Cat should have been dead on her feet after a full day of filming. Reggie’s on-camera interview and the footage from the diner rocked. She knew because she watched the playback before they started the shoot at the Hais. The shoot that Noah had crashed with his piss-poor attitude and head-up-his-ass judgment had gone well, too. Viewers were going to get one hell of a before and after with all the feels.

Speaking of feels. She was still mad. Seething mad. And that temper had given her a second wind. She’d made an impromptu visit to the engineering office Jasper Hai worked for and—through eye-lash fluttering and a few subtle threats that came across as flirting to the uninitiated—had gotten a new sponsor for the damn treehouse and planted the seed for bringing Jasper back to work full-time.

“The audience would love to see what a good company does to support their employees when they need it most.”

Then she’d stormed back to her trailer and revamped the call sheets for tomorrow with Henry. In addition to demo day on three sites, they’d be digging through the park’s storage building to see how damaged the Christmas decorations were. She had six calls to return about her school and an entire line of new products to approve for next fall’s clothing line.

But she couldn’t stop thinking about how much she wanted to break Noah Yates’ nose.

In a flash of self-preservation, she’d called on her estrogen posse to support her… and keep her from doing something dumb enough to go to jail over.

Paige spotted an empty high-top table in the corner and led the way. The back wall was lit with one of those snowflake laser lights that made it look like a pink, indoor blizzard was happening.

Cat slid onto the barstool and rubbed the back of her neck. There was a ball of tension there that she knew wouldn’t be dislodged by a fun fling or overdoing it on liquor. No. The only thing that would dissolve it was running over Noah Yates in the middle of the street.

“So, let’s talk about why you look like you want to murder someone,” Paige suggested, shrugging out of her coat.

Angela, her sweet, Italian mother, leaned in. “You just tell me who it is. We’ve got connections, you know.”

Those connections included a baker cousin in Jersey and a small-time bookie in Queens.

“Believe me, Mom. If I wanted this guy to disappear, I’d want the satisfaction of doing it with my bare hands.”

A waitress, in a green elf dress and Santa hat, approached. “You ladies picked the right night. We’ve got three of the handsomest devils enjoying themselves at the bar tonight.”

Cat craned her neck. She wasn’t interested in a hook up tonight, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to enjoy the view.