She’d given birth twice, but for him a stuffed nose meant he was dying.
Sam rolled her eyes at his man-flu symptoms and enjoyed taking care of him. It helped alleviate how badly she’d felt since their talk in the bathroom. She’d had no idea his attempts at humor had been to see her smile. She’d thought they were to dodge responsibility. To blow things off instead of parenting alongside her.
Since then, she’d been determined to be extra nice, putting the Mistress aside to act as the doting wife, preparing hot chocolate while he played a football video game with the girls on the couch. Brady’s eyes had lit up when they’d started asking questions about the game. It was the first time they’d shown an interest in anything he liked since he’d bribed them into seeing Black Panther and they’d all come home yelling, “Wakanda forever!”
It had been pretty damn adorable.
Sam closed the windows as her mother had requested. Spring had finally sprung, and the break from the cold was good for all of them, especially Allegra. Temperatures above freezing meant outside recess, and getting to play a bit had run some of the excess energy out of her.
Sam understood how her daughter felt. She’d been restless in the absence of her own workouts. She’d managed to hit the gym a few times, and once with Cassie and Lilly, the only chance the three of them had to catch up in a while. They talked again about a night out, but Sam had to push it off until she’d nursed her family to health again.
A short time later, Sam’s parents’ car rolled up the driveway.
“Okay, Allegra.” She bent until she was eye level with her daughter. “What’s the plan tonight?”
It was Sunday evening. Homework was all done, but the girls’ rooms still needed to be cleaned, and tonight had to go smoothly. “To slow my tempo and say something if I feel out of control.”
“That’s right. Like in dance class.” It was a new strategy her therapist had come up with—to connect Allegra’s impulses to something she had power over. “What else?”
“Be nice to Hopey.”
It was a nickname she’d started when they were both home sick, and Hope had responded to the new attention by copying everything Allegra did. Sam didn’t know what had brought this new bonding on, but she didn’t want to jinx it by asking. The doorbell rang, and Brady went to get it. “And what’s your reward?”
She did a little quick-step. “To show Nana and Pop my routine in my pink shoes!”
Sam kissed her on the forehead and then Allegra was off, speeding to the doorway and running into her grandparents’ arms. When it was time to eat cake, she didn’t measure her piece against Hope’s, too busy chattering about her birthday, still months away. And Sam almost fell over backward when she and Hope handed their grandfather his birthday present together.
“We have a gift for you, too.” Sam’s father pulled four small envelopes from his pocket. Allegra yanked them from his hand, then stopped herself and smiled at Sam with the same sheepish smile Brady often gave her.
“Good job slowing down,” she said. “Go ahead and open one.”
Allegra ripped open her envelope. “An airline gift card!” She pretended to be an airplane, running around the living room and then onto the couch next to her grandmother.
“It is,” Sam’s mom said. “So you can visit us in Arizona anytime you want.”
When Hope curled up on the other side of her, Sam pulled her father aside. “Does that mean you picked a departure date?”
Another sheepish face, this one more guilty than gleeful. “The first weekend of April.”
“As in, two weeks from now?”
“We decided it was time.”
Months, they’d had to plan this out, and they suddenly decided. “Do you have a buyer?”
“No, but we’ve got a great Realtor, and everything is packed, so we’re hoping you could do the rest.”
They were packed? “When did you finish that?”
“Last weekend.” He sighed. “You know how Mom is. She’s convinced a rainy summer will make her hip worse.”
Sam had to take a minute, take a breath. The sudden sense of loss was paired with a gut-clenching frustration. They were leaving and had given her zero time to prepare herself or the girls. Now on top of finding a sitter ASAP, it was going to be Sam’s job to sell the apartment, as if she didn’t have enough to do.
“We’ll visit,” Sam’s father said. “I promise.” He joined the girls on the couch, and Sam felt Brady’s hand on her shoulder.
“We’ll figure it out together,” he said.
She wanted to believe him. She truly did.
