Satisfaction Guaranteed

by Lucy Monroe

  Beth tensed and the glare she’d been giving Ethan turned hotter than molten metal. Curiouser and curiouser.

  He turned slowly to face the newcomer, making it possible for Beth to come out from behind her desk. “Is she?”

  Hyatt smiled toward Beth. “Yes.”

  “You would know?”

  “Yes.”

  Now why that one bitty word should rub Ethan so wrong, he didn’t know. But it did. It also increased his already dangerous level of interest in Beth’s secrets to extreme risk levels. Which was probably why he found her so interesting. He liked risk. Thrived on it.

  Yes, that made sense.

  “Past history is not something we are going to discuss,” Beth said with an expression that was no doubt meant to intimidate, but in Ethan’s mind made her cute as hell.

  She was too darn innocent and free from violence to truly intimidate a man who was neither.

  “We aren’t?” he asked mildly.

  But she looked at Hyatt, not him, her dark eyes flashing a warning, before answering. “No, we are not.”

  “No, we are not,” Hyatt parroted with an irritating smile.

  “At all or ever,” she emphasized, “with this annoyance that calls himself an agent.”

  Didn’t she realize the more she fought him knowing what she sought to hide the more his predator’s instincts would be aroused? She spent enough time around agents that she should realize they weren’t tame or easily led.

  Hyatt measured Ethan up and down and then nodded. “Our past is a closed book as far as he’s concerned.”

  “As far as anyone is concerned.”

  Hyatt merely shrugged and if Beth missed the significance of that, Ethan didn’t. The other man wasn’t about to drop the issue of their shared past and that made Ethan even more determined to find out what it was.

  Beth grimaced, but nodded. “I’m off.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car.” Hyatt smiled, his expression reminding Ethan of a saying his grandmother used to utter.

  The man looked as happy as a donkey eating saw briars and Ethan just naturally resisted letting another man be that smug in his presence. “I’m leaving, too; may as well walk with you both.”

  Beth walked out of the building flanked by two of the sexiest and most dangerous men she’d ever known. For a woman who did not exactly command legions of male admirers, it was a heady if strange sensation. And being seriously annoyed with both of them did not diminish that feeling one iota.

  She thought she might know what was motivating Alan, despite his agreement to be nothing more than friends, but she didn’t get Ethan at all. She knew he had a bone-deep curiosity that made him a really good agent because he was so observant, but why be curious about her?

  Her past held pain and embarrassment for her, but certainly nothing that would or could interest a man like Ethan.

  He was the one who opened her car door for her, though, after she pressed the unlock button. The look he gave a clearly disgruntled Alan was pure one-upmanship and she couldn’t help laughing. She wasn’t exactly either of their types.

  Despite the fact that Alan had once claimed to love her, Beth had long since figured out her main attraction for him had been the fact that she was so serene and cozily domestic. He liked the contrast of coming home to her to the high-adrenaline life in the field as an agent. He’d even said as much once and she had been foolish enough to think that meant he was getting ready to truly settle down. That maybe the stress of fieldwork had started to get to him.

  She’d been spectacularly wrong and his signing on with TGP proved it.

  But both men were acting like a couple of alpha wolves marking territory. She supposed that was only natural when a new agent came on staff, for him to settle his boundaries, but she’d never had one use her to do it with before. And she found the whole experience downright hilarious.

  “When she laughs like that, you can’t help feeling she’s laughing at you, not with you,” Alan said with resignation.

  Ethan’s left brow rose in a gesture she’d never been able to perfect. “Are you laughing at us, Beth?”

  She grinned, tugging on her door. “Yes.”

  “Why is that, I wonder?”

  “Why are you holding my door?” she countered.

  “I’d say that was obvious. I’m not ready for you to leave yet.”

  “I’d say why I’m laughing is obvious, too.”

  “Maybe you’d better explain it anyway. I’m just a simple Texas boy. We don’t always get the subtle nuances in a situation,” he drawled, his accent exaggerated.

  If anything, her mirth doubled. The man was as far from simple as an expert-level Sudoku puzzle. “There’s nothing simple about you, Agent Crane, which is why I’m sure you’ll get the concept that if you don’t let go of my door, important messages might start getting mislaid. Messages from friends wanting to go skydiving, women hoping to see you again…that sort of thing.”

  “Never piss off the secretary,” Alan intoned with mock solemnity.

  “Central Administrative Agent,” Ethan corrected, looking far from worried.

  Beth tugged on her door again, but it didn’t move. She gave Ethan a pointed glance.

  “Tell me why you are laughing at us.”

  She shook her head at him, humor tinged with exasperation. “You’re both so intent on marking territory, you haven’t even stopped to consider that neither of you wants the thing you’re working so hard to pee a circle around.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Ethan asked.

  Her heart skipped a beat at the implication of his words before reason kicked in. She could so not afford to let her imagination go there. Alan was going through some sort of nostalgic feelings for her and apparently Ethan, swift observer that he was, had latched onto that fact. Like men the world over, he was getting entirely too much enjoyment out of pulling the other man’s chain.

