Lucy Monroe - Satisfaction Guaranteed

“After last night, our relationship is not a potential. It’s a done deal,” Ethan bit out, sounding offended.

“You know I care about you,” Alan added, managing to inject injury into his voice.

She wondered which neck she’d rather wring first.

“Was a conference called that I’m unaware of?” her dad asked from behind Ethan as he walked up.

Beth turned her ire on him. As far as she was concerned, his actions had spawned the whole sorry mess. “No conference, just a couple of your agents stepping out of line. Care to rein them in?”

Both Alan and Ethan stiffened in affront, but her dad’s eyes glittered with a suspicious triumph. “Is that right? What are they stepping out of line about?”

“My private life.” This time her frown was mostly for Ethan. “Some men have not learned to adhere to the adage of kiss and don’t tell.”

“I didn’t say a word about kissing,” Ethan drawled.

Beth had never had homicidal tendencies. She only knew how to shoot a gun because it had been required in her training. But right now, she could cheerfully have shot him…or at least threatened to.

“Face it, Sunshine,” Ethan went on, obviously ignorant of his bodily peril. “Right now…I am your private life.”

“And if I shoot you? What are you then?” she asked sweetly.

“Was she always this bloodthirsty?” Ethan asked Alan.

“I don’t remember that particular trait, but it could have been latent.” Alan shrugged. “Maybe you bring it out in her.”

“Maybe you both do,” she inserted.

“So, this is a bad time to ask if you’ll have lunch with me today…for old time’s sake,” Alan said.

“She’s having lunch with me.” Ethan’s voice dared Beth and/or Alan to argue.

Which she promptly did. “I don’t remember agreeing to lunch and I certainly have no intention of doing so now.”

“You’re not eating lunch with Hyatt.”

“I’m not?” she asked neutrally.

“She’s not?” her dad asked, his voice laced with amusement that scored her nerves like nails on a chalkboard.

“She’s not?” Alan asked, his own voice dangerously soft.

Ethan crossed his arms, his stance one of absolute purpose. “We need to discuss the case.”

Beth took perverse and delighted pleasure in thwarting him. “I need to get the new admin as up to speed as I’m able and according to my e-mail, she’s going to arrive any minute. I plan to spend the lunch hour with her.”

Her dad had been busy and she’d thought again that he could have warned her he’d been prepared to act quickly. Apparently, he’d already screened applicants for the job and the new hire had accepted sometime yesterday.

“Another time,” Alan said.

Ethan’s eyes narrowed to green slits. “She’ll be busy on the case.”

“The case won’t last forever,” Alan replied, his voice laced with meaning-the implication being that the relationship would last only as long as the case.

“What you two had is over. Accept it.”

Beth could not believe Ethan had just said that.

Neither could her father, if his expression was anything to go by. “She told you about their past?”

“Yes,” Ethan replied shortly to Whit and then focused on Alan again. “You blew it. It’s over. Forget about rekindling old flames because I’m here to put them out.”

“For how long?”

“That’s between Beth and me. Whatever you two had in the past has no bearing on the present.”

“And if I’m not willing to accept that?”

“I don’t plan to give you a choice in the matter.”

Okay. That was it. She was dreaming. Men like Ethan did not have these kinds of discussions. He wasn’t the type to kiss and tell. Which made his comments all the more jarring to her. Nor was he the type to announce his most recent liaison to the office staff. He was too suave…not some primitive Neanderthal who warned other men off what he considered his woman.

Definitely a dream. Because even primitive men didn’t have this sort of discussion over her. Not Beth Whitney, who would have made an ideal small-town librarian in another life.

The dream had started yesterday morning when her dad practically ordered her to take an agent’s role in a case. That just wasn’t normal either. No…maybe it had started when Alan showed up in front of her desk and her dad said he was the new hire. Yes, she liked that scenario better. She nodded to herself. That’s definitely when she’d started dreaming.

So, he wasn’t here. Neither was Ethan. It was all just a really involved, really long dream. And she should wake up any second now to two hungry furballs and an apartment that had never been invaded by Ethan Crane.

“Are you okay, Sunshine?” the dream Ethan asked.

The dream Alan’s brows furrowed. “She looks odd.”

“Elizabeth.” That was not a tone she liked hearing in her dreams and she frowned her disapproval.

She let her gaze slide to her dad. “I’m dreaming and I want you all to disappear right now. There are other ways I prefer to spend my fantasy time.”

The dream office environment did not dissolve to make way for a more pleasant subconscious exercise in imagination.

And all three men now looked at her with varying levels of concern.

Until Ethan’s face creased with a slow, knowing smile, his green eyes lit with wicked lights. “This isn’t a dream, Sunshine. Neither was last night. You’re no longer fantasizing your way through life. You are living it.”

“Last night?” her father asked in an ominous voice, as if he’d just gotten the implication of all that Ethan had been saying.

Ethan shrugged. “We’re working together, Whit. Don’t get in the way.”

“She’s my daughter.”

“And you assigned her to my case. Live with it.”

The outer office door opened and Bennett Vincent walked in, an older woman following him. “I’ve brought down the new hire like you said to, boss.”

The lines on the woman’s face declared she was easily in her sixties, but her fiery orange hair and lively expression said she was far from retirement. She gave the men a once-over, sizing each one up with keen blue eyes before nodding briskly toward Beth. “I’m Maude and I hear I’ve got two days to learn my job before you go gallivanting. My favorite kind of challenge, but we’d better get to it, missy.”

Maude had the voice of a drill sergeant and for some reason, that struck Beth as hilariously funny. She burst into laughter. If the sound was a bit hysterical, she could be forgiven. No way was this a dream because this woman had too much presence not to be real. Which meant everything else was real too. Darn.

She’d almost convinced herself otherwise.

Maude nodded approvingly, her head moving in a single bob of military precision. “I like to work with a woman who has a sense of humor.”

Beth got her mirth under control and stuck her hand out, relieved her unrestrained humor had not offended her new assistant. “Beth Whitney. It’s a pleasure to meet you. As you said, we’ve got a lot to do…”

She turned to the men standing around her desk. “If you will excuse us, gentlemen.” Then without waiting to see if they took the hint, she dismissed them by turning toward Maude. “We’ll start by familiarizing you with my setup. We’ll train you on my computer system and then set you up with your own when I get back from my upcoming assignment.”

“Sounds efficient.”

And Beth got the distinct impression that to Maude, that was high praise. Beth launched into an explanation of her early morning routine to which the older woman listened to avidly. However, part of Beth was attuned and waiting for the men to leave. She didn’t know when her dad and Alan left, but she could tell when Ethan did. The air around her stopped crackling.