Cassie Allbright had never been so pissed off in her life.

Storming through the bar, she searched until she found Lilly at a table in the back, then slammed her bag down and yanked out a chair. “You would not. Believe. My day.”

“I was wondering why he’d called you in so late in the day.” Lilly passed over the blood-orange cosmopolitan she’d already ordered for her. “Talk.”

Cassie sat, lifted the glass and took a sip. Best friends were a godsend. “Schaeffer told me I was off partner track.”

Lilly’s jaw dropped open. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Wish I was.”

When she’d been summoned to their boss’s office at a quarter to six, Cassie had thought it was a sign she was finally going to receive that coveted offer of partner. That she should stay the course and keep billing. But instead, she’d been sucker-punched and told the opposite.

“What did he say?” Lilly asked.

“He told me I haven’t made myself ‘invaluable to the firm,’ since I haven’t brought in enough business.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Technically, he’s right.”

She’d worked hundreds of cases, reorganized and liquidated dozens of companies, but as a seventh-year associate, she still hadn’t landed a big matter yet—the multimillion-dollar kind with a company so completely fucked it needed an entire restructuring to stay afloat. Those always went to the male partners, a fact of life she’d grown to loathe. Cassie knew her shit as a bankruptcy specialist, but The Law Offices of Forrester, Schaeffer and Pierce were run by three old white men, and she’d been battling the gender gap and racial bias for as long as she could remember.

Lilly’s eyes were wide with concern. “Was he…?”

“Firing me? No.” Those conversations took place in HR’s fluorescent-lit cubicles, not in one of the partners’ cushy offices that overlooked Boston’s Charles River. “But he did say I should weigh my options.”

“So you can decide if you’re going to hop firms in the hopes of finding better luck elsewhere.”

“Bingo. Which is impossible without a book of business.” Cassie raised her glass. “Happy fucking Friday to me.”

Lilly wrinkled her nose. “I’m sorry.”

Cassie shook her head. Someone else might’ve felt like all hope was lost. Not her.

She wasn’t depressed. She was determined. And pissed.

“Don’t be sorry. All we need is another housing bubble, a second government bailout, or for some broke dumbass who’s totally screwed his company up to ask for me personally, and I’ll be golden.” Cassie sipped her drink, waiting for the cool liquid to dial down her fury. “Will Jack be joining us tonight?”

“He’s on his way.”

Lilly lifted a hand to absentmindedly trace over the silver chain around her neck. It wasn’t a necklace, it was a collar—one that locked in the back, only able to be opened with a key her boyfriend owned. Did Lilly even call Jack her boyfriend? Her Dominant? Dom-friend? The world of trust and rules Lilly happily embraced made Cassie’s head spin.

But it was a world she wished she understood, too, and a world she remained too afraid to dip a toe in. Because the idea of acknowledging the desires she kept firmly at bay made her more nauseous than a bad day in court.

“What about Brady and Samantha?” Someone else needed to be coming because Cassie didn’t want to be the third wheel tonight.

“No Sam. Just Brady.”

“Bummer.” Jack’s younger brother Brady was comic relief in human form—or at least he had been until recently, but Cassie liked hanging out with Sam. She was the only person Cassie knew with as much of a high-heel-buying habit as her. “Are the two of them—?”

Her question was interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing. She fished it from her bag and growled at the missed call on screen. “Carajo.”

“Your mom?”

“How’d you know?”

“Because you always curse in Spanish when she calls.” Another sign of true friendship. They’d only been close for a year and a half, but that was enough for Lilly to have become well-versed in Flóres-Allbright family dramas. “I still remember how surprised I was when you said you were half Cuban.”

“You mean it wasn’t clear from my stubborn persistence and tendency to fly off the handle?”

“I thought those were part of your sparkling personality.”

Cassie huffed out a laugh. With her Cuban side’s unusually dominant blue eyes and her Caucasian father’s light skin, most people were shocked to discover Cassie was Latina. But since she’d moved to the Northeast, it had less to do with the way she looked and more with the way she acted.

Lilly fiddled with the straw in her drink. “You going to skip calling her back?”

“No. She’ll just try me again if I do. But I need to find someplace quieter. Be right back.”

She stood as Brady showed, waving at him before making her way to the rear of the bar where it was slightly less crowded. There was a game at Fenway tonight which meant people who hadn’t gotten tickets to the stadium next door would be here, watching on the flat-screens. For the moment, however, she was only surrounded by a few locals and a bunch of guys in Harvard crimson polos. Preparing herself for what was bound to be her second inquisition of the day, Cassie returned her mother’s call.

Three rings in, she picked up. “Hola, mi amor.”

The noise in the background had Cassie placing her mother’s surroundings immediately. The hiss and sputter of something frying in a pan. Buena Vista Social Club playing in the background. The house in Miami Cassie had grown up in hadn’t been home for twenty years, but it brought back memories nonetheless. It was as comforting as it was aggravating.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Lo siento, can you hear me?” her mother asked, bouncing back and forth between English and Spanish like she always did. “The kids are here.”

“I can hear you fine, Mom.”

“Good. I’m putting you on speaker.” There was a pause, followed by a loud, “Niños, say hello to Tía Cassandra.”

Two tiny voices responded in a sing-song, “Hola, Aunt Cassie.”

