“He’s the one I don’t trust, and no, our relationship is not fragile.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I don’t like it.”

“I don’t like that Melinda stares at your ass when she’s supposed to be watching all of you. I don’t like that she’s wondering how big your dick is every time she looks at you! Guess what? There’s nothing I can do about it. He’s a colleague and my friend’s fiancé. That’s all he’ll ever be to me. I don’t know how many times or ways I have to say that to get it through your thick skull that I am not interested in him!”

“Melinda doesn’t wonder how big my dick is.”

“Figures that’s all you heard. You don’t think so?”

“She’s a professional.”

“She’s a woman who knows a hot guy when she sees one.”

“And Avery is a man who knows a hot woman when he sees one, and he wants you. I don’t care what you or anyone else says. He wants you, and you’re handing him a golden opportunity.”

“For what? To have me? Fuck you.” She pushed him off the door and went across the hallway to pack for the night away.

The closet door slammed shut, and she spun around to find him advancing on her, a look of fury on his face. “Fuck me? Really? Is that how we fight now?”

“That’s how we fight when you insinuate that I’m unable to spend a night out of town with a colleague without being unfaithful to you.”

Even with his hands on his hips and his mouth set in a mulish expression, he was still the most gorgeous man she’d ever laid eyes on. Even if she currently wanted to punch his lights out. He stared at her for a long, charged moment before the starch seemed to leave his spine as he exhaled. “I trust you.”

“Then we don’t have a problem.” She packed a clean pair of jeans, a sweater to wear tomorrow, underwear, pajamas and socks into an overnight bag. Then she changed into a pair of black dress pants and a silk blouse to wear to the White House.

“Why’re you getting dressed up to go on a trip with him?”

“I’m getting dressed up to go to the White House, you ass.”

“I don’t want you to go with him.”

“I don’t want you to go to Iran.” Sam brushed by him as she left the closet and crossed the hall to the bathroom to pack a small cosmetic bag. When she was finished, she went into the bedroom where he was sitting on the bed watching her. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I guess you will.”