Fight or Flight

But I was just so desperate to go home.

After using the facilities, I washed up and stared long and hard into the mirror. I longed to splash cold water on my face, but that would mean ruining the makeup I’d painstakingly applied that morning.

Checking myself over, I teased my fingers through the waves I’d put in my long blond hair with my straightening iron. Once I was happy with it, I turned my perusal on my outfit. The red suit was one of the nicest I owned. A double-breasted peplum jacket and a matching knee-length pencil skirt. Since the jacket looked best closed, I was only wearing a light, silk ivory camisole underneath it. I didn’t even know why I’d packed the suit, but I’d been wearing black for the last few days and the red felt like an act of defiance. Or a cry for help. Or maybe more likely an act of denial.

Although I had a well-paid job within an exclusive interior design company as one of their designers, it was expensive to live in Boston. The diamond tennis bracelet on my wrist was a gift on my eighteenth birthday from an ex-boyfriend. For a while I’d stopped wearing it, but exuding an image of success to my absurdly wealthy and successful clients was important, so when I started my job I’d dug the bracelet out of storage, had it cleaned up, and it had sat on my wrist ever since.

Lately, just looking at it cut me to the quick.

Flinching, I tore my gaze from where it winked in the light on my arm, to my right wrist, where my Gucci watch sat. It was a bonus from my boss, Stella, after my first year on the job.

As for the black suede Jimmy Choos on my feet, with their sexy stiletto and cute ankle strap, they were one of many I was in credit card debt over. If I lived anywhere but Boston, I would have been able to afford as many Choos as I wanted on my six-figure salary. But my salary went into my hefty monthly rent bill.

It was a cute, six-hundred-square-foot apartment, but it was in Beacon Hill. Mount Vernon Street to be exact, a mere few minutes’ walk from Boston Common. It also cost me just over four thousand dollars a month in rent. That didn’t include the rest of my bills. I had enough to put some savings away after the tax man took his cut too, but I couldn’t afford to indulge in the Choos I wanted.

So, yes, I’d reached the age of thirty with some credit card debt to my name.

But I guessed that made me like most of my fellow countrymen and -women, right? I stared at my immaculate reflection, ignoring the voice in my head that said some of those folks had credit card debt because of medical bills, or because they needed to feed their kids that week.

Not so they could live in a ridiculously overpriced area of Boston (no matter how much I loved it there) or wear designer shoes so their clients felt like they were dealing with someone who understood their wants better.

I bypassed the thought, not needing to mentally berate myself any more than I had since arriving back in Phoenix. I was perfectly happy with my life before I came home.

Perfectly happy with my perfect apartment, and my perfect hair, and my perfect shoes!

Perfect was good.

I straightened my jacket and grabbed hold of the handle of my carry-on.

Perfect was control.

Staring at the pretty picture I made in the mirror, I felt myself relax. If that gate agent had been into women, I so would have gotten that first-class seat.

“But forget it,” I whispered. It was done.

I was going to go back out there and get a much-needed delicious Mediterranean-style salad and sandwich from one of my favorite food stops in Phoenix, Olive & Ivy. Feeling better at the thought, I relaxed.

Once I stopped being hangry, it would all be fine.

Two

Apparently, the universe didn’t hate me, because there was a seat free at Olive & Ivy. It was popular, so it didn’t surprise me that there was only one stool left at one of the counters around the small restaurant. The young twentysomething woman sitting next to the open chair looked up as I approached, her dark gaze skimming down my body and back up again. A flirtatious welcome smile lit up her face. Huh. I had hoped her obvious interest meant she would hold the seat for me while I ordered food. I rounded her, feeling her follow the movement. I was just about to ask her to keep the seat for me when the thump of a laptop bag on top of the counter at the open seat caused me to flinch.

“This seat is taken.”

I squeezed my eyes closed at the familiar voice.

No way.

Nuh-uh!

No!

I whirled around and stared up at the source of irritation that had recently entered my life. “Yes, it is. By me!”

The Scot’s stare was calm, stolidly so, annoyingly so. “Have you bought food yet? Because I have. As a paying customer, I think I take precedence over a tiny, entitled fruitcake with a stick up her arse.”

I glowered up at the ceiling aka The Universe. “This is not happening.”

“Aye, ’cause you’re not a fruitcake, talking tae yourself.”

My glare transferred to him. “Again with the totally un-PC language.”

“Babe, look at me.” He curled his lip. “I am un-PC.”

“Don’t ‘babe’ me. That is incredibly overfamiliar of you.”

He bent his head toward me, those icy blue eyes momentarily freezing me to the spot. “And I am not having another altercation with you in public. Now bloody shoo.”

He just shooed me?

Shooed me!

The Scot pulled the stool out forcefully, so I had to move back or be clobbered by it. He assessed my surprised expression and his countenance, to my confusion, transformed from merely irritated to total disdain. “I realize you’re probably used tae men falling at your feet, so I’ll let you have your two seconds of shocked horror. But if you’re not gone in five seconds, I’m going tae embarrass the shit out of you.”

“You curse a lot,” was the only thing I could think to say under the onslaught of such distaste for me.

His face clouded over. “Five. Four. Three—”

I made a sound of disgust, cutting him off, and was about to walk away when the twentysomething woman next to us placed a hand on my arm to stop me. “I’m just finishing up, if you’d like my seat.”

I gave her a sweet smile. “You’re so kind, but”—my voice grew louder—“I’d rather sew my eyes shut with cocktail sticks than sit next to an ill-educated dickhole who defies the rumor that Scottish people are the nicest people in the world.” I finished it with a triumphant spin that made my hair flip dramatically, and I would have continued to feel like the last-epic-word victor if I hadn’t heard a ragged, too-attractive chuckle, which I knew had originated from the Scotsman.

That chuckle made me falter visibly.

He couldn’t even let me storm off in style.

I grabbed a sandwich from a refrigerator instead and ate it even though it tasted of nothing, while sitting at a gate that wasn’t mine and staring out at the mountains. Using the time to cool down, as memories of the week pricked me and helped to put everything in perspective, I grew calm enough that I felt confident in striding back out there to grab a coffee from one of the barista carts. There was a line already forming at the closest one and I hurried a little to make it before it got too long.

At the sight of the imposing figure of the Bastard Scot marching toward the cart from the other side, I picked up my feet and almost ran toward the spot. I skittered into place behind a man in a suit, accidentally hitting his carry-on with mine. He threw me an annoyed look over his shoulder and I gave him a quick smile of apology before bestowing a you can suck it grin on the Scot as he pulled up to the line after me.

“You snooze, you lose,” I said over my shoulder, not caring how infantile I sounded.

“You’re four years old, you know that?”

“I finally beat you in line—that’s what I know.”

“Fruitcake.”

“Ignoramus.”

“Shrew.”

I scowled at the insult, which was even worse than “fruitcake.” “Dickwad.”

“You seem tae be obsessed with my dick.”

I spun around. “Excuse me?”

“Dickwad. Dickhole.”

“Those are insults.”

“With a very specific focus.”

To my horror, my eyes flew to his crotch with a mind of their own. Oh dear God! My face blazed with color and I quickly lowered my gaze down the length of his dark blue jeans to the loosely laced black leather biker boots on his feet.