  It was just another way to razz the new recruit.

  “I’m sure I want to leave,” she said in answer to his taunt. “I’ve got two kittens that are going to destroy another set of draperies I spent months trying to find if I don’t get home and feed them soon.”

  He smiled at that. “Then I had better let you go. Drive safely, Beth.”

  “I always do.”

  “See you tomorrow,” Alan added as Ethan gently closed her door for her and knocked on her window in salute.

  Beth arrived at her parents’ home bare minutes before she was supposed to sit down to dinner with them.

  Mozart and Beethoven had knocked over one of her Chinese planter pots and she’d had that mess to clean up, two rambunctious kittens to scold, and then she’d had to change into an outfit her mother would approve of for dinner at home. Her work gear wouldn’t cut it.

  Mother expected her to look feminine after office hours. Even for a simple family dinner. Though, as Beth had expected, it was not a private family dinner. They rarely were. Though this once-a-week ritual was something her mother had instituted when Beth had moved into her own condo, there was no attempt to make it a cozy night of domesticity.

  That was Beth’s tendency…it had never been either of her parents’. Tonight, they were also entertaining a senator’s aide and his new fiancée.

  “I knew you wouldn’t mind me inviting them to join us for dinner to celebrate the engagement,” Lynn Whitney said with a charming smile that had done more for her than most lobbyists’ arguments when influencing politicians.

  Beth returned it. “Of course not.”

  But spending the evening discussing wedding plans after coming face-to-face with her own spectacular failure in that regard was not Beth’s recipe for a relaxing evening.

  And when her mother went so far as to give advice based on her own experience with Beth’s “unfortunately aborted” wedding, Beth’s patience ran out.

  “You’ll never guess who is working for Dad now,” she said with a smile that would have done a crocodile proud.

  �
��Who, dear?” her mother asked while her father went rigid in his chair.

  Ah, so Mother hadn’t known? Somehow, she’d suspected that.

  “Alan Hyatt and he hasn’t changed a bit. You could have turned the clock back three years and not even noticed the difference.” Except that three years ago she’d been planning to marry him and now she was simply doing her best to deal with the revelation of having to work with him.

  Her mother’s eyes actually widened in shock while her mouth formed a perfect O of astonishment. “I thought he worked for the FBI.”

  “He did, but apparently Dad convinced him to take a chance on the State Department.”

  “You hired the man who stood your daughter up at the altar?” her mother demanded, for once her political mask stripped completely away.

  “I hired a man who is very good at his job, Lynn. It’s been three years.”

  “He stood you up at the altar?” the senator’s aide’s fiancée asked, her own eyes glittering with interest.

  “Yes.”

  “You mean he just never showed?” the other young woman asked, agog.

  “Never showed. Didn’t call to explain why until three days later. By then I had already returned most of the wedding gifts. I’m very efficient.”

  “And he’s still alive?” the senator’s aide asked with a laugh.

  “I practice a policy of nonaggression,” Beth said, tongue in cheek.

  “And you hired him?” the fiancée asked of Whit, her expression filled with appalled fascination.

  “Yes.”

  Sensing that her small dinner party was traveling into dangerous waters, Beth’s mother pulled herself together and changed the subject to one that had not a thing to do with weddings or jilted brides. And Beth breathed in relief.

  After dinner, she managed to get her father alone briefly and demanded, “So, why didn’t you warn me? It’s pretty obvious you didn’t tell Mom either.”

  “I have never shared my work with your mother. And you know that we don’t make the names of new agents known to other staff until all paperwork has been signed,” he said, making no pretense of not understanding exactly what Beth was talking about.

  “I’m not other employees, I’m your daughter.” Was it everyone in D.C., or just her parents who didn’t understand the meaning of family loyalty? “You didn’t even tell me we were getting a new recruit until this morning.”

  Unfortunately, she thought her parents fit the D.C. climate better than she did. There were a lot of politicians who talked great rhetoric about family values while spending almost no time with their own. Her mother worked with many of them and admired them, too. Sometimes Beth felt like she’d been born into the wrong world, but wasn’t sure how to find another one to inhabit.

  Were things different anywhere else?

  “And you expected me to bend rules for you?”

  “In this instance? Yes, I darn well did. The man stood me up at the altar. I had a right to know I was going to be working with him. That I would see him today.”

  “He had his reasons.”

  That wasn’t the point, but she didn’t expect her dad to get that. “So he said.”

  “And you refused to accept his explanation. So be it, but do not expect me to choose my agents based on personal considerations because that’s not the way I work.” It was the old party line for him…work came first, last, and always.

  She didn’t even try to argue that point.

  “I didn’t say anything about choosing your agents. I’m talking about the warning you owed me as your daughter that I would be in a potentially upsetting situation today.”

  “You told me you were over him. Were you upset?”

  “I am over him, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t startling and a little upsetting to come face-to-face with the man who jilted me at the altar.”

  Her dad’s gaze was calculating. “You felt nothing for him?”

  “If you brought him to work for you in an attempt at matchmaking, I guarantee you are going to be disappointed.”