She attempted to put it out of her head the rest of the night and into the next morning. She mostly succeeded, especially after running into Lilly and Gabe in the coffee shop near work on the way in.
“So, we’re doing this?” she asked as they got on the elevator.
Gabe grinned. “Hell yeah, we are.”
Sam looked around him to Lilly. “You’re in, too?”
“Absolutely.” She was texting as she talked. “And so is Cassie.”
“What do I wear?”
Gabe quirked one dark eyebrow.
“Sweetie, it’s a gay bar. There’s no dress code. It’s like Boston’s LGBT equivalent to Cheers.”
“So, Barrel ’n’ Flask without the straight dudes screaming at the TVs.”
“Basically.”
“No biker leather then?”
Lilly wrinkled her nose as Gabe laughed. “Think more shabby chic,” he said.
Sam didn’t know what she owned that fell in that category. When she’d cleared out her plus-sized clothes, what remained in her closet was workout gear and old business suits. She’d already worn the few cute things she had.
“I feel like the only one here who has stretch marks and needs a babysitter.”
“Some of us wish for that,” Gabe said quietly.
“Stretch marks?”
He glanced at the floor. “No.”
His comment caught Sam off guard, but she didn’t know what to say. Lilly hadn’t seemed to have heard it. “Speaking of a sitter,” Lilly said. “Are we asking the boys to come?”
“I’m asking my boy!” Gabe replied, no longer melancholy.
Lilly rolled her eyes. “I know you are. But I don’t think it’ll be Jack’s scene. Or Patrick’s. Will it be Brady’s?”
Sam didn’t think so, but she didn’t want to speak for him. “If Jack and Patrick aren’t going, he probably won’t want to either.”
“God, our men are so boring,” Lilly said. “Best to let them make their own plans.”
Sam could say for a fact just how boring her husband wasn’t. The elevator stopped at their floor and they walked through the firm’s doors. “So, Saturday then.”
“Saturday,” Lilly agreed.
Gabe gave them both a thumbs-up, and then he and Lilly went in the direction of their offices. Sam walked toward her desk, surprised to find Reginald Pierce standing there.
“Mr. Pierce, good morning. Can I help you with something?”
And please don’t be creepy, Mr. Creepy McCreeperson.
“I’d like to hope so, Mrs. Archer. Especially since it seems you’ve become indispensable here.”
“Who told you that?”
“Everyone.”
Sam couldn’t help smiling as she took off her jacket and went to her seat. Indispensable was a term she liked. She’d quickly gotten on a first-name basis with all the vendors. The FedEx guy was eating out of her hands, she’d turned the previously messy conference-room schedule into a tightly run ship, and some of the clients already knew her by name.
“I’m free right now. What do you need?”
His gaze didn’t slink toward her chest like she’d expected. Instead, he came around to her side of the desk. “Log in to your computer. I’m giving you access to the Choate file. I’ve already had the tech department lower the ethical wall for you.”
“Ethical wall?”
�
��It’s a screen that stops conflicts of interest or giving people access who shouldn’t have it.”
Fancy. Brady would think it was cool. Or he’d say he built stuff like that all the time. Maybe he’d built this one. It was staggering, to realize how little they talked sometimes.
She booted up her computer and started her email client. A message from Pierce was in bold at the top of her inbox.
“Read that,” he said. “I’m sending you the login to the bank account, too.”
“Got it. When do you want me to start on this?”
“Now.” There was no irony to his words. “Start at the oldest file and work your way forward. We’ve only been doing this digitally since Hanna started so everything before then is already done and in storage.” He started to walk away, then stopped. “Also, I see you’ve met Hanna.”
She froze. Was that a problem? “I have.”
“I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention this to her. She can get a bit…possessive over work she does for me.”
Sam had noticed the pecking order here. The secretaries had their own social structure, a microcosm based around who they worked for. The ones who were assigned to the highest-paid attorneys, partners especially, ranked themselves higher than others.