“Hola, Antonio, hola, Annalisa.”

One of the Harvard guys gave her a hard once-over, in a way she’d seen before: part shock, part accusation, part uncomfortable appreciation.

Got a problem with my Spanish, pretty boy?

Cassie shot a look at him until he glanced away. Tension coiled in the back of her neck as her mother switched the call off speaker, then began a report on everything her niece and nephew were doing. Cassie sighed and kneaded her neck with her free hand. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her brother’s kids, but Jesus Christ, couldn’t she get the CliffsNotes version or something?

“Listen, Mom, I’m in the middle of stuff. Was there something you needed?”

“Yes, yes. You’re very busy. I know.”

And those words implied what they always did. That despite being the first person in her family to go to an Ivy League college or graduate from law school, it didn’t measure up with her siblings’ choices. Cassie’s younger brother had married a nice Cuban-American girl, and her little sister was engaged to a great guy from the Dominican.

Which, Cassie was sure, was about to be the topic of conversation for this call.

“Well, I don’t want to keep you,” her mother continued, “but we need to talk.”

“About what?”

“Elísa is concerned you don’t have a date for the wedding yet.”

There it was. “I think you’re more concerned than she is, Mom.”

“Your sister has enough to do without worrying about this. You want to be the only one at the wedding without a date?”

Cassie’s fingers tensed on her neck. Marriage and babies were another place she’d gone off-track. She was the eldest child in the family, and the only one not paired off, which was a cardinal sin as far as her mother was concerned.

She wasn’t the only person Cassie heard it from, though. The question was a constant at Bar Association meetings, new employee orientations and committees she’d been assigned to.

You have kids?

Nope.

Husband?

Nope.

Cat? Dog? Small aquarium?

Nope. Nope. Double nope. For the moment, it was her and her work. But now that Cassie was approaching the ripe old age of thirty-nine, all her mother could talk about was her single status, or the lack of productivity of her uterus.

“I don’t need a date. I’m the maid of honor. There’s a guy ready-made to walk me down the aisle.”

“That won’t always be the case, mi vida. The clock is ticking, you know.”

She knew. They’d had this discussion so often, Cassie couldn’t look at a clock without wincing. It wasn’t that she didn’t want a family—at least, she wasn’t sure she didn’t—but she’d put the decision on hold while she’d pursued her career.

For half her life, she’d put her job first. How nice, to see how well her hard work had paid off.

“It’s only September, Mom. The wedding isn’t until Thanksgiving. I have two months to find someone.”

For a date, not a husband. She could at least find time to do that much.

As her mother launched into an update on All Things Miami Wedding, Cassie’s phone beeped with a text. She pulled it away from her ear and thumbed over the screen.

“Just warning you,” Lilly’s message read. “Patrick is here.”

Cassie’s lip curled in an involuntary sneer.

Looking up, she searched through the pub until she saw him. Patrick Dunham, otherwise known as Jack’s best friend, wingman and a man-whoring chauvinistic pig. She’d been forced to share oxygen with him since Lilly met Jack and Patrick had become part of their circle. And there he was, sauntering into the bar like he owned it.

Scanning the room for his next victim, no doubt.

A publishing magnate, Patrick was your classic playboy—rich, privileged and born with a sense of entitlement. He expected women to drop at his feet because of his money and apparent talent in bed. Not Cassie. For months she’d watched other unsuspecting fools fawn all over him, watched him leave with a different one every night, never committing to a single one. He didn’t try to hide it either. The very first day she’d met him, he’d proudly admitted to never dating the same woman twice with an egotistical, blasé and satisfied smile.

She wasn’t sure any man had infuriated her so much.

Across the room, Patrick saw her and met her gaze with the conceited smirk she’d seen too many times before, his thick shoulders stretching the confines of his button-down shirt as he crossed his arms. Cassie’s body heated as she glared back. He was attractive, but there was no soul behind that mask of green eyes, the thick black hair and goatee which showed no hint of grey despite him being midway through his forties. If every other woman in this room was his prey, Cassie was the one exception. She’d become his natural enemy, impervious to his good looks, smooth talk and cunning wiles.

It hadn’t always been the case.

Once she’d enjoyed the quipped lines they exchanged like a good debate or a cross-examination. It was passionate. Exciting. And there was that one night at a party months ago, when she’d imagined that aggression turning into something hot and sweaty and desperate. But he’d quickly proved he was nothing but a tease. A fake. No ambition whatsoever except the chase. Men like that didn’t get under Cassie’s skin, or her sheets.

He smiled at her before breaking eye contact and disappearing into the crowd. Good. Let him disappear. She wasn’t interested anyway.

And her mother had been prattling on about dates and weddings all this time.

Cassie switched into Spanish, firing out words to quickly wrap up the conversation.

“Mamá, me tengo que ir. Hablo contigo mas tarde.” She had to go. She’d talk to her later.

Much later.

“Okay. Besos.”

Blowing a kiss, Cassie ended the call and marched back to the table with her chin held high. Tonight, she was going to enjoy her drink and her friends and ignore the shit out of Patrick Dunham. She didn’t need his attention, or her mother’s approval. She didn’t need a husband or a baby either. What she did need was to make partner, and she was going to get there, somehow.

She’d busted her ass to get this far, and she’d be damned if she let anything get in her way.