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“Not the man you need? You little, fucking bitch!”

  Mark’s words tore through her, and her bottom jaw dropped. Sure her shock could be seen written over her face, a cold chill run up the exposed skin at the back of her dress.

  “Calm down, son. She’s simply overthinking. I’m sure she doesn’t mean all that.”

  Her father tried his hardest to calm him down. Him! What about her, his daughter?

  That’s it. She wasn’t going to take any more shit from either one of them. She had never in her life stood up for herself against either of them. She never had to because she always minded her father. It’s the way her mother had raised her, but she would be damned if she’s going to stand here while the two of them walked all over her anymore.

  “I’m not going back out there. This has been an evening I want to forget. I’m going home to bed. I’ll take the car and send it back for you and Mom.”

  “Oh no, you don’t. You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Not before the two of you march back in that room where all those people are waiting. You smile and let them know how happy you will be together.”

  “I’m not going to marry him, Dad. So what’s the point?”

  “Damn it, Nicole! I don’t have time for this shit. I’m going back in there, and you will follow me or…”

  Or? Since when did her father give her ultimatums? “Or what?”

  “So help me, little girl, I am losing my patience with you. Get your ass back in there or you can kiss all your credit cards goodbye. I mean it. You won’t get another dime of my money.”

  Her father shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants. She had admired him as a good-looking man; he always looked so sharp in his black Armani suits and salt and peppered hair. But tonight he looked like a monster instead of the father who used to kiss her boo-boos and tuck her into bed at night.

  This was how he’s going to treat his only daughter, his own flesh and blood? He’s going to try and buy her off as if she were no more than one of his clients. “Take them. Take all of it, but I’m still heading home. I’m not going to parade around like some show dog for your friends.”

  “Oh my God, drama queen.”

  Mark’s words cut her again. As if she had slipped into a twilight zone. “What did you just call me? Now that I see the way you act when you don’t get your way, I’m glad I said I wasn’t going to marry you. You’re crazy.”

  She had only known Mark for the last six months but she was pleased as hell she was seeing his true colors before it was too late. She wanted to go home and crawl into bed and try to forget this night ever happened. When she woke up, hopefully all of this will be over, and her father would have come to his senses.

  “If you walk out now…I told you what would happen.” Her father’s stiff body and firm stance held all the outrage he must be feeling toward her.

  He could threaten her all he wanted; she wasn’t going to back down, not now, not ever. “I don’t need them or your money. I’ll take care of myself.”

  Her father chuckled in his mocking lawyer tone. She had seen and heard that laugh before on the occasions that her father held dinner parties at the house. It was the same one she had seen him use on his clients or his employees when they hit him with a low-ball offer or asked for something way out of their range.

  She turned on her heel and left the backroom, walking away from both men. She headed back to the crowded room but only to stop long enough to grab her purse.

  “Nicole? Is everything all right, darling?” Her mother’s quiet voice could barely be heard as she leaned over to whisper in her daughter’s ear. All the time she had been back in that room fighting with the two men in her life, her mother most likely had been sitting out here quietly by herself, minding her own business—her mom, the quiet, little mouse in the corner. Nicole had always wondered what had brought her mom and dad together to begin with. They were so different.

  “I’m getting out of here. I had a fight with Dad and Mark, and I don’t want to be around either of them at the moment.”

  Her mother nodded as if she understood firsthand the troubles that lay ahead of her daughter. If anyone understood, her mother did. She knew what her father was capable of.

  “I’ll see you later, Mom. I love you.”

  Her mom reached up and brushed her lips across her daughter’s cheek before she moved her mouth over to the side of her face so she could talk into her daughter’s ear. “Stand your ground, darling. Be a better woman than I was.” Her mom squeezed her tight one more time, then turned back to the table and to her father’s guests.

  Chapter Two

  “I’m loving you in those black, skinny jeans. Your ass looks amazing right now.” Mandy pushed her bright-red lips together like a duck and blew herself a kiss in the rearview mirror.

