Page 4 of Hottie on Her Shelf
Most of all, she didn’t believe some man named Derek had the right to dismiss her.
Hallie used both hands to push herself up from the stairs. Righteous indignation put pep back in her step as she rounded the staircase to confront the two men. Easy to tell who was who. Derek looked like almost every other man in Swan Cove—khakis, button-down shirt, brown hair with a swoop in the front. Aka, he wasn’t the Adonis that was Fitz Montgomery.
The golden child.
Literally, with his picture-perfect, thick blond hair he gelled back, a jawline that could cut glass, and piercing blue eyes the color of the woad that Celtic warriors used to paint their faces before a battle.
Not that she’d noticed.
Just that you couldn’t live in Swan Cove without seeing the mayor, well, everywhere.
“There are actually three requirements to run for mayor in Swan Cove, gentlemen. You must be at least eighteen, a registered voter, and have lived in the city for a minimum of one year immediately preceding the date of filing. Nowhere in the city charter is there a stipulation as to the last name of a candidate.”
They both looked at her with mouths agape and squints of surprise. And that’s when Hallie remembered her, ah, disheveled appearance.
The green stains covering the front of her shirt, the stains which were still wet enough to cling to the pattern of the lace on her bra. All the loose hairs that had slipped out of her pony as she ran. The sweat along her neck.
Yeah, she probably hadn’t stunned them with her knowledge of electoral qualifications. More probable that they were, quite rightly, judging her for being so slovenly. Nobody should be out in public in such disarray.
Especially not someone trying to defend the moral high ground.
But it was too late to back away, pretend they hadn’t seen her under the flickering fluorescents, and try again after a wardrobe change and five minutes with a hair brush.
“Who the hell are you?” Derek barked.
The mayor smiled. “This is Swan Cove’s head librarian, Hallie Scott.” Fitz used her title with pride, like he was introducing her around at a yacht club cocktail party. And he said her name like it was his own private pet moniker for her.
She’d seen him in action before. Despite his failings as mayor—which were many—Fitz Montgomery was an artist at personal connections. The eye contact, the warmth in his tone, the half smile. The utter genuineness.
Hallie wasn’t falling for any of it. “I’m not just the librarian. I’m also a contender for your position.”
“Contender?” Derek gave a long, slow up-and-down. “Hardly.”
She’d endured snubs like that her entire life. They’d built up a callus on her emotional skin. Hallie didn’t even feel his prick…which was probably what Derek’s girlfriends all said.
Wow. She’d slipped right into full battle mode without even realizing it. “I heard what you two said about me just now.”
“Eavesdropping? Classy.” A sniff, as if Derek could smell whatever noxiousness was in the green stains on her shirt.
The mayor, however, had the grace to look chagrined.
Which didn’t prove that he felt it, necessarily. Merely that he’d had manners drilled into him after years at cotillion class and club events. He dipped his burnished head. “I’m sorry, Ms. Scott. It’s not sportsmanlike to trash talk your opponent.”
“Point of clarification.” Briefly, Hallie wondered if he even recognized the parliamentary procedure she was following out of respect for their location in city hall. “It’s not sportsmanlike to believe that your opponent is trash.”
Derek crossed his arms. “Why are you here? Did you wake up to the epiphany that there’s no chance in hell you’ll win and you came to take your name off the ballot?”
Would telling the truth take away an advantage? Possibly. But Hallie didn’t intend to start her campaign out on a lie. Because, oh yes, she most definitely planned to run. “My best friend put me on the ballot as a birthday present. As soon as I found out, I ran here to take my name off.”
Derek belly laughed.
The mayor let an infinitesimal smirk slip across his face before covering by infinitesimally straightening his tie. “Well, we can point you to the clerk’s office and help you take care of that. Maybe next year ask your friend for a weekend trip to Boston.”
The supercilious, condescending, patronizing nerve of these two! She’d been willing to give the mayor the benefit of the doubt and accept his apology as genuine.
Not anymore.
“That was why I came here. It’s not why I’m here now. I’ve changed my mind.” Hallie lifted her chin and glared down her regrettably pert nose at them. “To be clear, gentlemen, the two of you have changed my mind. I’m staying on the ballot.”
