The Friendship Variable

<p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)><em>He's in love with his best friend.</em></strong></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)><em>The only problem? She's engaged to someone else.</em></strong></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Claire Beaumont has always done everything by the book-the math book that is. Straight A's? Check. Earn her bachelor's and master's degrees in math? Check. Land a job teaching community college just like Mom and Dad? Check.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Her parents are also thrilled she's dating the son of their best friends even if he still lives in his parents' basement at the age of twenty-seven. So when he proposes in front of both families and an audience of fifty thousand baseball fans she can't say no-even though her first instinct tells her to run. Thankfully Claire has her best friend and coworker Ryan to lean on. He's the one person who always has her back.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Ryan Matthews Coastal Vista Community College's resident surfer/math professor has been head-over-heels for Claire since the day they met. But when he found out she had a boyfriend he decided to settle for being her friend-and her sounding board for all her boyfriend complaints. He was sure they were on the verge of a breakup but now they're engaged.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Resolved to move on Ryan throws himself into dating again. But when he and Claire are paired to lead a high-profile campus project keeping his feelings under wraps proves harder than solving a four-variable system of equations.</span></p><p></p>