Page 38 of The Ice Queen in the Corner Office

“Don’t be so sure, honey. I don’t know of any man who’d do chores and babysit for a woman he just wanted for a fling.”

My heart sank. “Mom, don’t get your hopes up. He’s not a bad guy, but that doesn’t mean he’s the right guy for me.”

She shrugged. “Maybe he’s not, but you deserve some fun, honey. Relax with him and see where it goes. Do something for yourself for once in your life.”

Annoyance flared past my carefully constructed walls. Mom had been so busy here with her inn that she had no idea what I did or what my life was like. She had no reason to judge me. “I do plenty of things for myself. I have fun all the time in the city. Maybe I’m not selling pot brownies—”

“Cookies,” Mom said, frowning. “I asked May not to tell you about that.”

“Well, she did. What are you and Cody thinking?”

She crossed her arms and stared down at me in a pose I recognized well. The lecture pose. “Cody and I are helping people who suffer from chronic pain, Jill. We’re doing good.”

“But at what risk? You could go to prison, Mom.”

She waved me off with a smile, completely unconcerned. “It’ll be fine. Cody grows less than fifty plants at a time, and we only sell to a very select, small group of customers.” She tapped the end of my nose with one manicured finger. “Including the sheriff’s aunt. He won’t let any federal agents come snooping around here without letting us know first.”

“Even so, Mom. You could lose—”

“And it will only be a matter of time before it’s fully legal in Virginia, anyway.”

“You can’t know—”

She pulled me in for a tight hug. “If you had seen the faces of those women, honey. Women who’d been suffering because Cody bought the property and their relief was no longer available…Baking it in cookies is a safer way to transport it. I promise you, we’re doing everything we can to minimize the risk.”

I didn’t like it, but I doubted I was going to change her mind. “Okay, but—”

She dropped her arms and stepped away from me. “Now, get out of here and go have some fun for once in your life.”

I huffed. “I already told you, I have plenty of fun.”

She didn’t look convinced. “I’m sure you do, but…Well, I just worry about you honey. For so long, you’ve been the one everyone in this family has come to with their problems, I worry there’s no one you can go to when you need someone.”

“I have friends.” I’d never bother any of them with my problems, but I had friends. “And Alex is my boss. We should keep our relationship professional.”

She nodded. “You’re probably right. If you don’t like him enough to risk some awkwardness at work, just tell him now and send him home. I don’t want to see him hurt.”

Him? She was worried about him? “I doubt I have the power to hurt Alex. If he has a heart at all, it’s made of titanium.”

“I think you’re wrong, honey. That boy is all heart.”

She walked out of the room, not giving me a chance to argue. And I felt like a teenager again. A teenager who’d let her down. I hated feeling that way.

I marched to Alex’s cabin with every intention of telling him what I’d told my mother. There was no point in us trying to date. My feelings for him weren’t enough to risk our professional relationship.

The cabin was small, but appeared to be well-made, just the right mix of rustic and comfortable for the traveler who wanted to ‘rough’ it with indoor plumbing. I knocked on the small wooden door and spun to look out at the mountains. I couldn’t get enough of the view, and I might have needed a moment to prepare myself for seeing Alex.

I spun as soon as I heard the door open.

Alex leaned against the door jamb, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. Water beaded on his bare, muscular chest and ran down his perfect abs, but it was the tattoo, an oak tree that wrapped around the entire left side of his torso that caught my attention and truly shocked me. It was beautiful, true art. The sort of tattoo one didn’t get on a drunken frat boy whim, but one that he must have put a lot of thought and time into. A tattoo that meant something.

That tattoo threw me off, it shocked me, and made me even more curious about him. It put me off-balance and I hated to be off-balance.

So, when I looked up into Alex’s face and saw his usual cocky smirk, I got annoyed. “Wow,” I said, hand to my chest in mock surprise. “You just happened to be stepping out of the shower at the time you knew I’d be coming over. And you just happened to be naked. What a realistic coincidence.” Sarcasm dripped from every word and Alex should have been cowed, but he continued to smirk, not the least bit troubled.

“I spent a long while at breakfast with your mom. I honestly just got out of the shower. I don’t need to stoop to manipulations to win you over.”

I glared at him. “This was a bad idea.”

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