  Mandy Olsen was the person Nicole felt the closest to. The two had been best friends since the third grade. All these years later, the two of them were still inseparable.

  Nicole had no choice but to move in with her friend three weeks ago after that godawful show at her father’s dinner party. She had gone home that night believing he bluffed, but her father’s threats came true the next morning. He kicked her off all financial help. The worst part happened when her father asked to leave until she came to her senses about marrying Mark. She had only one place to go—her best friend.

  Nicole peered out the window at the building across the street. She had no business going out for a night on the town. She needed to be spending her time trying to find a job. The money she’d taken with her wasn’t going to last forever.

  “I’m not sure about this, Em. I mean, I should be job hunting, not partying.”

  Mandy rolled her eyes. “You want to job hunt at ten o’clock at night on a Friday? Come on, Nikki, you have been working hard trying to find work. You deserve a night of fun.”

  Her friend had been right. There wasn’t anything she could do this late on a Friday. “What’s the name of this place we’re going to tonight?”

  “Big Dogs. It’s the best. They have different events on different nights. You know, a little bit of something for everyone. Tonight are the fights. My God, some of those guys are super yummy. For real!”

  “I don’t think I’ll be on the hunt for anything yummy tonight. I just got out of a relationship, remember?”

  Mandy smiled at her like a true best friend would who shared in the pain of a broken heart. Half sympathy and half ready to kick some ass. “You know what they say? If you fall off the horse, you better get your ass back on the cowboy.” Mandy grinned, giving her blonde, flowing hair a good fluff.

  She laughed. “Don’t you mean get your ass back in the saddle?”

  She shook her head. “Nope! I’m sorry, but if my ass fell off a horse, I would want a good-looking cowboy to take care of me, and in return, I would have to take care of him…if you know what I mean.” Her finely plucked eyebrows rose together suggestively.

  God, she adored Mandy. She’s the most likable person she had ever known, but when it came to guys, Mandy could be a little too enthusiastic. Not that she wanted to admit her best friend could be a slut but…she kind of was.

  Mandy pulled her car into a vast, gravel parking lot packed with row after row of cars. Wherever they were heading, the place had to be huge.

  “Shit, yeah. Look, one right up front.” Mandy squeaked, swinging her small, two-door, yellow Jeep into a cramped parking spot. They both double checked their makeup in the visor mirrors before snatching their purses and exiting the Jeep.

  The parking lot sat across the street from their destination, but as they waited for the cars to pass, Nicole glanced up at the sizable, two-story building in front of her. This was the bar they were going too? It sat only a few minutes outside downtown Seattle and a couple blocks away from the bay. The brick building looked as if it had been a department store back in its early days. The place seemed a little creepy with its broad, blacked-out wind
ows lining the front, blocking any possibilities of seeing in.

  The blaring music rattled so loud it could be heard on the outside, which should upset neighboring businesses, but the bar appeared to be the only business still open at this time of night. A wide, glowing neon sign hung above the main doors that had a bulldog on one side and the words Big Dogs across it. A smaller banner hung between the sign and the door that read Home of the Ice Man.

  “Is the entire building the bar? This place is huge.” Nicole needed to keep Mandy in her sights because she could easily lose her friend in this place.

  “Yeah, but some of the areas are blocked off until they need them. Like the fighting rings and stages for the bands. They don’t have those events every night.”

  Mandy went shy as she smiled up at the linebacker of a man who was checking IDs. He could easily be six feet tall with extremely wide shoulders. His black, Big Dogs T-shirt appeared a size too small from the way the fabric stretched tightly across his chest. It wouldn’t be surprising if the guy turned out to be a bodybuilder or a NFL linebacker.

  “Trouble? What the hell are you doing back here? I told you once already, I didn’t want to see you back here.” The man drilled his eyes into Mandy.

  Mandy held out a hand out, palm in the air, toward the man to stop him. “You said you didn’t want to see me back here alone. I’m not alone. I’m with my best friend, Nikki. So you see, I didn’t disobey you.”

