Page 7 of The Ice Queen in the Corner Office

I knew I was crossing a line. I knew I should have just let it go. But he was the one who wouldn’t stop pushing. He was the one who needed a diagram to get the message that I wasn’t interested.

Problem was, being clear pissed him off. Girls who liked to look pretty and go out with their friends weren’t supposed to say no in his opinion. It was a damned if I did, damned if I didn’t situation.

Dude’s eyes widened, and he took a shaky step back. “You are…You fucking…” Speechless. I smiled and turned back to Cat. Maybe he was done. “You’re a fucking frigid bitch who wouldn’t know a dick if it hit you between the eyes.”

I met Cat’s gaze and held it, grinding my teeth.

Of course. If I didn’t like him it was because I was damaged. Frigid. “If I had a dime for every time…” I said.

“We’d be millionaires,” Cat said.

I kept my eyes on her, hoping the guy would walk away, hoping he’d give up. I’d been to a lot of concerts and dealt with a lot of guys who didn’t like to hear the word no, but they almost always walked away. Some of them tried a few times too many, some of them got mad and called me names, but they usually moved on to easier, more willing prey eventually.

Unfortunately, this dude didn’t know what was good for him.

He tapped me on the shoulder like a fucking four-year-old. “I’m talking to you.”

“I’m done talking to you,” I said, not looking back at him.

He grabbed me by the hair and jerked my head around to him.

The move surprised me in its violence. Still, my body, trained by years of Krav Maga classes, moved before my brain had clicked into what was happening. I had him face down on the bar top, his arm twisted behind his back, before my adrenaline even had a chance to go into overdrive.

“You bitch.” Dude was uncreative in his expletives. “I’m going to destroy you.”

I ignored him and looked over his head at the bartender, but he was looking over my shoulder at someone behind me. “I got this,” a deep voice said.

I twisted my head to see a guy in a yellow shirt emblazoned with the word security. He was a big guy, but his eyes were kind. “Sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”

I shifted to let him take the drunk asshole off my hands, but the dude was quick, clearly not as drunk as I’d thought. He pushed off the bar, spun, and socked me hard in my left eye. Searing pain blazed through me. Again, my training kicked in, and I ignored the pain and got in position to fight, but the bouncer already had the guy on the ground, any kindness I’d seen in his eyes gone. “Only the weakest kind of man punches a woman,” he growled.

As soon as I realized I was safe, the pain set in.

Cat pressed a bag of ice to my eye and led me to a chair to sit down. I leaned into her, letting her take over, so glad she was there.

My chest was tight, and I felt like crying.

Why had I engaged him?

Why hadn’t I stayed cool and just given him my patented ice queen cold shoulder?

I hadn’t been feeling like myself lately. It was like something had loosened in me, some plug I’d had on my emotions, on my self-control, had loosened and I couldn’t remember how to shove it back in.

“You’re okay, sweetie,” Cat said. “He was just a drunk douche bag. This isn’t your fault.”

She knew me better than I knew myself sometimes. “I provoked him. If I’d just—”

She gripped my chin tight in one hand so I couldn’t dodge her gaze. “Don’t you do that, honey. You stood up for yourself. He was in the wrong. It should have ended when he offered to buy you a drink and you said no. This is on him.”

A tear rolled down my cheek, and I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat.

I’d never been in a physical fight before, had never even caused a scene.

I needed to get it together, to put myself back together and push all the anger and the need and the hurt down where it would be out of everyone else’s way.

“I just want to go home,” I said, leaning against Cat.

“You can’t go home,” a deep voice said. “The police will want to talk to you, and you should have someone look at that eye.”

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