House of Payne: Ice

by Stacy Gail

  HOUSE OF PAYNE: ICE

  (House of Payne #8)

  Stacy Gail

  House of Payne: Ice

  One year ago…

  Sunny Fairfax, daughter of a former Chicago mayor, had been tops in the marketing game. She’d taken a tiny tattoo parlor, Skull and Bones Ink, and turned it into the most famous studio in California. Then the owner and unrequited love of her life, Atticus “Ice” Eisen, fired her.

  One year ago…

  Everyone thought Ice had it all—a privileged Beverly Hills background, a hot ink-slinging studio and a kickass reality TV gig. The truth? He’d hated most of it, especially that frigging show. The only reason he’d stuck with it was because of Sunny. Then shadows from his past closed in, and he’d had a choice—let the one thing he actually gave a damn about get destroyed, or sacrifice everything.

  The way he saw it, the choice was easy.

  Now…

  Sunny’s stunned when Ice walks into her new life in Chicago. He’s the newest tattooist at House Of Payne, and no amount of dodging him works. Wherever she goes, he’s already there, ready to melt her panties with hot glances, hotter words and the hottest kisses she’s ever known. But none of it makes sense. Why had he fired her? And how can she trust him now?

  The shadows are back, but Ice is a different man now. He’ll protect Sunny from the darkness that’s been dogging his steps every day of his debauched and useless life, and this time he has to destroy it. He has to, because when it comes to convincing Sunny he’s a man she can believe in, he’s on very thin ice.

  90,000 words

  ***This standalone contemporary romance contains multiple sex scenes, bad cat puns, lame excuses from an Alpha male unused to making them, and a reverse-cowgirl in front of mirrors. No cheating, no love triangles, no cliffhangers. HEA guaranteed. Due to adult language and sexual content, this book is not intended for people under the age of eighteen***

  Discover Other Titles by Stacy Gail:

  Bitterthorn, Texas Series (Carina Press):

  Ugly Ducklings Finish First

  Starting From Scratch (novella)

  One Hot Second

  Where There’s A Will

  Earth Angels Series (Carina Press):

  Nobody’s Angel (novella)

  Savage Angel

  Wounded Angel

  Dangerous Angel

  House Of Payne Series:

  House of Payne: Payne

  House of Payne: Scout

  House of Payne: Twist

  House of Payne: Rude

  House of Payne: Steele

  House of Payne: Max

  House of Payne: Tag

  House of Payne: Ice

  Scorpio Duology:

  Year of the Scorpio: Part One

  Year of the Scorpio: Part Two

  Brody Brothers Series (Carina Press):

  Branded

  Braced

  Novellas:

  Crime Wave In A Corset (Part of the steampunk holiday anthology, A Clockwork Christmas)

  How The Glitch Saved Christmas (Part of the sci-fi holiday anthology, A Galactic Holiday)

  Connect with Stacy Gail:

  Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/RmNxH

  Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1rU3qmY

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/Stacy_Gail_

  Instagram: https://instagram.com/stacygailsworld/

  Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/stacygailauthor/

  Blog: http://stacygail.blogspot.com/

  Copyright

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author. Characters and names of real persons who appear in the book are used fictitiously.

  Copyright ©2018 by Stacy Gail.

  Cover image ©2018 by Mike Orlov. Shutterstock photo ID number: 763799479

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to all the good people on Facebook who shared their horror stories about their worst office experience. Some were tragic, some were infuriating, but most were hilarious! I’m just sorry I couldn’t fit all of them into the book.

  As always, thanks to Jade C. Jamison for inspiring me to create this world. LYLAS, Jade!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Note From Stacy Gail

  About the Author

  Connect with Stacy Gail

  Chapter One

  “Arriba, Sunny! It’s taco Tuesday! Olé!”

  Kill me now.

  Sunny Fairfax’s internal screaming had been on a loop from the moment she’d walked through the doors of Itty Bitty Kitty Committee Box Company. However, thanks to a lifetime of perfecting what her mother called the “game face,” not a hint of her torment showed as she glanced at her coworker standing at the entrance of her claustrophobia-inducing cubicle. She didn’t even blink anymore at the other woman’s penchant for wearing headbands with cat ears on them. Today’s set of ears had been bedazzled by pink and white stones that caught the overhead fluorescent lighting to stunning effect.

  “It is definitely Tuesday, and therefore Taco Tuesday.” Kill me now. “No doubt the entire office is looking forward to it, Mary Pat.”

  “Hopefully not the entire office.” Clearly settling in for a morning gabfest, Mary Pat leaned an arm on the top of the cubicle’s modular wall. Most work stations in the cubicle farm were decorated with little indoor plants or something their children made, or maybe a string of festive lights since Christmas was only a few weeks away. Not Sunny’s. She’d been working at the online subscription gift box company for nearly a year now, and so far not one personal touch had graced the confines of her working space. Or, as she liked to think of it, her cell from hell. “Remember Barry’s reaction last week to the black bean tacos? I swear I can still smell week-old farts whenever I walk by his cubicle. It’s like his body emitted a supernatural miasma—you know, like in Inuyasha? And now that miasma has settled forevermore into the pores of the building like residual ghosts. Except stinkier.”

