The first book in the Goddard Project series

When the subjects of Beth Whitney’s favorite fantasy and worst living nightmare walked through the office door together, the day from hell took a nosedive.

And really, that shouldn’t be possible. Only Beth’s shocked vision was telling her that it was. In Technicolor.

It wasn’t bad enough that she’d woken extra early to avoid the alarm clock only to discover that rather than sleeping like good kittens, Mozart and Beethoven had spent the night shredding the perfect silk drapes she’d installed on her condo’s living room window only a month ago. The toaster had burned her bagel, and her mom had called with yet another candidate in her campaign to rejuvenate Beth’s nonexistent love life. All before eight-thirty A.M., and her arrival at work hadn’t improved a thing.

Her in-box had been filled with the usual urgent requests, but two messages had sent her head spinning. They were hiring a new agent and her boss wanted the new recruit’s office ready by early afternoon. And Ethan Crane was back from his latest assignment and working out of the home office for the foreseeable future. Which meant that she was back to catching glimpses of him that sparked erotic fantasies no good girl would admit to…even to her very best friend. Even to her cat.

And he would tease her…just like he always did, making her notice him. Upping feelings she’d rather pretend did not exist and none of which she would ever allow herself to act on. Not only was the man way out of her league, but he was all wrong for her. He was an agent. He was also too sexy for words and the one man she didn’t think would balk at her most secret daydreams.

She balked at them though.

They scared her to death. Almost as much as he did. And there he was.

Maybe she should have let her mom fix her up with Mr. Eligible. Beth needed some kind of diversion to stop her body reacting so strongly to Ethan’s presence.

The only problem was, no other man measured up. Not even her worst waking nightmare. If seeing her former fiancé for the first time in three years could not tamp down her body’s response to Ethan, nothing would.

Following the two men and wearing a look of benign benevolence she knew was a better cover than sand camouflage in the desert was her father. He was also her boss, which was why she didn’t leap from her chair and demand to know why in the heck he hadn’t seen fit to warn her of Alan’s arrival.

Okay, so it wasn’t as disturbing as Ethan’s, but her dad had no way of knowing that. For all he knew, seeing her former fiancé for the first time in years was shredding her wounded heart. She almost laughed at the image that thought provoked. Her dad was neither maudlin, nor poetic.

She would settle for marginally sensitive, but that seemed a far off dream, too.

All three men were talking and didn’t notice her reaction to their arrival. Thank goodness. Her dad saw far too much as it was. She managed to school her expression into a cool smile just as Ethan’s green gaze landed on her.

Even mentally prepared for it, her heart ran wild and the secret desires she’d been fighting since coming to work for her father nearly two years ago pooled low in her belly.

However, she managed to keep her breathing and her voice relatively even as she said, “Good afternoon, gentlemen. Ethan, you have two critical messages on your voicemail and a follow-up on e-mail. I assume you had your phone off during lunch?”

The subject of her most private fantasies smiled in a way that always sent shivers to interesting, if embarrassing, places. “We didn’t want to be interrupted.”

Darn.

“I assume I’ve got a few messages that can’t wait either.” Her dad’s faintly narrowed gray gaze said he’d noted her slight in dealing with Ethan’s stuff first.

Good. She’d meant to annoy him. Not unduly. She was a professional after all, but there was no way that he could not know that he should have warned her that he was bringing Alan Hyatt into the office. Only as usual, he’d ignored her feelings and done things his own way, no doubt with some scheme in mind. He never did anything without a plan, but whatever it was, she had no intention of falling in with it.

She and Alan were done. Period.

A man who stood you up at the altar did not deserve second chances. And if her dad could not see that then he was blinder than she’d always believed. A man that vision impaired shouldn’t even have a license to drive. And she’d tell him that, too, when she got a chance.

Right now, she would do her best to project professional decorum. “Yes, Mr. Whitney. You have several messages, but the most pressing is probably the one from the White House.”

His jaw clenched. He hated it when she called him that. He agreed she couldn’t call him “Dad” in the office, but he insisted she at least use “Whit” like the agents did. When she called him “Sir,” he knew she was annoyed. When she called him “Mr. Whitney,” he knew he was in deep trouble.

His eyes were acknowledging that truth now. Smart man.

“I’ll leave you to show Alan to his new office while I go take care of it then,” he said.

“He’s working here?” she asked, her composure cracking slightly as the reality of why the other man was with her father sank in. “He’s the new agent?”

“That’s right,” her dad affirmed with subtle punitive relish. “I’m sure you’ll do a fine job of making him feel welcome.”

She’d make someone feel welcome…like the State Department’s internal auditor…in her dad’s private files. Her eyes glittered with promise her dad chose to ignore as he bid the two agents a good afternoon and headed to his own office.

Oh, he was so going to hear about this later.

“If you’re busy, I can show Hyatt his new digs,” Ethan offered as the silence stretched on after her dad’s hasty exit.

She looked up at him and then at Alan, her usually quick thought processes sluggish in the face of a situation she’d never, ever, not in a million years and a day, expected to face. Her dad had hired the man who had humiliated her in front of friends, family, and political hangers-on.

“Are you too busy, Beth?” Alan asked, his dark eyes probing, his tone implying more to the words than was on the surface.

He was tall, dark, and dangerously attractive. He knew it too, but for a while she had been someone special to him and vice versa. If he really was going to be working for The Goddard Project (TGP), then she would have to learn how to deal with his daily presence. She might as well start now.

Besides…it might be a good idea to set a few things straight. She didn’t know what her dad had told Alan about her, but whatever it was, she wanted him to know the truth.

Their past would stay in the past.

She smiled at Ethan, though her jaw felt like cracking from the effort. “Thanks, but it’s fine. This is part of my job. And you have phone messages to answer.”

Ethan nodded, but didn’t turn to go immediately. His green gaze was locked on her with disturbing intensity, as if he was trying to see inside of her to that place she kept hidden from everyone else. She couldn’t imagine why. As far as she knew, the sandy-haired, to-die-for good-looking agent considered her a talking piece of office furniture.

And that was exactly the way she wanted it, too. “Did you need anything else?”

Ethan shook his head and turned to leave, no indication of discomfort at being caught staring in his manner. His tall, muscle-honed frame moved off down the corridor with easy grace she both admired and envied. The man was too confident for words. And too much of everything else besides.