“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.