  Nicole couldn’t believe her eyes when she watched as her take-no-bullshit friend actually dropped her eyes and stared at the ground at the man’s feet. What the hell?

  “I guess you have me there. Next time I give you an order, I’ll have to be a little clearer on the details, won’t I?” The guy hadn’t spoken harshly to her friend, but Nicole felt the tension that immediately swelled between the two of them. There was definitely something going on Mandy had never told her about.

  The bulky guy handed them back their IDs and stepped to the side opening the door for them.

  “What’s that all about?” Nichole asked as soon as they were out ear shot.

  “Nothing. Let’s go.” Just like that, the topic of the strange encounter with the gorgeous hunk of a man quickly dropped. Mandy gripped her wrist and tugged her deeper inside the building and closer to the bumping music. Nicole would drop it for now, but there’s no way she was going to drop it for good.

  They entered a short, narrow hallway that opened up into the actual bar, proving her right in thinking the place had to be bigger on the inside. All along one side of the room ran an impressive, stainless-steel, bar top with three bartenders running in different directions behind it. There were girls with trays running to and from the bar, serving the twenty-some tables spread out along the floor. Swarms of people crowded the dance floor in front of a DJ booth on the opposite side of the bar.

  “Come on, let’s get a drink.” Mandy tugged on her wrist again, and the two of them made their way through the crowd and over to the bar. Mandy, the smaller of the two, easily ducked between two men at the bar and came up on the other side. She ordered their drinks before the men who were involved in a heavy conversation with each other even noticed she stole their place in line.

  Nicole stayed back from the crowd watching all the commotion going on around her. The place could easily become overwhelming with everything it had to see. It was hard to decide what she should focus on first. The DJ cut the music low and his voice rang out over the speakers.

  “All right, all right, ladies and gentlemen. The main event will start in thirty minutes. I suggest you remove your asses from those chairs, go grab yourself a fresh drink, and head on into the cage room. Go on back and show your love for our in-house, main-man, Ice.” The music suddenly sent the piano intro of “Cold as Ice” over the speakers. “See you all back there in thirty.”

  “Oh, man. I love fighting Friday. Oh my God, you’re going to love this. Have you ever seen the cage fights?”

  “Like the ones on HBO?”

  Mandy rolled her pretty hazel eyes “Yeah, except when you see them in person, it’s so much better. It’s like you can feel your heart pounding with theirs. It’s crazy how involved you feel simply by watching.” She handed Nicole a drink.

  “Should we go?”

  “Hell yes, we should go. If we hurry, we can get a good seat down low enough to see the sweat on all those muscles.” Mandy led the way into the cage room were people were filing in. The room seemed to be just as big as the last one except this time a steel cage stood tall in the middle of the room with seating on all four sides.

  “Shit. All the good seats are gone. Let’s go see if we can see over here.” Mandy led them off to the side of the room where some older-style bleachers were set up. She hopped up on top and waved Nicole to do the same. “If we stand we can see everything.” She took a long pull from her mixed drink.

  Nicole looked around for a minute to make sure they weren’t going to be in any kind of trouble for standing on the seats before joining her best friend. Mandy was right, she could see perfectly into the ring at this height.

  In the next ten minutes, drinking, laughing, talking loud people packed the room, getting ready for some ass kicking. Nicole couldn’t stop the feeling of adrenaline. Her heart raced, and soon, she couldn’t hold back her smile. She drummed her fingers along the side of her glass as she waited for the show to begin. It felt a lot like it did when she had gone to concerts. The excitement of not knowing held appeal more than the actual show did.

  The stands filled up, and they should probably sit down to allow the people behind them to see, but there was no moving Mandy out of her spot.

  “Fuck ‘um. They can see just fine if they stand up too.”

  She didn’t think the other spectators felt the same way. Nicole shrugged her shoulders, willing to let the thought drop, until the two men sitting behind them started in with their yelling.

