He’d never fought with Connie. Not really. They’d had some disagreements, sure, but they’d just worked through them, or talked them out. Or ignored them, Brody admitted. Ignored them, he thought, because they’d both been cut off, isolated, and they only had each other to rely on.

Temper had never gotten him anywhere but in trouble. With his father, in school, in the early days on the job. He’d learned to rein it in, to use his head instead of his gut. Most of the time, he admitted, thinking about his last altercation with his father.

Still, maybe it was a mistake to compare what had been with what was. One thing was certain, he wasn’t going to get rid of this nasty sensation in his gut until he spoke his mind.

He checked his men first, ran over some minor adjustments and the basic plan for the following day. It was nearly time to knock off, so he cut them loose. He didn’t want an audience.

Kate hit the nail squarely on the head and bared her teeth in satisfaction. Brody O’Connell, the pig, wasn’t the only one who could use a hammer.

She’d spent the last two hours meticulously setting up her office. Everything would be perfect when she was finished. She wouldn’t settle for anything less.

Her desk was precisely where she wanted it, and its drawers already organized with the brochures she’d designed and ordered, her letterhead, the application forms for students.

Her filing cabinet was the same golden oak. In time, she expected the folders inside to be full.

She’d found the rug at an antique sale, and its faded pattern of cabbage roses set off the pale green walls, picked up the tone in the fabric of the accent chairs that now faced her desk.

Just because it was an office didn’t mean it couldn’t have style.

She hung yet another of the framed black-and-white photos she’d chosen. Stood back and nodded with approval. Dancers at the barre, in rehearsal, onstage, backstage. Young students at recitals, lacing on toe shoes.

Sweating, sparkling, limp from exertion or flying. All the aspects of a dancer’s world. They would remind her, on a daily basis, what she had done. And what she was doing.

She picked up another nail, set it neatly on her mark, slammed it. And what she wasn’t doing, she thought, rapping it a second time, was wasting her time on Brody O’Connell.

The bastard.

Let him cozy up to Tiffany. Oh, she remembered Tiffany Skully. The busty bleached blonde had been a year ahead of her in high school. Lots of giggling. Lots of lipstick. Well, let the jerk take her out. What did she care?

She was done with him.

“If you’d told me you were going to cover the entire space with pictures,” Brody commented, “I wouldn’t have worked so hard on finishing the drywall. Nobody’d know the difference.”

She jammed the photograph in place, picked up another nail. “One assumes you have a certain pride in your work, whether or not it can be admired. And since I paid for the wall, I’ll do whatever the hell I like with it.”