Free Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James

hand.
    “Everything’s fine,” he assured her, lest there be any doubt about it. “I was just wondering whether your fellow feministas would approve of you using your sexuality as bait.”
    Payton pulled back. “I’m sorry?”
    She appeared pissed. Good— this he knew.
    J.D. pointed to the could-I-sneak-a-peek? V-neck of her shirt. “Planning on showing off the girls tonight, are we? Is that how you plan to impress the Gibson’s execs?”
    He regretted the words the moment they came out of his mouth.
    He saw the flash of hurt in Payton’s eyes, but she quickly looked away to cover it up. When she turned back to him, her gaze was icy.
    “We’re asking Gibson’s to give us twenty million dollars in legal fees,” she said coldly. “If you think my boobs are going to land this deal, then they must be even more spectacular than I thought. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .” She brushed past him in a hurry.
    J.D. tried to stop her. “Payton, wait. I didn’t mean—”
    “Well, there you are! We were startin’ to wonder what happened to you two!”
    Payton and J.D. turned at the sound of Jasper’s voice.
    Payton quickly regained her composure. “Jasper—we were just coming to join you,” she said calmly. “Did you save one of those cigars for me?” With her head held high, she followed Jasper to join the other men out on the terrace.
    She didn’t look once at J.D. for the rest of the night.

    DURING THE RIDE home, Payton’s mood was subdued. Tired and lost in thought, she’d barely realized that the cab had stopped, arriving at its destination, until the driver glanced over the partition and asked if there was somewhere else she wanted to go. After quickly paying the fare, she hurried up the front steps of the quaint two-flat row house she had bought and rehabbed three years ago. It was a cozy place, nothing extravagant, but the mortgage was in her budget and the place was within walking distance of the “L.” Most important, it was all hers. To her, home ownership was about stability and investment, and definitely not about hot trendy neighborhoods for which one paid a premium.
    Payton let herself inside, tossed her keys on the side table by the front door, and headed back to her bedroom. Her heels clicked on the restored oak hardwood floors.
    She didn’t know why she let it bother her so much, what J.D. had said. Yes, it was insulting of him to suggest that she was playing up her sexuality to entice the Gibson’s reps. The comment had come way out of left field—she had never done anything even remotely unprofessional to deserve such an attack on her character. But what bothered her even more was the fact that she had been completely unprepared for the insult. Normally she had her guard up around J.D., but tonight she had thought they were getting along—or at the very least, that they were tolerating each other, that they had put away the boxing gloves for the evening in the spirit of working together.
    Boy, had she ever been wrong about that.
    An oval full-length mirror stood in the corner of her bedroom, an antique she had inherited from her grand-mother. Before changing out of her clothes, Payton paused before the mirror. She self-consciously fingered the neckline of her button-down shirt. It wasn’t that low-cut, was it?
    She stopped herself right there and stared defiantly in the mirror.
    The hell with him.

    FOR HIS PART, J.D. was not exactly in a celebratory mood when he got home, either. Over and over, his mind ran through the same debate.
    He could call her, to apologize.
    She’d hang up on him, no doubt.
    And why should he bother, anyway? So she was pissed at him . . . big fucking surprise there. She lived to be pissed at him. In fact, it probably had made her night, what he’d said. With his comment he had single-handedly given her the logs of legitimacy to fuel her fire.
    But still.
    He had crossed the line. Over the years the two of them had traded innumerable barbs and insults,