Melting the Ice Queen ✔️

~15~

"Thanks for being my plus-one."

 Alicia and Krista paused in the lobby of the ritzy hotel where the Barrister's Ball was held, getting their bearings. The ballroom looked like a summer fantasy, with flowing fabrics in mint, ivory and gold, fat white candles atop thin candelabra, and overflowing bouquets of roses and English ivy as the centerpiece of each table. "I hate coming to these things by myself."

"Are you kidding?" Krista hitched her shawl over her shoulder, draping it for maximum effect. "Anything to dress up like an adult and get out of the house for a while."

Alicia led the way through the crowd, anxious to get this night over with as soon as possible. But then she saw the bar in the corner and veered sharply. "Two pomtinis, please," she told the bartender. A nice pomegranate martini would go a long way toward making this evening of awards and dull speeches more palatable.

"So have you given any more thought to our conversation the other night?" Krista asked.

"Yes." Alicia accepted the drinks, paid the bartender, and took a sip. Ooh. Nice.

"I'm working on my anxieties."

They dove into the crowd again, heading for their table. "Good. What'd be so terrible about spending your life with a sexy man who's crazy about you? Where's the hardship?"

This was a question Alicia had asked herself repeatedly. How could she explain to Krista, who was as mentally healthy as they came, that the thought of telling Scott what he meant to her and giving him that kind of power over her made her stomach drop? That the part of her that loved freely and freely accepted love in return had shriveled and died when Dad left the family?

"I don't expect you to understand," she said.

"What if he found someone else?"

"What?"

"Don't look now." Krista fixated on something over Alicia's shoulder, her brows doing a slow creep toward her hairline. "But he and his date need to get a room."

Horror hit Alicia like a two-ton satellite falling out of the sky, paralyzing her for one uncomprehending moment before she whirled around to see this abomination with her own two disbelieving eyes.

Oh, God. There he was, sitting on a stool at another bar across the room with a little hottie perched next to him. They were chatting it up, laughing and flirting, oblivious to the crowd around them. With Scott in his tuxedo and the hoochie in a designer red dress that showed about four feet of bare thigh and surely allowed a significant draft to cool her privates, they looked sexy and sophisticated together—as though they'd just stepped out of an ad for luxury living.

Alicia stared, her jaw on the floor.

It got worse. The woman, tossing a head full of sleek curls, leaned in, resting her hand on Scott's thigh. Oh, but there was more. Oblivious to all standards of decency in civilized society, that slut whispered something in his ear and then nipped—nipped!—his lobe as she pulled away.

Oh, no, she didn't.

Krista, probably sniffing danger in the air, tried to keep things calm. "Alicia—"

Alicia flashed her a look that had Krista backing up a step. "Shut. Up."

Krista shut up.

Alicia knew that she had now, officially, lost her mind behind this seething red haze of jealousy. She knew that she'd rejected Scott's proposal, told him she couldn't be the woman he wanted, and wished him well.

But that was then, before she'd begun to face and tackle her anxieties and think about a future with Scott.

This was now.

After finishing her drink in one sinus-clearing gulp, she shoved the empty glass at her stammering sister and marched over to greet the little lovebirds, who looked around with surprise at her arrival.

Scott, the bastard, gave her the basic smile, filled with pleasant indifference, with which he might have greeted any passing acquaintance. "Alicia. I didn't know you were coming tonight."

"Hello, Scott." Flashing her brightest smile and extending her hand, she turned to the sex kitten. "I haven't met your new friend. I'm Alicia Carroll."

The woman, in a transparently possessive move ripped straight from the halls of seventh grade, put that damn hand back on Scott's thigh, flashed her own grin, and shook with her other hand. "Cindi Kelly."

"That's a beautiful dress, Cindi," Alicia said. "It's Herve Leger, isn't it?"

"Well." Cindi shot Scott a bewildered glance but quickly recovered. "Yes."

"Love it." Alicia looked the woman right in her lovely eyes and kept her gracious smile in place. "Oh, and Cindi? If you don't get your hand off Scott's thigh, I'm going to hurt you."

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