Larry swiped a hand through his hair, looking both embarrassed and defiant. “You should have called. You always call first.”
Elena gaped at him. “I should have called? Excuse me, but I work here, too. I don’t need your permission to come by the office after hours, Larry.” She ran a scathing eye over him. “It figures that the first time I do, this is what I find. You, in a sweaty clutch with the office intern. It’s so cliché that it’s actually pathetic. What if someone else had seen you? You both could be fired for this.”
“I think I’m in love with her,” he blurted, then swiped a hand across his face. “I mean, I know I’m in love with her. I am in love with her.”
Elena’s mouth fell open, but no words came out. She stared at him, speechless.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, clearly uncomfortable. “I didn’t mean for you to find us—to find out like this.” He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced toward his office where he’d left Claire. “It’s just that—”
“What?” Elena asked sarcastically. “I wasn’t willing to spread myself across your desk? To fulfill your naughty little fantasies? Maybe I would have done it, Larry. Maybe all you had to do was ask, but now you’ll never know what I might have done, will you?”
To Elena’s dismay, Larry’s face grew tight. “I never asked, because I already knew what the answer would be. You’re not exactly Miss Excitement.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Elena gasped, but she had a sinking feeling that she already knew. His words sounded a little too much like the conversation she’d had with her sister earlier that day.
“I don’t want to hurt you more than I already have,” Larry began, “but it wasn’t until I met Claire that I realized what I’d been missing with you.”
Elena’s eyebrows flew up. What? The numbness that had enveloped her when she’d first walked into Larry’s office was rapidly vanishing, to be replaced with a slow, simmering anger.
“Oh, and what would that be?” she asked sweetly. “I don’t seem to recall that you were missing out on anything. You had sex every week—and that was just with me. I always paid my own way when we went out. I never objected if you wanted to play golf with the guys, or head up to Atlantic City for a weekend. I never demanded anything of you, Larry, and I was always there when you wanted me. Basically, you had a perfect relationship.”
Larry missed the sharp edge beneath the silken veil of her words. “Yeah, it was a perfect relationship all right. Perfectly boring.”
“Boring? You think I’m boring?”
Larry made a sound of frustration. “No, that’s not what I said, but since you brought it up, then yes! I think you’re boring. Okay? Are you happy now? I said it!”
“Oh. My. God.” Elena stared at him in disbelief. “You’re serious.”
Didn’t he realize that in their relationship he was the boring one? He was the stereotypical accountant—detailed, meticulous and not given to extravagance or grand gestures. He was the kind of guy that you’d pass on the street and never look at twice. He appealed to her because he was ordinary and because she always knew what to expect from him. At least, she amended silently, she’d thought she always knew what to expect. And now, to find out that he thought she was boring!
“Listen, Elena, you’re a beautiful woman, but you’re too set in your ways. You need to be a little more flexible. You need to live a little.”
Elena arched an eyebrow. “It certainly appears your new girlfriend is flexible. Is that what this is all about, Larry? Having sex in forbidden places?”
Larry’s face turned a ruddy shade. “No, of course not. But it does have something to do with spontaneity. Face it, Elena. Your entire life is about order and routine. You’re a creature of habit, and you hate surprises. You’re about as capable of spontaneity as a fish is of flying.”
Later, Elena would not be sure what made her do it. She only knew that in that particular moment, the most important thing in the world was to prove Larry wrong. To show him irrefutable proof that she was as capable of being spontaneous and exciting as the next person. She snatched the director’s memorandum from the sheaf of mail she clutched in her hand and waved it beneath Larry’s nose.
“Oh, yeah? Well, here’s a little bit of spontaneity for you. I’ve decided to do a six-month deployment to Iraq.”
To her dismay, Larry’s eyebrows flew up, and he gave a snort of disbelieving laughter. “Oh, come on. We both know you’re bluffing. When did you decide this? Two seconds ago? We both know you’d never volunteer to go over there. You may not be a spur-of-the-moment girl, but you’re not stupid, either. Besides, you enjoy your creature comforts just a little too much to go to Iraq for six months. I can’t picture you sharing a B-hut with twenty other women, or eating in a chow hall every night.”
“Oh, really?” Elena tossed her head. “Well, believe it or not, I’m going. And I understand there are battalions of healthy, young, hard-bodied soldiers who would do anything to keep me safe. In fact, I’m sure my deployment will be rewarding on many different levels.”
To her satisfaction, Larry no longer looked quite so skeptical. “You’re kidding, right? That’s your damned sisters talking. You’d never actually do it.”
Elena gave him a sweet smile. “Watch me,” she purred, and turned on her heel and walked away.
2
Kuwait City, six weeks later
THWAP, THWAP, Thwap.
The steady sound of helicopter blades cut through the air overhead, but Elena hardly noticed the noise. After three days spent sitting in a converted hangar alongside the U.S. military airstrip in Kuwait City, she’d become well accustomed to the sound of both helicopters and jets as they came in and then left again. The kicker was she should have been on one of those helicopters long before now.
She’d seen her orders; she was going to the Green Zone in Baghdad, where she would try to clean up the colossal mess that had been made of the military contracts there. She’d heard countless stories about how good the quality of life was in the Zone, and she’d actually begun looking forward to her deployment. In the six weeks since she’d volunteered to come to Iraq, she’d had plenty of opportunity to examine her life and had concluded that both Carmen and Larry were right—it was boring.
But that was all about to change. She was shaking things up in a big way. She’d embarked on an adventure and made a promise to herself to embrace each new and exciting opportunity as it came her way, no matter what. Now she stared at the woman holding the clipboard that contained her new orders, and silently counted to ten, willing herself to control her rising temper.
“What do you mean they’ve changed my assignment?” she demanded in dismay. “I’ve been sitting in this hangar for three days, waiting for a sandstorm to subside so that I can fly to Baghdad, Iraq. As in the Green Zone, complete with fitness center, modern plumbing and a fast-food burger joint. That’s what I signed up for—” she broke off to glance at the front of the woman’s uniform “—Major Dumfries. Not some remote outpost in northern Afghanistan.”
The other woman didn’t even have the grace to look apologetic. Instead, she met Elena’s gaze unflinchingly. “Your deployment paperwork clearly states that your assignment can change at any time, depending on need. The Defense Procurement Agency has indicated they now need you in Afghanistan, and you need to be flexible, ma’am.” She glanced again at the clipboard. “We have a helicopter departing for the outpost at 0600 hours tomorrow morning. I’ll see you back here at the airstrip then.”
Elena’s