Stella kept shaking her head. “I’m so, so sorry.” She held her hand to her chest. “I can’t believe I hit you. It was a gut reaction. I didn’t even see who was there. It all happened so fast.”

“It’s fine. It’s my own fault. I should know by now that you’re jumpy. And you didn’t know I came back. I misread the situation.”

“Shouldn’t you be tilting your head back?”

“No. That’s the last thing you should do when you get a bloody nose. You pinch the soft part above the nostrils. Tilting your head back only makes you swallow the blood.”

Her face wrinkled, and she covered her mouth. “That’s gross.”

For the first time, I noticed her knuckles were red. Two were starting to swell. I lifted my chin and pointed. “How does your hand feel?”

“Oh…I’m not sure.” She stretched out her fingers, then made a fist before opening it again. It didn’t look like they were broken. “It’s sore, actually. I think the adrenaline was rushing through me, so I didn’t feel it until now.”

I stood and went to the refrigerator. The best I could find in the freezer was a Lean Cuisine. I wrapped it in a paper towel and handed it to her. “Hold this against your knuckles.”

“Shouldn’t you be using it?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

Ten minutes later, the bleeding from my nose finally started to subside. “You pack a pretty damn good wallop there for a little thing.”

She shook her head. “I still can’t believe I did that. I’ve never hit anyone in my life. I thought I was alone in the office.”

“I did leave. But I forgot something for a meeting I have uptown early tomorrow morning, so I came back. I heard the icemaker when I passed the lunchroom and realized you were still here. I figured I’d let you know I would reset the alarm on my way out, but I guess you’ve got security covered with that right hook.”

She smiled, but it quickly fell to a frown as she looked at my nose. “I’m really sorry.”

“I’m okay. The nose just bleeds a lot. I’m going to go to the men’s room and wash up before I head out.” I pointed my eyes to her hand. “You sure you’re okay?”

Stella took off the makeshift ice and flexed her fingers. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

I stood. “Don’t stay too late, Rocky.”

 

***

 

“What the fuck happened to you?” Jack leaned back in his chair with a giant smile on his face. The fucker was enjoying this moment a little too much.

This morning I’d been going about my regular business, brushing my teeth, when I glanced up to the mirror and found two black eyes reflected back at me. It looked a lot worse than it felt. My nose didn’t really hurt unless I touched it. But both eyes were swollen, with black and purple rings beneath them. I’d slipped on sunglasses before I left my house, so it was easy to forget the problem—until I’d taken them off in my friend’s office just now.

“Who clocked you?” He leaned forward to get a closer look. “Whoever it was did a better job than I did that night we got into a drunken fight over who would win a drunken fight if we had one. I barely left a mark when I sucker-punched you, yet I had to get thirteen stitches when you got up off the ground and socked me back.”

“The person who did this was definitely much stronger than you.”

“Who was it?”

I smirked. “Stella…you fucking pussy.”

Jack’s eyebrows jumped. “A woman did that? Who the hell is Stella?”

“Remember the woman you met at Olivia’s wedding? The one who sniffed the shots at the bar? I won two-hundred bucks from her being able to identify the brand of gin by smelling it.”

“The hot one who turned out to be a crasher?”

“That’s the one.”

“Okay. What about her?”

“Her name is Stella.”

Jack’s face wrinkled. “I thought that woman’s name was Evelyn.”

I hadn’t yet filled my friend in on the shit that had transpired since the wedding, even though I’d actually come today to discuss Signature Scent. Jack was the vice president of one of the largest media conglomerates—that happened to own the most popular home shopping television station. I thought perhaps he could introduce me to some of the bigwigs there to discuss the possibility of getting Stella’s perfume featured as a product on one of their shows.

“She was a wedding crasher, dumbass. She wasn’t using her real name.”

“Oh, shit. Okay, that makes sense. So hot sniffer girl is really Stella.”

“That’s correct.”

“And she punched you because…”

It was probably easiest if I backed up and explained from the beginning, so I did. Starting at the lost phone, I made my way through my sister’s bleeding heart and finally wound up at the purpose of my visit today.

When I was done, Jack sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin. “You’ve had plenty of investments in companies you could have used my connections for. A few times I’ve even told you you were dumb not to come to me. Your response is always that you don’t like to mix business with friendship. What’s changed?”

“Nothing.”

He tilted his head. “Yet here you are...”

“I’m asking for an introduction, not for you to go out on a limb.”

Jack shrugged. “You’ve had a dozen products you could have asked for my help with over the years. Yet this is the first one you’re sitting on the other side of my desk about. You wanna know what I think?”

“Don’t really give two shits what you think, so no.”

He smirked. “I think you’re hot for the sniffer, and you want to impress her.”

Why the hell does everyone in my life ask me if I want to know what they think and then when I say no, they tell me anyway?

I shook my head. “I’m invested financially in the company, jackass.”

The last thing I needed was Jack knowing the woman who gave me two black eyes had basically shot me down. He’d still be busting my balls about it when we were making bets from our wheelchairs.

“You were invested in all the companies you could have come to me about,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “Are you going to help me or not?”

“Yes, but you know why?”

“Because you owe me four-thousand favors?”

“Maybe, but that’s not why I’m doing it. I’m doing it because it’s been a long time since you made an effort with a woman. You’re used to just walking into a bar, showing that pretty face, and taking the pick of the litter home. This is good. I hate spending so much time with Alana’s sister’s husband. He’s a tool.”

“I’m lost. What does your wife’s sister’s husband have to do with this conversation?”

“Simple. If you had a goddamned girlfriend, we could go out to dinner with you and her sometimes, instead of Allison and Chuck. Who the hell under the age of sixty calls themselves Chuck, anyway?”

“I’m not going out with Stella.” Until she asks.