  Kill me, kill me, kill me… “Mary Pat, to change the subject just a bit, I wanted to let you know I’ve got the new Christmas gift box ads ready to go for today’s meeting, as promised. Also, as per Bob’s request, I jotted down a few ideas for an ad campaign for beyond the holiday season, so hopefully we can get some ideas rolling on that. Is the meeting still set for ten?”

  Mary Pat blinked behind her snazzy cat’s-eye glasses. “Wow, business as usual, huh? I should probably be inspired by how you keep your nose to the grindstone, but really I just keep wondering if you’re from Stepford rather than L.A.”

  “Good guess.” Sunny made sure her calm smile didn’t waver while she imagined herself hammer-throwing a nearby plastic ficus tree through a window so she could make her dramatic escape. “For what it’s worth, I was actua
lly born in Chicago. Now, about the meeting…”

  “It’s still scheduled for ten, unless our fearless leaders pull a switcheroo and announce we’re going on a Cat Café fieldtrip instead.”

  God, no. “The Lennigs do have a penchant for doing that, don’t they?”

  “I love it when that happens. So many kittehs, and so widdle time to pets da kittehs.”

  Oh, no. Not that weird cat baby talk. “Uh-huh. Listen, I’m busy right now, so—”

  “Oh, there is something I wanted to let you know.” Mary Pat snapped her fingers, suddenly looking businesslike as she reached for her phone. “Here it is. The Chicago Bears are playing Green Bay this weekend, right?”

  “Um…”

  “I wanted to give you first crack at the football squares pool, so yay! Toss in ten bucks and pick your numbers.”

  Maybe she’d already died and this was hell, Sunny thought, glazing over. She, an ambitious marketing whiz kid, was stuck in a hell filled with LOLcat-speaking, football-squares-playing, taco Tuesday-eating demons. None of them swore out loud while in a business setting. No one came in late to work hung over or inappropriately dressed. In all probability, not one of them even had a tattoo or a less-than-conventional body piercing.

  These were not her people.

  Then again, she didn’t have “people” anymore.

  “Of course, Mary Pat,” Sunny heard her mouth say while another sliver of her soul withered and died. “Let me just get my purse.”

  After Mary Pat had buzzed on to the next cubicle, Sunny tried to ignore the despair of being buried by the monotony that was now her life. After all, if this was hell, it was of her own making. She’d left California to save what was left of her pride and her sanity, so she didn’t regret the move. Or at least, she tried not to. But with her background in marketing and promotion, she could have worked anywhere in Chicago. Anywhere.

  Yet she’d chosen to work at Itty Bitty Kitty Committee—IBKC for short. She’d wanted something different from her last job, and subscription boxes for cats was as far from Skull and Bones Ink as the moon was from the sun.

  Lordy, was it ever.

  But if she were perfectly honest, part of the reason she’d chosen IBKC was because her ego salivated at the challenge of turning this little start-up into the greatest powerhouse the subscription box world had ever seen. She had no doubt she could do it. In fact, they were already well on their way, and she’d only been at it for about a year.

  She might have lost her mind a little, working for people who meowed hello and goodbye to each other in public. Recently she’d even dreamed of licking people in order to bathe them.

  Worst. Dream. Ever.

  But that didn’t matter.

  What mattered was that the little start-up was going gangbusters.

  So, yes. Her ego had helped land her at IBKC.

  But mainly, she’d chosen it for its location.

  The headquarters for IBKC was no more than a block away from the brownstone she’d grown up in. If necessary, she could make it back to her childhood home at a dead run in about two minutes. She’d already timed herself.

  Twice.

  “Morning, glories!” The apple-cheeked, redheaded co-owner of IBKC, June Lennig, appeared in the doorway, a stack of foil-covered casserole pans cradled in her arms. At the sight of those dishes, Sunny almost dived under her desk. “I know we’ve got a big meeting coming up, so I came prepared. I’ve brought some yummy homemade brain-food to keep us all going.”

  “You’re the best boss ever, June.” Another coworker, Bob Bentley of the never-ending cat-themed T-shirts beneath loud plaid sport coats that would have looked fly when Ferris Bueller was having his day off, bounded forward to relieve June of her burden. “You always make the best sticky buns.”

  “The secret’s in the marshmallow fluff topping. You can’t have enough.”

  Sunny rolled her lips together to keep from gagging. Since when was marshmallow fluff a part of sticky buns? They were already sweet. That was why they were sticky. Thank goodness she had a few pieces of her favorite Teriyaki beef jerky left in a packet hidden in her desk…

  “There’s our little marketing dynamo.” All smiles, June appeared at the entrance of Sunny’s cubicle, a plastic bag hanging off a wrist decorated with a variety of cat-themed bangle bracelets. “I picked up a teensy little something for you when I was at the hobby store earlier this week. Don’t tell anyone—otherwise they’ll all want one, too.”

