Desire by Design - By Paula Altenburg Page 0,1

could finish her lecture. “It doesn’t sound very attractive coming from me, does it?”

The burly foreman shrugged his hairy shoulders and gave her a gap-toothed grin. “Actually, it’s kind of a turn-on.”

She might have known she was wasting her time trying to prove a point to this group.

“Jeez, Eve,” one of the carpenters complained. “First you paint mustaches on all the girls in the Port-a-Potty calendar, then you mark which ones have implants. Now, you won’t let us admire what’s right under our noses?” He cast a wistful look down the street, but the girl in the halter-top had disappeared around a corner. “And I’m pretty sure those weren’t implants, either.”

True, Eve had defaced their calendar. But only because they hadn’t noticed that there was a woman working on-site who had to use that Port-a-Potty, too. To them, she was just a really short, skinny guy.

Without implants.

She dropped her hands to her hips and offered a compromise. “Tell you what… If you guys stop with the whistling, I’ll quit drawing on the calendar.”

Having established a mutually satisfying agreement, Eve hiked back to the trailer, repositioned herself in her chair, and propped her size-five, steel-toed work boots on the battered desktop. She twirled a studded earring in a nervous habit she couldn’t seem to break. She had more important things to worry about than men being boys on a job site. She had to submit an update on the status of this nearly completed federal project, which was why she was on a construction site today and not in her office at Sullivan Construction.

She also had to straighten out the mess Halifax’s megalomaniac mayor was making of the upcoming City Hall project. Just another day in the life, she thought. She’d had high hopes that her role as designer on the City Hall building would lead to more complex projects when it was finished. She already ran a nice little side business designing and renovating upscale private homes. At twenty-nine years of age—and as a woman in a male-dominated industry—those were no small achievements.

But Bob Anderson didn’t seem to agree and was driving her nuts with his input. Worse, he kept volunteering her for pro bono charity projects around the city as if she were his personal construction assistant and she had nothing better to do with her spare time. At the moment, he had her working on renovations for an Internet café for teens. How could she say no to helping out with a youth program?

Killing Bob might be her only means of escape.

She sighed and turned her attention back to her computer screen, the work crew and the handsome guy in the Italian suit already forgotten.

Matt Brison had been around enough construction sites throughout his career that not much about them surprised him anymore, but having one of the workers whistle at him was a definite first.

At least she was cute. He wondered if that was the “annoying as hell” project manager he’d been hearing so much about from his uncle. If so, she had quite the rapport with the crew…and would be an interesting nut to crack.

His steps slowed as he neared the wall separating the construction site from the rest of the world, and he forgot all about being whistled at as he took in the project. He scanned the new four-story, ironstone structure with an architect’s eye. It was staid, refined, and predictable, and without a doubt, suited its genteel, Georgian surroundings. Oak trees lined the neighborhood streets, filtering sunlight and shading sidewalks. Enormous lilac bushes sprawled against rolling green lawns, and the tangy scent of fresh-cut grass lingered on the thick, humid air.

Matt rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand. While he admired the historic feel of Halifax, his international reputation was based on modern, innovative design. Honesty compelled him to admit that his work wasn’t suitable for this small, East Coast seaport. He wished with all his might that he’d been able to say no when asked to design its new City Hall, but his uncle never asked Matt for favors, so the project must be important to him.

“We want to bring Halifax into the twenty-first century,” he had said when he’d asked Matt to fly down from Toronto and meet with the construction company that had been given the contract. “We want the world to know we’re moving forward into the future. And you’re just the man to prove it. I wouldn’t trust it to anyone else.”

The sentiment was perhaps admirable—and