Although Sam wasn’t sure possessive was the word they’d use to describe it.
“She’s also a bit disorganized,” Pierce added with that toothy grin of his. “I wouldn’t want her to know the receptionist is checking her work.”
Sam simply smiled. “Understood, Mr. Pierce.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Archer.”
Sam got to work. By midday, it was clear Pierce hadn’t been exaggerating about the file. It was such a mess it reminded Sam of her house at the end of the weekend. There were subfolders for each year, more subfolders within for each month, and inside of each was a clusterfuck of downloaded invoices and scanned receipts. She got through the first few months and was able to match most of the checks to the bills she found in the file, however some were signed by Pierce and made out to cash. He must’ve been paying himself out of the Choate trust for the work he did, but the amounts weren’t in an attorney’s billable rate and were never the same.
She definitely needed a break.
It was generous for the firm to offer her a half-hour break on a part-time shift, but it wasn’t long enough for her to go out like other people did. It was early, too, which meant the lunchroom was empty, and was a perfect time to pull out her iPad and read.
She heated up some leftover soup from last week’s Flu-nami and sat. She wasn’t trying to be sneaky or rebellious, reading smutty stuff here. Honestly, she was trying to figure out how to stop making mistakes with Brady. And if she was going to take things up a notch by adding the strap-on to their playtime soon—something she really wanted to do after his reaction to the plug—she needed to be sure she knew what she was doing.
She opened up to a pegging scene she’d read once and settled in.
“That’s a good one.”
Sam whirled around. She hadn’t heard anyone walk in, but there was Hanna, standing behind her at the coffee machine, a cup in one hand and her phone in the other.
“I—I’m just….” Sam shoved her iPad in her lap. “I’m so embarrassed.”
Was this how Brady felt? Because this fucking sucked.
Hanna laughed. “Don’t be. I reread that scene the other night.” She lowered her voice. “Such a relief, I’ll tell you. Most of the ladies here like the books where it’s the other way around. I can’t bloody stand that kak.”
Sam wasn’t sure what to ask first. “Kak?”
Hanna took a step closer. “Means shit.”
“Oh.” Her perfume smelled expensive. Chanel expensive. “What can’t you stand?”
“The stories with the men on top.” Hanna winked. Her hair was down and wild today, curls springing all over, her warm complexion standing out against a sultry wrap dress. A strand of long, thin diamonds hung from each ear. “Who’d want to read that?”
Sam laughed, completely flustered. “You read this…exact scene recently?”
“Yep. Good stuff, right?”
“Definitely.”
Sam stared. She was dying to ask about Hanna’s preferred line of cosmetics, but that wasn’t the only reason she was enthralled. Hanna’s rolled R had a tapped sound, like she put an H before it, and her A’s were more like eh’s. “I have to ask—where are you from?”
“Originally? South Africa. My full name is Hannaleen.”
Sam had met a lot of people in DC, but only a few from that part of the world. “What was it like, growing up under Apartheid?”
Hanna threw herself into a chair. “Couldn’t tell you. I was born after the ban on mixed marriages was repealed.”
Sam did the math. That happened in the mid-eighties, so Hanna had to have been six to eight years younger than her. “So it didn’t affect you?”
“It did, but my Dad got transferred back to the UK when I was twelve. He worked for AfrAsia Bank in London. I went to an international school there and then uni before coming here.”
“You came to America for a job?”
She made a pshaw sound. “Made the stupid choice and followed a man. Wanker, he was.” Hanna put her feet on the chair across from her, like she was right at home. “My parents hated my ex-husband, but I was in love. Two kids later, and that bastard’s outta my life. Good riddance to that—”
“Piece of kak?” Sam finished for her, sensing the joke was the right way to go. Hanna didn’t seem like the kind of person who wanted pity for her past.
“Hey, you catch on quick.” She thumbed over her phone screen and turned it around. “These are my girls.”
