to, despite his possessive tendencies. She’d shown herself to not be his puppet anymore.
All she told her family was that she wasn’t about to live on a deserted island that had no electricity or modern medical care. She hadn’t said a word about Claude; Eve had her pride.
Once she was sure Claude was out of the country, she’d moved to Halifax and talked her way into the construction business. She’d started off with only private clients before hiring on with Sullivan Construction and scraping her way up the ladder to project manager. She’d worked long and hard to get where she was.
And now, Claude was back. She’d never really known him, she now understood. She had no idea if he’d try to contact her again, or what his motives were for doing so in the first place. He’d signed the divorce papers years ago, and she’d assumed they were through. That rape whistle she’d blown in his ear should have been enough to convince him, the arrogant bastard.
She finished wriggling into her uncooperative pantyhose and zipped into her dress, checking the clock by her bed. She had to go pick up her “date” soon.
Eve smoothed her dress and stood up taller. If there was one important lesson she’d learned from the whole experience with Claude—and with her job—it was not to get involved with clever, ambitious, overly confident men. Not professionally, and definitely not personally. They were good at hiding their true natures behind a thin layer of charm.
And Matt Brison was charming.
He might be an architect, not a biologist, but brilliant was brilliant. The ego was there. The sense of self-entitlement. Deep down, on the level that mattered, he made Eve uneasy.
So why she’d agreed to accompany him to the fundraiser tonight she would never know, although it likely had a lot to do with her paycheck. If she wanted to remain on the City Hall project, Connor Sullivan had hinted, she’d better paste on a smile and pretend to be pleased.
She grabbed her shoes and her purse and sprinted down the stairs.
…
It was ten minutes past eight by the time she parked in the hotel’s gloomy, underground parking garage.
She examined her makeup in the rearview mirror one last time before climbing out of the car and hitching down the tight skirt of her black dress. She wished she’d had something more conservative to wear than a dress her brothers had given her as a joke for her twenty-ninth birthday. They said it was to help her catch a man before she became an old woman of thirty.
She’d rather catch a bad cold.
The dank smell of sweating cement and automobile fumes ambushed her as she tottered to the elevators. The sound of her high heels tapping on concrete echoed eerily throughout the empty parking garage. Eve tried not to think about the long shadows and dark corners created by the inadequate overhead lighting, and breathed a small sigh of relief when the elevator doors slid closed behind her.
There was no doubt about it. The phone call from Claude had left her nervous and on edge, and that just made her angrier. If she got to pick her next life, she was coming back as a man. A huge, hairy one.
The elevator doors hummed open. She stepped into the hotel lobby, crossed to the front desk, and asked the clerk to call Matt’s room to let him know his ride was waiting. She reminded herself she was a professional and to act like one, then caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror and had an uneasy addendum to that thought.
Did this dress make her look like the wrong kind of professional?
Matt’s gaze wandered around the lobby, then lingered appreciatively on the mirrored reflection of a woman standing near one of the potted plants.
Recognition snagged his insides. It couldn’t be.
The thick mass of auburn hair was now twisted in a smooth knot and pinned at her crown. A light touch of makeup emphasized large eyes and long, dark lashes, and her plump lips demanded his attention. She wore a black dress that clung to her curves. The dress fit her perfectly, granted, but it showed a lot of leg—and she had great legs.
Matt’s mouth went dry. Somehow he doubted those high heels had steel toes.
She watched him approach with an air of hesitation about her that disarmed him even more.
She held out a hand to greet him. That handshake put them right back on a professional footing and reminded him