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

of emotions! It was just another sign that he was bad for her.
    “Ellie?” The tenderness in his voice was almost her undoing.
    She hadn’t meant to tell him, but suddenly the words came tumbling out. “I screwed up really badly at the meeting this morning, okay? It was humiliating—in front of all the senior board members too. And I even snapped at one of my colleagues who called me out on it—I thought I was putting him in his place—but then it turned out that I was the one who was wrong! Oh God!” She grabbed a tissue from her bag and blew her nose.
    “Hey…” said Dan gently, pulling her back into his arms. “She’ll be right… Shh… Shh… she’ll be right.”
    His body was solid, warm, and comforting, and Ellie had to fight against the urge to just melt into the embrace. I can’t , she reminded herself . I can’t let myself be seduced by Dan’s tender words and charm again. He’s bad for me. She stiffened and pulled out of his arms again. This time he let her go and stood looking down at her quizzically.
    Ellie took a deep breath. “Dan… I… I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
    “What?” His brows drew together in a frown.
    “I… we’re two really different people and I just don’t think it would work.”
    “It’s worked fine until now.”
    “No, it hasn’t!” Ellie burst out. “If I hadn’t listened to you and your stupid ideas, none of this would have happened!”
    “What are you on about?” Dan stared at her.
    “You… you telling me constantly to relax and take things easy. You made me ignore my old instincts of putting my work first. I ended up going out on Saturday night and then having a hangover most of Sunday! If I hadn’t listened to you, if I wasn’t trying to please you and change myself to be something I’m not, I would never have gone out—and then my presentation would have been fine and I wouldn’t have been so humiliated this morning!”
    “Hang on a minute—you’re blaming me for that?” A flash of amusement showed in Dan’s grey eyes. “Ellie, I think you’re taking this all a bit too seriously. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s no—”
    “ I don’t!” yelled Ellie. “At least, I never did until I met you!”
    Dan’s grin vanished. He said impatiently, “Look, I know your work means a lot to you and I know you’re upset about what happened this morning. But that’s just dumb. Everyone makes mistakes—it happens. And it’s not the end of the world. It’s only human.”
    “Well, that just proves my point exactly,” cried Ellie. “You think it’s okay to mess up all the time—guess that must be your great Australian relaxed attitude! Well, I might be an uptight American, but I don’t think it’s okay! I have standards!”
    “I never said it’s okay to mess up all the time,” said Dan, his grey eyes angry now. “I just said that it’s understandable. It happens sometimes. Nobody is infallible—and if you think you are, then you’re a bloody fool. And Australians have standards too,” he added coldly. “Just because we have a better work-life balance doesn’t mean that we don’t take pride in our work.”
    Ellie bristled at his tone. “I’ve built my career on my reputation of being faultless at my job. I don’t make mistakes.”
    “Then you’ve built your career on a fantasy,” snapped Dan. “Mistakes happen. Get over it. Pick yourself up, learn from the mistake, and move on.”
    “Fine,” said Ellie, stepping away from him. “I’ve learnt from this mistake and I know what I need to do now.”
    She opened the door to her house, went inside, and slammed it behind her.

CHAPTER 14
     
     
     
    Ellie leaned back in her leather swivel chair and sighed. It had been a long week. She had thrown herself into work after that fiasco on Monday and had stayed late in the office every night, even taking additional work home to go over in the evenings. Sara had acted like she wanted to say something once or