Page 6 of The Ice Queen in the Corner Office

I sighed. “I told you up front I don’t want you to pay me. Until your new location is really humming, I won’t take your money. Consider me an investor.”

Cat owned a successful tattoo parlor in the heart of Atlanta. I did all her accounting and I usually let her pay me, but she’d just opened a new location and I knew it was stressing her out and stretching her finances.

“So you’ll let me pay you once the money’s coming in? Like I would if you were a real investor?”

“We’ll see.” I wasn’t going to take her money. I didn’t need it. I’d always been a saver and I had nominal expenses. “Maybe you can just give me a free tattoo.”

She rolled her eyes. “Like you’d ever let me put a needle to your skin. Just let me pay you, Jill. I’m doing fine. I—”

“Hello, Ladies.” A lean guy in a business suit slid between me and Cat and gave us what I assumed he thought was a charming grin. “I’m—”

“We don’t care,” Cat said. “Please go away.”

The guy shrugged like it was no big deal, but his mouth tightened into a hard line. He turned to me. “How about you, sugar? Want to join me at the bar for a drink.”

“No thanks. I’m hanging with my girl tonight.”

He straightened and left us way more easily than I’d expected.

“Gah,” I said. “I’m so sick of guys who think they have some sort of God-given right to our attention.”

“They don’t care about our attention,” Cat said. “It’s our sausage holster they want.”

“Men suck.”

She nodded. “You know what also sucks? Friends who won’t take money from their friends, money that they’ve earned.”

The band started to play like they knew I needed a save. I hopped off the stool, grabbed Cat’s hand and pulled her into the crowd with me.

“This isn’t over,” she yelled directly into my ear.

I smiled like I agreed and shook my hips until she let it go and danced with me.

The band wasn’t as good live as I’d hoped, but it was still a good time. We danced and jumped and got down until we were both sweaty and my ears were ringing.

I should have been exhausted, since it was almost midnight, but I was feeling more alive than I’d felt in weeks. I felt young and free and ready to party all night. Unfortunately, the band wasn’t going to play all night and the club was shutting down in an hour.

Breathing hard, we were at the bar, waiting for the bartender to notice us when a guy, who looked about my age, no piercings or tattoos, sidled up next to me. He’d lost his suit jacket and tie, but he was the same guy who’d hit on us earlier. “Hi, there,” he said. “Good band.”

I gave him my ice queen disinterested stare-down. I wasn’t in the mood to engage, and I knew better than to give some drunk guy an inch. I turned back to Cat.

He grabbed my shoulder and yanked until I was facing him again. Cat moved closer to me, having my back. “I want to buy you a drink,” the dick said, swaying a bit. I might have taken pity on him, since he was drunk, but I was well out of pity for drunk, entitled assholes. Years past pitying guys who didn’t accept no as an answer.

“Thanks, but I don’t want a drink.”

I tried to turn back to Cat, but the dude got up in my space and wouldn’t move. “Chick like you doesn’t dress like that and come to a club like this unless she wants something.”

Rage simmered, but I pushed it down hard. Rage wasn’t what I needed in that moment. I maintained a cool exterior, not wanting him to know he was getting to me, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. I looked him up and down. “Dude like you doesn’t dress like that and come to a club like this unless he’s forgotten how to use a GPS.”

He was drunk, so my words took a minute to click, but I saw the moment they did.

Cat did, too. I heard her swear behind me. She put her water bottle on the counter and, if I knew her, she was waving over the bartender or a bouncer for back-up.

Dude’s eyes narrowed and his jaw tensed. “What the hell is your problem, bitch? You don’t like dick?” He grabbed his in case I was too stupid to get the message without a visual aid.

“I love dick,” I said, leaning in and lowering my voice. “I just hate dicks like you.”

“Damn it, Jill,” Cat said behind me.

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