’s health. Specifically, the man’s health who had disappeared with her father.

But they’d gone into her father’s office! That was supposed to be the place he discussed business. She was fairly certain her father didn’t condone violence so near to his house. Sierra was under the impression that he maintained a distance from those kinds of activities, even if he might be the man who ordered the violence.

She kept her eye on the doorway to her father’s office, wondering if there was some way she could intervene. Maybe if she just pretended to be a ditzy female, stepped in with a silly question for her father, she might catch a glimpse of what was going on inside. Perhaps she could stop anything that could be going wrong? She’d never done something like that before, nor had her father ever allowed her in his office. If he wanted to speak with her, he came to the main house. It was a well-known fact that his office space was forbidden territory. So if she were to do that, his wrath would come down hard on her head.

As she contemplated the situation, she knew that she didn’t care what happened to herself. The man that had been lured into her father’s office was innocent. She had absolutely no way to know this, but she instinctively knew it was the case. Would her conscience allow her to ignore what might be happening simply because she was afraid of the repercussions?

No. She’d never forgive herself if she didn’t do something to stop the brutality despite her shaking hands and rapidly beating, terrified heart.

She stood beside the pool, the heat of the sunshine beating down on her head, as she struggled to come up with a reasonable, or even an unreasonable excuse, for interrupting her father’s conference. While she debated the issue, two more of her father’s men must have received some sort of signal because both of them started hurrying towards her father’s office and Sierra didn’t like the looks of things. The two men appeared worried, anxious even and that raised her anxiety level even higher. When these men were anxious, bullets started flying. Their idea of diplomacy was to shoot all moving objects first and sort out the problem later. Dead bodies were merely a hindrance, not a hazard.

She tried to step