  “Hey! Sit your ass down so the rest of us can see,”

  Mandy whirled around, pinning a loud angry man with a hard stare. “Stand up and you can see. No one sits during the fights anyway. Like, who does that?” She turned back toward the cage as if daring them to say another word.

  They did.

  “Or…you can sit your fucking ass down before I make you sit.”

  The guy’s drunken words barely made it out of his mouth before Mandy turned her entire body around to face him, hands on her hips, ready to stand her ground. “Don’t be a dick. I’m short. I can’t see unless I’m on the bench, so stand up, and we will all be happy.” She stared him down.

  His friend slapped the angry man on the shoulder. “It’s no big deal, bro, let’s stand. These bitches aren’t going to back down.”

  Nicole stared daggers into the guys’ faces. She wasn’t a bitch. What an asshole. Her skin itched with frustration toward these drunks, but the men weren’t backing down and neither were they.

  The man that had started the confrontation stood, coming face-to-face with Mandy. It was like watching a show down between a rabbit and a grizzly bear. The man had a body the size of a Mac truck compared to Mandy’s petite size, but God love her, she wasn’t backing down.

  “Sit your ass down, or I’ll make you sit.” The guy pointed down to the bleachers where their feet were now.

  “You’re not going to touch her,” Nicole chimed in.

  “Watch me, princess.”

  “Fuck you. Touch me, and you’ll see what happens.”

  The man looked between both of them and then around the room as if he were looking for some jealous boyfriend before he pinned them with his angry stare again. “Sit. The. Fuck. Down.” His face now inches away from Mandy’s.

  Nicole needed to stop this before things got out of hand. “Mandy, come on. Let’s find seats away from these losers.” Nicole grabbed onto her arm trying to pull her fierce bulldog friend away from the guys when he suddenly turned toward her again.

  “What the fuck did you call me, bitch?”


  “I believe the word she used was loser,” Mandy said, trying to pull her arm free from Nicole’s grip.

  “Did you call me a loser, you fucking slut?”

  Those were all the words he got out before Mandy sprang into action. She might be small but that didn’t stop her from springing on their verbal attacker like a spider monkey, wrapping her legs around his waist as she started whaling on him with her fists.

  Nicole tried to pull her off the guy. When that didn’t work, she used her purse to beat the man in the head before she lost her grip. Her purse fell to the floor. Before she retrieved it, massive arms come from somewhere behind them, pulling her and Mandy from the drunk and hauled them through the air and back on their feet.

  The enormous man from the door pressed his body between Mandy and the two trouble-making men. She had no idea whose arms now held on to her; however, she was thankful someone had stopped Mandy before she’d gotten herself hurt.

  The strong arms holding her dropped away from her waist, and a strange, sudden urge to protest crawled toward her throat. The man pulled her back and stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the drunk men.

  “You were saying?” the linebacker demanded, an inch from the cussing man’s face.

  The drunk who had caused the fight looked like he wanted to pee himself as he stared up at the newcomer. “Nah man, we’re cool. We were…just leaving.”

  The linebacker’s head gave a short, fast jerk as air blew from his nostrils like a bull ready to charge. “Damn right you are. Let’s go, boys. I’ll show you to the door.” He followed the two drunks out, but not before he turned his harsh stare back to Mandy, and if looks could kill, she would be dead where she stood.

  “I’m not even going to start on you tonight. This is bullshit, Trouble. Your little ass is finally mine for that stunt.” Then he disappeared into the crowd, following the drunken men toward the exit.

  The man standing inches in front of Nicole stepped to the side, allowing her to see his face finally. Putting it simply and to the point…the man was gorgeous. Tall and athletically built. His dark hair trimmed short in the back and tapered into longer strands in the front. His face was narrow but finished with a strong, chiseled jaw. His eyes had captured her attention. Beneath thin eyebrows, his deep-blue eyes held hers, and in that moment, one side of his upper lip curled into a lopsided grin.