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Guys like Glen were snakes, slithering around until they found the perfect opportunity to pounce. He wanted a physical reaction, one that would land me in handcuffs and balls deep in lawyer’s fees. But I wouldn’t be a party to it.
He was the coward, not me. Instead of facing his poor, pathetic, unintelligible business decisions head-on, like a man, he’d sexually harassed my girlfriend.
“The deal’s dead, Glen,” I declared, throwing the money down on the white linen tablecloth. “Contract’s destroyed. Any future opportunity to do business with Brooks Media and any of its subsidiaries extinguished. And you’ve lost a powerful business ally, and instead, gained an enemy.”
I pulled out Georgia’s chair and forced her to stand.
“Kline—”
“Georgia, let’s go.”
She nodded, grabbed her clutch, and followed, but I could tell she wasn’t happy.
And that made fucking two of us.
Frank sat at the curb waiting, and I opened the door and ushered Georgia in without delay.
“Mr. Brooks,” Frank said as he jumped to attention in the driver seat.
“My apartment, Frank.”
“Yes, sir.”
Georgia tried several times to meet my eyes, but I couldn’t return the favor. I was too goddamn angry. At Glen, at myself, and a little at her. I hated the last most of all.
I expected her to call to me. Tell me to look at her. Something.
But the more my anger stewed, the more her own built. When I glanced her way, she was staring out the window and grinding her teeth, the curves of her nails cutting into the skin of her palms every few seconds.
The ride remained silent and tense and didn’t break until the door to my apartment slammed shut behind us.
I tossed my wallet and keys onto the counter and pulled the tails of my shirt out of my pants. As I loosened my tie, Georgia geared up for battle, turning to face me and slamming her tiny purse down on the kitchen table with force.
“I can’t believe you!” she seethed.
“Me?” I asked in disbelief, four fingers pointing to the outside of my chest and raging heart pumping under the surface.
“Yes, you! That was a multi-million dollar deal. Access to ads we don’t have to pay for for twelve months!” She shook her head. “I’ve been working on it for the better part of six months! And you threw in the towel because you were a jealous boyfriend.”
“Fuck that, Georgia!” I yelled, and she jumped. It was the first time I’d ever raised my voice at her, and it felt just awful enough that I hoped it was the last. But she needed to hear this. “I didn’t screw shit. That deal was menial at best from the beginning, signing away our lives to him for an entire year. And the way Glen conducts business is bullshit.”
“I’m a woman, Kline! Sometimes I have to play the game a little differently than you.”
“That’s horseshit.”
She jerked back, and her face flushed red with anger.
“The moment you lower yourself to playing into fuckwits like Glen is the moment you’ve already shot yourself in the goddamn foot and leg.”
“I had it under control.”
“You didn’t have shit,” I spat. “He was touching you. There is nowhere, not one single place, where that’s appropriate in business, man or woman.”
“Kline—”
It would be bad enough that I’d interrupted her, so I forced my voice to calm. “You are a brilliant woman. When someone notices your beauty and belittles it like that, you tell them to fuck off, and you do it immediately.”
“I was trying to—”
“No,” I interrupted again, pulling my tie from my neck and tossing it next to my keys, softening my voice even further. “You’re right about a lot of things, a lot of the time, baby, but about this, you. Are. Wrong.”
Anger lined every angle of her body, the way she stood, and the expression on her face. But she didn’t say anything. She knew I was right. She knew she hadn’t been on her A-game, and she was fucking pissed about it.
Pissed that women had to be in that position in the first place.
Infuriated that she hadn’t held her ground when he’d pushed.
She could carry that anger for the whole night for all I cared. In fact, I hoped she did. Stewed on it. Learned from it.
I didn’t mind one fucking bit as long as she got the hell into my arms.
“Be angry,” I told her. “But, please, for the love of God, do it while you’re touching me.”
Two fuming steps ate half the distance between us, and I closed the rest, pulling her face to mine with a clutch of her jaw.
Buttons scattered as she ripped my shirt wide open and pushed the destroyed fabric from my shoulders. Heat ran down my spine like a bullet out of a gun, burning a track all the way down and gripping my balls at the bottom.
