Playing to Win (Summer Beach Vets 2) - sweet contemporary romance by H.Y. Hanna

herself—furious that she had ignored  her original instincts to put work first, furious that she had been tempted into letting go of the tight control she had always maintained over her life, and furious that she had rushed her presentation and been so careless. She had always prided herself on being meticulous and efficient. Ellie Monroe just didn’t mess up!  
    Most of all, she was furious with Dan. It was all his fault. If she hadn’t listened to him, hadn’t followed his stupid advice to relax more and take things more casually, she would never have been humiliated like this. She had worked so hard to get to where she was now, career-wise, and she couldn’t risk losing it all because she started making embarrassing professional blunders like this.
    It was all a mistake , she thought frantically. I should never have gotten involved with Dan . She had let his easy-going attitude infect her—and look what happened! He was a bad influence. I’ve got to stop seeing him. Even as the thought entered her mind, Ellie felt a stab in her heart, but she gritted her teeth and ignored the feeling. There was no future for them anyway, so why prolong it? Especially when it was affecting her in such a bad way?
    “Ellie?”
    Ellie felt a gentle hand on her shoulder and looked up in surprise to see that most of the seats at the conference table were empty and there was a cluster of people filing out the door. The meeting was over. Her boss stood beside her chair, a tentative smile on his lips as he looked at her.
    Ellie sprang out of her chair. “I’m so sorry about what happened with my presentation. Please let me apologise again and, I promise, I won’t ever let something like that happen ag—”
    “Whoa…” He held his hands up, smiling. “Relax, Ellie. I wasn’t coming to rake you over the coals. Just the opposite, in fact. I was coming to say don’t take it to heart. It’s no biggie. Everybody makes mistakes.”
    Ellie swallowed. “Thank you. That’s really nice of you to say—”
    “I mean it. So don’t let it get you down.” He turned away, then paused and added over his shoulder, “By the way, I’m looking forward to your talk this coming Saturday at the awards dinner.”
    “You… you’re still happy for me to do it?” Ellie asked him.
    “Of course! Like I said, Ellie, nobody holds what happened today against you.” He smiled again. “So don’t dwell on it. Just focus on your talk for this Saturday.”
    “I will. I won’t mess that up, I promise,” said Ellie fervently.
    She repeated it to herself after he’d left the room. She couldn’t screw up again. This awards dinner was a chance to salvage her professional reputation—show her colleagues that she was someone to be respected, not laughed at. It was the most important thing in her life now. She had to get back to her old self—the cool, efficient, workaholic Ellie Monroe who never made mistakes.
    And that Ellie had no place for Dr Dan O’Brien in her life. 
     
     
    There was a figure by her front door as Ellie slid her car in close to the curb in front of her house. She shifted into park, pulled the handbrake, and killed the engine. Then she got slowly out of the car, trying not to make eye contact with the tall man standing on her front doorstep. It was Dan.
    “This is good timing.” Dan smiled as he came towards her. “I finished early today and thought I’d walk over—see if I could catch you getting home from work. Want to come for a stroll on the beach with me and then maybe grab a bite to eat at—”
    “I can’t.”
    He raised an eyebrow at her tone of voice. He reached for her, his voice soft with concern. “Is something wrong? Did something happen at work?”
    Ellie shook her head, pulling out of his arms. She could feel tears smarting in her eyes again and was furious with herself. Was she crying? She didn’t do “blushing” and she didn’t do “crying”—and yet ever since she met Dan, she was just a mess