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His gaze landed on Elizabeth. And everything inside him went instantly cold. Hardened.
Not sensations a red-blooded, single man wanted to experience when staring at a beautiful woman. But an inevitability when it came to this particular woman.
Elizabeth had blonde hair and delicate features. She was of the porcelain-to-be-viewed-behind-expensive-and-locked-cases variety versus the free-spirited, fiery, and touchable category under which Maxi easily fell.
After all he’d shared with Maxi in such a short period of time, Ryan couldn’t even fathom how he’d thought he’d been in love with Elizabeth. How he’d fallen for all of her shallow-minded opinions and social-ladder-climbing strategies.
What the hell had he been thinking?
He wasn’t exactly sure. Except that he’d lived in a fast-paced world in DC, where being in the know, having your finger on the pulse, and rubbing elbows with the elite and influential were excellent ways to secure your future. Personally and professionally.
If you were someone as image-obsessed as Elizabeth Sherman, that was.
Ryan shoved back his chair and stood, not at all happy with the intrusion.
She said, “It appears as though you have a few minutes to spare. You’ve not quite finished your sandwich. Pastrami and Swiss on rye? Lots of calories there, Ryan.”
And those calories came with the perfect complement of a spicy mustard. Maxi had turned him on to Fitch’s Deli his first day at work, and he was hooked.
That woman knew all the right buttons to push—in the most tantalizing way.
Too bad it wasn’t Maxi who’d crossed the threshold into his office. Rather, Elizabeth had darkened his doorway.
His assistant, Anne, made a discreet exit. Elizabeth crossed to his desk.
“I don’t recall inviting you in,” Ryan said. His nature was not to be rude, but when it came to being publicly humiliated by his fiancée in a roomful of his peers, Ryan tended to hold on to the slight.
“Now, Ryan, dear,” she said in her soft, cultured tone. “Let’s be civil with each other.” She removed her gloves and waited for him to come around his desk and help her out of her fur coat.
Every fiber of his being fought his impeccable manners. Especially since he didn’t owe this woman an ounce of good conduct. What she’d done to him had even sent shudders through his closest friends, Nate, Ted, and Liam. The looks that had flashed in their eyes when Elizabeth had cut him down in order to make herself appear mightier…well, it was a wonder the woman dared to show her face around any of them. Especially Ryan.
But that was Elizabeth. She didn’t deign to fall victim to her own viciousness. She left her wounds—and didn’t think twice about it when crossing paths with the casualties of war. Or inflicting even more pain upon them.
However, Ryan was not a part of her world any longer and therefore did not have to subscribe to her tactics. Why he had done so in the first place was still beyond him. Except that Elizabeth was highly skilled in drawing people into her web. Then sucking them dry.
Like a black widow.
He said, “I don’t believe I have to be civil when you’ve entered my territory. Unwelcomed, no less.”
Her pale-pink lips pressed together in apparent disapproval of his comment. Then she told him, “I still don’t understand what you’re doing here. You could be working at the Pentagon right now.”
“And I just might work for the Pentagon a year or two from now. That’s not an issue, currently. There were five MIT graduates equally qualified for the contracted job the government offered to me. A top candidate landed the position when I declined it. And here I am, doing something I find invaluable.”
“Ryan,” she said as she propped her hands on her bony hips. “Solving a shoe-shipping crisis is not invaluable work. In fact, I’m embarrassed beyond all belief that you agreed to help Staci Kay.”
“Really?” he challenged, ire riding the rush of blood in his veins. “Staci Kay was not only your patient, but a friend. She’s hardworking, driven, and committed to her employees and her customers. She could have lost her entire business, everything she has. What is it about Staci Kay that is so unseemly that you shunned me for wanting to help her?”
Elizabeth’s small face twisted in angst. “This is so beneath you, Ryan. And for God’s sake—how do you think it makes me look in front of the hospital Board? My family? My friends? We were engaged. You had this brilliant career and future ahead of you. Then you threw it all away. For what? A global shortage of high heels?”
“Screw the hospital Board, your family, and your friends,” Ryan said with equal disdain. “Because none of them are exactly solving world peace, now, are they? So who are they to judge me? Until one of you cures cancer, I don’t think that all of the work I’ve done for the space program, the Climate Prediction Center, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other agencies—along with Staci Kay Shoes—is so feeble it should be looked down upon from your snooty perches.”
“Ryan!” Elizabeth’s voice bounced off the walls.
Another shock, because he’d never heard her tone rise beyond a delicate decibel. Though he now recognized that biting, condescending tone. She tossed off the fur coat draped over her shoulders and stalked forward, to the very edge of his desk. “Your problem is that you have this unruly side of you that does not fit in polite society. But lucky for you, I’m willing to overlook it. That’s why I’m here.”
Her gaze locked with his.
She commanded, “Quit this ridiculous job, come back to DC, marry me, and work at the goddamn Pentagon where you belong.”