  Something shifted in his expression. “I told you I don’t make work choices based on personal considerations.”

  “That I believe.”

  Whit sighed. “I thought bringing you to work for me would help you to see why I made the choices I did when you were growing up.”

  “I always knew why. And that’s not the issue here. You were wrong not to warn me you’d hired Alan. I’m your daughter and I deserved that little bit of consideration.”

  “He’s a good agent. I like him. I always did,” he said, once again skirting the real issue and focusing in on the job. “He can be relied on.”

  “He proved that without a shadow of a doubt on what would have been our wedding day, didn’t he? Nothing, not even getting married, could get in the way of an assignment.”

  “You might not admire that kind of dedication, but I do.”

  “I know you do.”

  “And you never have.”

  “You’re wrong. I do admire it, I just don’t think it mixes with family.”

  “Your mother did.”

  “Yes. You two were well matched.”

  “You’re our daughter.”

  “Are you absolutely sure I wasn’t switched at birth?” she joked.

  Instead of laughing, her dad looked pained. “Elizabeth…”

  She sighed. “Just kidding, Dad. Look, believe it or not, I didn’t intend to rehash old arguments.”

  “You’re angry with me for not warning you of Alan’s arrival,” he said on a sigh, finally acknowledging the real issue.

  “I always said you were a smart man.”

  “I didn’t think giving you advance warning would improve the situation.” Which was the truth, Whit thought.

  He’d wanted his daughter’s raw reaction to Alan to increase the probability factor of his own plans working out.

  He’d lied when he said he never let his personal life impinge on his work decisions. This time, he was in up to his eyeballs on a personal basis. If Alan weren’t an exemplary agent, it wouldn’t have worked, but he was and Whit had no reason to doubt his choice.

  His daughter had been running scared for too long. For a woman who wanted family more than he’d ever wanted the glory of thwarting enemies of his government, she was way too dedicated to her job. It was time she settled down.

  He and Lynn wanted grandchildren. They’d talked about it, but they were never going to get them if Elizabeth expended all her maternal energy on those two kittens she’d just adopted when she’d started feeling like the condo was too empty. Why hadn’t she thought of bringing another person into her home?

  Lynn thought she was gun-shy about relationships and marriage. He agreed, but he wasn’t willing to take his wife’s approach of letting Time be the great healer. Trying to fix her up with eligible men didn’t work either. His daughter was extremely strong minded when it came to some things and dating was one of them.

  But Elizabeth had had three long years and instead of opening up, she’d grown more wary. Less willing to accommodate another person in her life.

  She worked atrocious hours, but she dismissed his warnings in that regard as a joke. She could not take seriously that he of all people would really be telling her that she was too wrapped up in her job. But that was exactly what he thought.

  His absentee parenting and Lynn’s focus on her political causes instead of Elizabeth’s emotional welfare had taken a toll neither of them had seen until too late. Then the wedding fiasco had happened with Alan Hyatt and Elizabeth had withdrawn completely from the risk of any sort of relationships.

  She had few friends and held her coworkers at TGP at a distance so she didn’t make any more. He didn’t know what made his daughter tick, but she was his only child and he loved her, even if she’d never accept how much.

  But he had a plan to show her and that plan included getting himself some grandchildren. He’d always been one hell of a tactician and his daughter d
idn’t know it, but she was his most important case.

  He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when he instituted Step Two in the Plan.

  Chapter 3

  Beth walked into the briefing room, her mininotebook in one hand and a cup of mocha java light in the other. Six agents were in from the field, a pretty high number for their smallish agency, and she was prepared for a longer than normal briefing. Which meant being in close proximity to Ethan for longer than she’d like. Or rather longer than was good for her.

  She liked being in the same room with him way too much.

  She took her seat at one end of the long conference-style table and waited for the others to arrive. Ethan was the first one in. Of course. “Mornin’, Sunshine.”

  “Good morning, Ethan.” She kept her face averted, her attention ostensibly on her small computer monitor, but really she didn’t want him to see the blush that his casual endearment caused.

  He’d started calling her Sunshine soon after she began working for TGP. Other agents had picked it up, saying it fit her because of her sunny but shy smile. Only she never forgot that he was the first and, somehow, it always felt more personal coming from his mouth. It wasn’t like yesterday’s baby, but it was bad enough.

  Especially after the dreams she’d had the night before. It was bad enough that she couldn’t stop herself fantasizing about him, but now he’d taken over her subconscious, too. And her subconscious had no limits like her conscious mind. She’d woken up screaming from pleasure in the middle of the night and had to take a soothing shower before she could go back to sleep.

  “Have a nice dinner with your folks last night?” he asked in that whiskey-smooth voice that made her inner thigh muscles clench tighter than her Thigh Master.

  She squirmed inobtrusively, trying to ease the ache that never quite went away anymore. “Yes. Mother was entertaining a political protégé and his new fiancée.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  She looked up then to find his green gaze fixed on her and she had to fight the fear that he knew just what kind of effect he had on her. “If you consider an evening spent discussing the best way to procure a caterer and how far in advance the right church has to be booked for a wedding, then it was fun.”