The photo was of two breathtaking children, skin a shade darker than Hanna’s with slightly Asian features. “They’re beautiful.”
“They’re a royal pain in my arse, that’s what they are. But I love them.” She locked the screen, then jutted her chin in the direction of Sam’s phone. “Show me yours.”
Sam found a picture she’d taken of them with Brady in a rare moment of no sibling rivalry.
“That your husband?” Hanna asked. When Sam nodded, Hanna leaned in more. “My God, he’s massive.”
Sam beamed. “He’s a big guy.”
“Lucky, too, I reckon.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” Hanna lowered her voice. “Got a gorgeous ginger wife reading about bangin’ blokes up the bum. Bet he’s not complaining too much in the bedroom.”
Sam laughed so hard she had to cover her mouth. The kitchen phone extension rang—something Sam had learned was like a PA system when an attorney was looking for someone. She hurried over to it, seeing the call was from Pierce’s extension.
“Hello, Mr. Pierce.”
Hanna rolled her eyes as Sam mouthed the words, He’s asking for you.
“Tell him I’m in the loo,” she whispered. “Feminine issues. He hates that.”
Sam had to swallow a laugh. “She’s in the ladies’ room, but I believe she’ll be back shortly.”
When she hung up, Hanna shook her head. “Can’t get too far away from that one or he’ll forget where he put his own ass.”
“He certainly seems like a…handful.”
It was the nicest way she could put it.
“Has been ever since his divorce. I’m like his work wife.” Hanna stood, straightened her dress and grinned. “I’ve trained him, though. You’ve gotta know how to handle men like that. Put them in their place.”
Something fluttered in Sam’s stomach—a spark of connection.
“I should let you get back to your reading,” Hanna said. “By the way, I love your hair. I’m so jealous.”
“You’re jealous?” Sam asked. “I’m jealous of your skin. It’s flawless.”
“It’s all cosmetics, love. La Prairie, a line from Switzerland. I’m about out, too. Wanna go shopping with me tomorrow?”
“I don’t get a long enough lu
nch to go anywhere.”
“I could cut out for a bit if you’ve got some time after work.” She nodded back in the direction of her office. “Tell Old Faithful that I’ve got a female appointment.”
Sam laughed again, then thought it out. Allegra had dance practice tomorrow, but her parents could take her. After all, it was going to be the last time they’d be able to.
“An hour might be possible. I need to get something shabby chic for a gay club outing on Friday anyway.”
Hanna paused, then blinked. “Okay, the hubby might complain a tad in bed.”
Sam waved a hand. “No, I’m not…it’s just for fun. With friends.”
“Ah.” Hanna looked Sam up and down. “Shabby chic isn’t you. But we’ll find something. Till then. Cheers!”
She walked off. Sam texted her mom to put the plans in motion, giddy like a teenager who’d found a new best friend. There was something about the other woman that intrigued her. Like her boss, Hanna acted like she owned the place, and that plus the scene she’d read told Sam Hanna might be a Domme. It was a stretch—reading dirty books didn’t mean people did what was in them—but there was a chance something more was going on there.
And Sam wanted to find out.
18
Hanna had some seriously expensive tastes.
Their first stop was Saks Fifth Avenue. Sam hadn’t been there since last year, when she’d gone with Cassie and Lilly on a shopping spree. She hadn’t bought anything for herself; when she and Brady had money to spend, they spent it on the kids.
Hanna, apparently, didn’t have that problem. The bottle of concealer she’d bought had actual caviar extract. She’d paid in cash for it, too, something Sam had no idea people did. Sam hadn’t looked at the price, but it couldn’t have been cheap. No wonder her skin looked so good.
As they emerged from the fancy department store, Hanna dug a hand into the bag of Lindor Truffles she’d picked up as a “shopping essential” and offered Sam one.
“Thanks, but I’ll pass. I try to watch what I eat.”
Their Discovery (Legally Bound Book 3) Page 18
