“Don’t you think you are being a little unreasonable?” Brett said, leaning forward and steepling his tanned, manicured fingers on the desk in front of him. Their desk. He was smiling that smile that used to make her melt. Funny how two weeks of hell can change one’s perceptions, she mused. She’d always thought he blow-dried his “sun-streaked” blond hair a little too poofy, but she had never noticed before just how practiced his smile was.

Her sister had. “He’s too slick,” Eve had said when she’d first met him. “Too smooth. I don’t trust him.”

Maggie had waved her worries aside. “Are you kidding? He’s perfect.”

“Yes, and that’s what worries me, because no one—Maggie, look at me—no one is perfect.”

And now, standing in the Camelback East Village office that she and Brett had shared, she saw what Eve had seen all those years ago. Five years and four months of her life Maggie had wasted on this narcissistic, insensitive creep. A frigging five-year engagement. Ha! That should have been a clue.

“Just because I decided I didn’t want to marry you doesn’t mean I don’t want to continue working with you. We’re a great team. I’m the ideas man and you implement all the details. Take that derelict church, for instance. Turning it into a high-end condo development was a brilliant idea, if I do say so myself. Presales are moving extremely well. Yes, I know you’re doing a lot of work, but we’re going to make a shitload of money on this one. Comfort Homes is just starting to hit the big leagues. Seriously, sweetie, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.”

“First,” Maggie said, holding up her hand, palm thrust out like a traffic cop, “I am not your ‘sweetie.’ Second, even you, with your pin-sized brain, must know that calling off a wedding the night before it’s supposed to occur would not, under any circumstances, be classified as a molehill!”

Brett opened his mouth to speak, but Maggie steamrollered right over him. “If you were having all these doubts, why did you insist on making it such a big event? I wanted something small and intimate, but no! You felt it was necessary to invite three hundred and eighty-six friends, family members, and business colleagues to our wedding! Some of them could ill afford to fly themselves out here and put themselves up in a hotel, but they did it because they wanted to show us their love and support. My mom and dad rebooked their world cruise vacation because they wanted to be here for our special day. Did that even cross your mind, how you inconvenienced so many people? Then you get cold feet, and you don’t even have the balls to stand up like a man and let people know. What a jerk!”

“A guy’s entitled to—”