The Fiance Thief by Tracy South

already broken your vows today, you should become one tomorrow, after the story’s done.”
    Hank sounded too much like Alec when he said things like that. This was something Lissa was going to have to nip in the bud, or today and Monday were going to be unbearable. “To borrow a quaint phrase you may remember from your childhood, you are not the boss of me. This just came to me, right after breakfast, as something I had to do. I’m not the kind of woman who puts idealism on hold.” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s Claire’s influence. She’s a vegetarian.”
    Hank busied himself looking for something on his desk. “Yes, but Claire lacks a lot of your more carnivorous aspects.”
    “Well, her life would be a lot different if she knew how to get her claws out every once in a while.”
    Hank’s disdain for gossip was notorious, so Lissa was surprised when he said, “How so?”
    “How so what?”
    “How would her life be different?”
    She wanted to comment about his new interest in his coworkers’ personal lives, but the office was a barren andempty place today, and she couldn’t afford to alienate her one hope for conversation. She began to share her theories about Claire.
    “If she had gone up to New York to try to get Scott back from Miranda, he would have come back. Just from reading between the lines in that book, I can tell that Scott and Miranda knew they’d made a mistake. They were probably praying for Claire to give them an excuse to break up. But because she gave up, she lost him.”
    Hank had been typing away at his computer while she talked, but when she finished, he looked up and said, “Maybe she was relieved.”
    Lissa shook her head. “Didn’t you see that faraway look in her eyes when his name came up the other day? Then she practically burst into tears when she talked to Miranda’s mother about him.”
    “I wasn’t paying attention.”
    He was a promising student, Lissa thought, but he was going to have to have a lot more practice at this. “She still loves him. I’ve been trying to think of a way to help her get on with her life, but I’m clueless. Short of getting Scott back, I don’t know what’s going to do it.”
    As soon as she’d said it, she looked at Hank, who met her gaze with some alarm. “I can’t believe I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “But no, you can’t. It’s impossible, immoral and it will ruin Alec’s story.”
    “It isn’t impossible. I bet I could find Scott without much trouble at all. And it would make Claire happy. Anyway, by the time he gets there, Alec should have his story already.”
    “What about Alec and Claire?” Hank asked.
    Lissa waved a hand at him. “We can work around this phony engagement thing. Don’t worry about that.”
    “What if it isn’t as phony as we think? Not the engagement, I mean, but the two of them. You know.”
    Let a man think he understands a little bit about human behavior, and all of the sudden he’s declaring himself an expert on the subject. “There is nothing going on between them,” Lissa said.
    “What makes you so sure?”
    Slowly, patiently, as though she were explaining the birds and the bees to someone very young, Lissa tried to tell him why Claire and Alec could never be a couple. “There are two kinds of people in this world. Fling people, and commitment people. Commitment people are the kind who wind up getting engaged to almost everyone they date—like Claire. Fling people can go out a lot, but never have a serious relationship—like Alec.”
    “You don’t think the two can ever be happy?”
    “Rarely,” Lissa said. “And certainly not in the case of Claire and Alec, all other differences aside. That would be like you and…” She started to say, “and me,” but she didn’t want to give him any ideas. Instead she said, “Miranda.”
    “Don’t ask me for help,” Hank said, turning back to his work.
    “I won’t need it,” Lissa said. She got straight to work, took a sheet