“So, now I’m intrigued,” drawled Karl. “We all want to know how your date wound up with a broken, er, bloody nose.”

Lauren rolled her eyes and took a sip of coffee. “Fine. Though it’s really not very interesting. Neither was Daniel, by the way.”

She gave them a somewhat abbreviated version of the worst blind date in history, but included enough details that everyone got the picture.

Daniel had picked her up in a chauffeur-driven limo, the epitome of pretentiousness in her opinion, and there had even been a chilled bottle of champagne awaiting her. But Lauren’s enjoyment of the admittedly fine vintage had been spoiled by the overpowering odors of Daniel’s hair gel and designer cologne, enough that even her cast iron stomach felt a little queasy.

She’d hated the restaurant he had brought her to from the moment they had walked inside. It had been one of those dimly lit places with modern, spartan décor, and a menu filled with dishes that had an entire paragraph describing the complicated ingredients and preparation. Daniel had made a big production out of choosing a particular high priced single malt Scotch, as though that was supposed to impress her, and had almost choked when Lauren had asked the waiter for a round of tequila shots.

George was horror-stricken. “You ordered tequila shooters at The Avenue? You do know that it’s one of the Top Ten restaurants in the city, don’t you?”

Lauren’s gaze narrowed sharply. “This dude seems to have a weird obsession with top ten lists. His firm is on one, he’s on one, he goes to restaurants that are on one. Anyway, don’t have a hernia about the tequila, Georgie. This incredibly pompous waiter looks down his nose and tells me in a very snooty voice that they didn’t have tequila. I mean, really? Who doesn’t have tequila in a restaurant? So I ordered an even more expensive glass of Scotch than Top Ten did.”

From that point on, things had disintegrated rapidly. Between Daniel arrogantly taking it upon himself to order both her meal and the wine without asking her opinion, to the teeny tiny portions of food she barely recognized, and to his complete monopolization of the conversation, Lauren had been counting the minutes until the evening could mercifully be over. In between talking about himself nonstop, Daniel fielded at least a dozen business related phone calls and texts during the meal, which had at least given her short reprieves from having to listen to him prattling away.

But the evening unfortunately hadn’t ended after dinner. The limo had whisked them off to an exclusive private club where she’d had a tough time deciding what was more offensive – the décor, the pretentious sounding cocktails, or the music. They had danced a few times, and Daniel had grown increasingly handsy as the evening wore on. She’d lost count of the number of times his hand had groped her ass or grazed against the side of her breast, and she’d almost gagged when he had rubbed his erection against her thigh. The smell of his perspiration had begun to mingle with that of his hair gel and cologne, until she’d had to hold her breath just to avoid gagging.

“And still the hell didn’t end,” continued Lauren. “After I almost broke his finger by removing his hand from my ass – again – I thought he’d finally gotten the message to keep his clammy palms to himself. But as soon as we were back in the limo, he practically jumped my bones the second the door shut. And while he was trying to pull my zipper down, I might have elbowed him in the nose a little too hard. Next thing I know he’s bleeding all over his Dior suit and screaming like he’d just had a limb amputated. His driver pulled over to see what was going on, so I chose that moment to make my exit. I caught a cab back to my aunt’s, ordered a pizza, and broke out my own damn tequila.”

Karl and Chris were laughing almost uncontrollably by now, while the normally reserved Ben was grinning. George, however, was anything but amused.

“There must have been a reason why he was so aggressive,” stated George. “Knowing the way you love to flirt with everyone, Lauren, I’m guessing you must have lead him on. How can you blame the guy?”

“Hey. Cool it, Georgina,” she warned in an ominous voice. “I might flirt but I never lead guys on to that degree. And in Top Ten’s case, there is no possible way he could have misread my intentions. Because while he might have thought he was going to hit a home run last night, the way I see it he never got out of the batter’s box.”

The fact that his co-workers and boss seemed to find the whole situation hilarious only made George angrier and more frustrated.

“You’ve ruined everything,” he accused Lauren. “You screwed up this deal for Ted so badly that he’s blaming me for it. He probably won’t speak to me for a month. And our deal is off, Lauren. No free lunches, and as far as I’m concerned Nadine can book you a seat on a cargo plane from now on.”

Lauren tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “Big deal. Knowing you we’d be eating at the cheapest places you could find. And you really need to stop panting over your brother-in-law, George. I mean, it’s perfectly obvious that you’ve got this big ole man crush on him, but get over it already.”

George paled, then turned beet red, the vein at his temple throbbing like mad. He tried to say something, cleared his throat, and shook his head. When he could finally speak, his voice was filled with venom. “You are such a bitch at times, Lauren. No, make that all the time. No wonder you don’t have a boyfriend and scare guys off like you have three heads or something. You might be hot on the outside but you’re cold as ice on the inside. Instead of calling you the Queen of Confrontation, we should call you the Ice Queen. Or the Bitch Queen.”

Karl, Chris, and Ben all stopped chuckling simultaneously, and stared at George in horror, unable to believe he’d actually found the nerve to speak to Lauren in such a manner. George stood his ground firmly, as though he was proud of himself for finally speaking his mind.

No one saw Lauren move but in a flash she had George pinned up against the wall, her elbow pressing against his windpipe as he gasped for air.

Her green eyes looked as lethal as a shard of glass, and her voice was cold and calculated. “You want to say that again, Georgina?” she asked menacingly. “Or would you prefer to apologize?”

George emitted a frightful squeak as she pressed against his throat a little harder. As Karl and then Chris tried to carefully pull her away, she kicked Karl in the shin and swatted Chris away like he was a fly. It was then left to Ben to subdue her, and she gave a squeal of protest as he unexpectedly hefted her over his shoulder and began to carry her out of the room.

“Make sure she didn’t bruise George’s throat,” he instructed Karl and Chris on his way out. “We’ll be back as soon as these two have a chance to calm down a little.”

He banded an arm around the backs of her legs, keeping the lower half of her body mostly immobile as she kicked and thrashed wildly. But he wasn’t able to restrain her arms at the same time, and he let out a yelp of pain as she pummeled his back with her fists.

“If you keep doing that,” he threatened, “I’ll spank your ass. Hard. And since everyone in the office is already going to have plenty to gossip about after word of this little scene gets out, I don’t particularly give a damn if we give them even more fodder.”

Lauren made a rude sound but grudgingly stopped hitting him. Once inside his office, he dumped her none too gently on one of the club chairs before he closed the door.

“Sit down,” he commanded, pointing a finger at the chair as she began to rise. “Sit down and calm down or I swear I’ll tie you up. I’ve got my climbing gear over in the corner, and as you’ll undoubtedly recall I’m very good with rope.”

Lauren gasped, and glared at him furiously. “I cannot believe you’ve got the balls to bring that up,” she snarled. “And I’ll tell you right now, that is so not going to happen!”