Despite the hell of her own day, Zora giggled. Couldn’t help herself. Now that was classic Frankie. She might have a short fuse, but it didn’t prevent her from thinking quick on her feet.
“Honestly,” she continued. “What could I do? Like I said, he’s a bastard.” She smiled grimly. “But that wasn’t the worst part.”
God, there was more, Zora thought. “What happened?”
“Turns out the bagel girl’s a new graduate in need of a better job. So guess which one she got?”
Zora felt her eyes widen. “No,” she breathed, aghast. It couldn’t be. Frankie’s dad couldn’t possibly have done that to her.
Frankie smiled grimly and sadness haunted her dark-brown eyes.
“The VP position?” Zora asked, her voice climbing. “Has he lost his mind?”
Frankie snorted. “I imagine he planted it in the bagel girl this afternoon,” she said bitterly, then released a pent-up breath and looked up. “At any rate, I’m unemployed. I walked out today and I’m not going back.”
“Then that makes two of us,” Zora told her. “We can look for a job together.”
Carrie’s eyes bugged, April’s jaw dropped and Frankie blinked. “What?”
“Unlike you, however,” Zora continued levelly, “I did not quit, but was fired.”
“Fired?” they shrieked in unison. “For what?”
Zora felt her lips form a brittle smile. “Officially? Insubordination. Unofficially? He’s boinking Carla the copy editor.”
April gasped. “He’s not!”
“Oh, but he is,” Zora insisted, comforted by their outrage.
“That scum-sucking bastard,” Frankie hissed vehemently. “After all you’ve done. How could he—but he can’t—” Her face reddened with anger. “You helped make that magazine! He couldn’t have done it without you!”
A balm and the truth, but there was nothing for it. Trent had always been her “boss.” It didn’t matter that as creative director she’d helped triple circulation, that she’d practically single-handedly turned Guy Talk around. The magazine had been struggling on the verge of extinction when she’d come on board and she’d managed to pull it away from the brink and make it thrive. All that mattered was that he had the authority to fire her, and he had.
But he would pay.
Zora didn’t know how or when, but at some point in the not-too-distant future he would pay.
Carrie shook her head. “This is simply outrageous. I just—I just can’t believe it. What are you going to do?”
Zora shrugged, resigned but not defeated. “Look for another job. In the meantime I’ve got enough in savings to get by for a while. I hate to spend it, but c’est la vie. That’s what it’s there for.”
“Zora, I just don’t know what to say.” April shot her a sympathetic look. “It’s…It’s surreal. I thought Trent was the genuine article.”
A painful lump formed in Zora’s throat, but she managed to swallow it before her eyes watered. “So did I.”
“There’s no such thing,” Frankie countered cynically. “See, this is precisely why I’ve begun to think that all men are pigs. They can’t think past their dicks. They’re too busy sticking it to the bagel girl or the copy editor.” She harrumphed under her breath. “This would have never happened to you—or to me, for that matter—if a chick had been in charge.”
Zora readied her mouth to agree, but a strange sort of tingle started in her chest, the kind that preluded creative genius, a brilliant inspired idea.
She stilled and her gaze drifted to Frankie. “Say that again,” Zora said faintly.
In the process of lifting her bottle to her mouth, Frankie paused and frowned. “This would have never happened if a chick had been in charge.”
If a chick had been in charge…
Frankie was right, Zora thought dimly as her mind spun with creative adrenaline. Women were bonders, nurturers, typically faithful and dependable. God knew she depended on her little group for everything from laughter to advice to therapy of sorts. They all needed the same thing—support. If she’d had a female boss—if they all had female bosses—then, with the exception of April, who owned her own business, none of this would have happened. They’d all be better off.
“What?” Frankie asked suspiciously. “I know that look. That’s the I’ve-got-an-idea look.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “What are you thinking?”
Zora didn’t purposely ignore her, but couldn’t focus on anything beyond her current train of thought. If a chick had been in charge, she pondered consideringly, liking the way the phrase sounded, the empowering message it implied. A chick in charge…An in-charge chick…No, Zora thought as inspiration struck.
Chicks-in-charge.
“Zora?” Frankie asked again. “What gives?”
Zora smiled. “You just gave me an idea, one that I think is going to change our lives.”
She spent the next three hours outlining her thoughts, brainstorming with the other three, who quickly recognized the potential, and by the time the bartender heralded the last call of the night, the concept of Chicks-In-Charge—an organized group created by women, for women—which promoted personal and professional happiness garnered through self-awareness, self-confidence and independence, was born. They would join forces, help each other. There was strength in numbers. They could change things, Zora decided. Knew it. The board was formed, the president elected and each member held a key role. They were on the cusp of something great, something monumental. Anew beginning, a better future. Zora could feel it. They all could.
Frankie slid her a look, grinned. “This is so going to kick ass.”
Mentally exhausted but curiously energized, Zora smiled and hoisted her beer for a toast. The clink of bottles bumping finalized the deal. “To Chicks-In-Charge,” she murmured softly and they each echoed the sentiment.
1
One year later…
“I JUST WANT TO GET LAID,” Zora muttered angrily as she made her way back to her hotel room. She stabbed the elevator call button and waited impatiently for a car. Honestly, she thought. It wasn’t too much to ask. It had been more than a year. A year, she silently wailed, since she’d felt the hard, thrilling weight of a man between her thighs.
Disgusted, embarrassed, thwarted, irritated, but most of all unsatisfied, Zora shook her head at her own stupidity. What the hell had she been thinking? Why had she thought it would be a good idea to get involved with a guy who was into abstinence? Had she lost her mind? Clearly she had. Otherwise she wouldn’t be prowling the halls of one of New Orleans’s most esteemed hotels—at her first ever Chicks-In-Charge conference, no less, a personal coup—in the middle of the night bemoaning her miserable sex life and her failed attempt at seduction.
That part stung.
On the rare occasions Zora had truly applied herself at seduction, she’d always been successful. In truth, she’d never really had to apply herself. She’d smile an intimate smile, put a little extra swing in her hips, crook her finger and that would be it.
Victory.
But not tonight—and not with Dex.
Annoyingly, Dex not only had principles, but adhered to them. Initially, the idea of being in an “uncluttered” relationship, avoiding the emotional snarls that never ceased to come up between sexual partners, had appealed to her. She’d just come out a bad relationship—one