  “Really? That was sweet of you, June. Thanks for thinking of me.” With her smile once again bolted in place, Sunny rose to her feet and accepted the shopping bag. With a rustle of plastic, she pulled out a rectangular piece of graphic art held in a frame filled with cat faces.

  Home Sweet Cubicle.

  Oh.

  God.

  No.

  “You’ve been at Itty Bitty Kitty Committee almost a year now, but your little home away from home here looks just like it did when you first moved in,” June explained brightly while Sunny stared at it. “Don’t you think it’s time you claimed this life as yours and joined our purr-fect kitty clowder?”

  “I-I don’t know what to say.” To Sunny’s horror, a knot of tears clenched in her throat, making it almost impossible to speak. Claim this life… “This was so thoughtful of you. Thank you, June.”

  “Not at all. I’m all about keeping up that paw-sitive energy here at Itty Bitty Kitty Committee. Meow at you later.” With a cheerful wave, June zipped off to the office she shared with her husband and co-founder, Franklin Lennig. Sunny sat back down at her desk, holding her gift and trying to wrestle the despair out of her heart.

  Don’t you think it’s time you claimed this life as yours?

  She was lucky to have a good-paying job, she told herself for the countless time. The people at IBKC were wonderful, every last one of them. Even if no one in the office was motivated to push the business into the upper echelons like she was, at least she knew they valued her as a professional. Not one of them had ever made her feel like she didn’t belong there.

  Sunny was the one who did that all by herself.

  This could be her new home. It really could be, if she could just find a way to open up her heart to it. To them. They were all around her, waiting for her to take that first step. To try to belong.

  But she’d done that once before. With her whole heart and soul, she’d thrown in with a company and an owner of a business, spent twenty-four hours a day living and breathing that business like it was her child.

  What had that gotten her?

  You think you’re in charge? You’re not in charge.

  A huge middle finger in the form of a termination that had been aired worldwide for everyone to see.

  Let me prove how much you’re not in charge, Sunny.

  After two years of slavish devotion, it was a wonder the shock hadn’t killed her. And the betrayal…

  Clear your shit out, and I mean every last fucking bit of it, because I don’t want you back here. You’re fired.

  Grimly she shook her head, shoving the memories back into the shadows where they belonged. Shock, betrayal, hurt—none of that mattered now. It was in the past, so that was that. Maybe it had left her with a certain numbness that kept her from connecting with anything, but that was no big deal. If her new home was a cubicle, then connecting with it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

  Five minutes before the meeting, Sunny was getting ready for her PowerPoint presentation in IBKC’s conference room when a commotion outside the door brought her head up. If Franklin Lennig decided to cancel the meeting in favor of a “working fieldtrip” to the Cat Café again, she was going to freaking lose it, she thought grimly as the sound of excited voices reached her ears. How the hell was she supposed to drag this start-up into the realms of greatness when she was the only damn person taking things seriously?

  With her ever-present tablet in hand, she took one step toward the door when it suddenly opened, and what look
ed like every person in the company barged in on a wave of noise. That was why it took her a couple seconds to realize something wasn’t right about this epic surge of humanity. There was something out of place.

  Something…or someone.

  Yes.

  Someone was out of place.

  Wait.

  She blinked. Hard.

  This is…

  That face.

  She was used to seeing it, God knew. But…

  That face shouldn’t be there.

  This is wrong.

  Among the IBKC employees was a man who couldn’t possibly be there.

  Ice.

  She’d lived through this scenario countless times in the past—Ice walking through a conference room door while she tackled the business at hand. He would stroll in, hands in the pockets of his loose board shorts or ripped jeans, his sleeved-out, muscle-sculpted arms exposed by tight-fitting T-shirts or tank shirts. His skin had always been flawlessly golden. His blonde hair and white smile were so California he could have done tourism ads. His eyes were the same deep blue as the waves he loved to surf, and thanks to the sculpted good looks he’d inherited from his Norwegian supermodel mother, the camera loved him from any angle.

  The camera loved him, and so did the female population of the world. Maybe even a solid portion of the men.

  So had she, once upon a time.

  Unrequited love, sadly.

  But still.

  It’s happened. I’ve finally lost my mind.

  Ice couldn’t be there in a tiny conference room in Chicago. He was in California. She had to be hallucinating, so clearly she needed prompt medical attention.

  “Surprise!” With a giggle, June Lennig tossed imaginary confetti.

  “Poor girl does look surprised, doesn’t she?” June’s husband, Franklin, put his hand on the back of Sunny’s hallucination and propelled him forward. “Look what the cat dragged in, Sunny. Reality TV superstar and your former boss, the one and only Ice Eisen!”