He hated the look in her eyes, the sadness and regret.
“You’re not the only one who fucked up, Sam.”
“I’m not?”
“No.” It made sense now. She couldn’t see herself, like Jack said. A Dominant needed to be lifted up by the submissive sometimes, to be shown who they were. And the submissive needed to be the solid ground their Dominant stood on from time to time. “I wasn’t being honest. I didn’t tell you how I felt. I’ve felt inferior about all this for a while. Jack helped me figure out that being submissive doesn’t make me weak.”
“You told him?” she asked. “You know he’s…?”
“He told me, last year.” Cue the squickiness. “Wait, how do you know?”
“Lilly’s kind of textbook. Her collar gave it away, too.”
“That necklace is a collar?” he asked. Sam nodded.
They all knew way too much about each other’s sex lives.
“Anyway, I realized I’ve been thinking about this all wrong. I wasn’t picking up the slack at home, either.” And man, five days without her showed him how much he’d taken advantage. “I had no idea how much you were juggling. That wasn’t fair, especially since you gave up your career because of me.”
“That’s not true,” she said. “I came back for my parents. I stayed because of you. Giving up my career was my choice, and I never should’ve made you feel badly about that. You’re a good man and were there for me, and I love you.”
Brady’s breath caught. He hadn’t been sure he’d ever hear her say that again.
“I love you, too.”
They moved closer, bent their heads together until their foreheads were touching. On the playground, Allegra shouted, but not in anger. Brady angled his head to see her pushing Hope on a swing. “Are they…getting along?”
“Looks like. But Allegra’s gonna be a teenager soon, so we shouldn’t expect it to last.”
They both laughed, and it was the sound of relief. “I want us back,” Sam said.
“You never lost us.”
She shook her head. “I’m the one who’s supposed to make the grand gesture. You’re making this too easy for me.”
“The grand what?”
“In the romance books. The character who messed everything up is supposed to do something impressive and apologetic to the other one. To prove their love.”
He reached for her left hand, touched the spot where her wedding band should sit. Putting his other hand in his back pocket, he fished out her rings and necklace.
“You don’t have to prove anything,” he said. “Not to me.”
She let out a shaky breath and nodded. Brady slipped her rings back into place, then held out the clover pendant for her.
There was a sigh of relief from both of them when she put it back on.
Sam put her head on his shoulder. Her eyes were shining, but she looked happy. “So what do we do now?”
Brady had plans on what to do. He didn’t tell her what he was thinking though. Things had been put in motion but nothing was solid yet. “Know what I do when things go wrong?”
“What’s that?”
“I reboot. Shut things down. Figure out what I want to do better and start over.”
“Start over, huh?”
He nodded and beamed. Who’d have thought his hacker and computer skills would help him fix his marriage.
“Okay. I don’t want to stay at my parents’ place anymore.” She paused. “What do you want?”
“To go to Vegas?”
She rolled her eyes and laughed. A real, happy Sam laugh.
Brady looked out at their girls, then back at her. There were lots of things he wanted. To work less. To be present for his family. Maybe go to a doctor, see if there were meds that could help his concentration after all, take this seriously and figure his shit out before he turned forty. But there was one simple thing Brady wanted most.
“I want you to come home.”
33
Midway through Monday morning, Sam was usually through that day’s mail and the weekend pile. Today, however, she was distracted, her eyes darting toward the closed conference room door. Hanna had been in there with Pierce and Johnson Phillips for over an hour.
She didn’t know what was happening, whether Hanna had initiated the conversation or something else had gone down, but the fact that HR was present was not a good sign.
At least there were no authorities or immigration officers present.
She finished with the last envelope when the door finally opened. Hanna came out with Phillips behind her. He remained at the door as she walked toward the reception desk.
“I only have a minute,” she said. “I turned myself in. They gave me an hour to clean out my desk.”
“Are they pressing charges?”
“Amazingly, no. I have to pay back the money, but Pierce didn’t want a criminal investigation.” She laughed. “I’m not sure if it’s because it’s better for me or if a lawsuit would be bad press for the firm.”
Sam saw a different person in front of her. Hanna’s hair was twisted up in a half-finished bun, and she didn’t have on any makeup at all.
“Did I…” Sam could barely get out the words. “Ruin your life?”
Hanna gave her a tired, sad smile. “No. You told me to do the right thing, and I did. I almost didn’t though. I could’ve quit my job, left with the money and disappeared. But I need to take responsibility for what I did. And I didn’t want to take off the way Wash did.”
Sam smiled back. Maybe she wasn’t so terrible at wielding her power after all.
“You also reminded me what I wanted in my life,” Hanna added. “Watching you and Brady, it reminded me what it was like to be loved. To be a part of a family. I want that again.”
Sam’s heart skipped a few beats. “You called your parents?”
“Last night. They told me they’d come here if I needed them, but I think I’m gonna take the kids and go back to London, once I sell my stuff and repay the firm.”
Sam had too many emotions to process. She hadn’t destroyed her friend’s life. Hadn’t destroyed her marriage. Maybe everything was going to be okay.
A throat cleared. “Mrs. Clay,” Phillips said.
Hanna turned around. “One more minute.” Then she put her arms on the hutch and leaned over. “Do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
Her face had an odd expression to it, remorse and a bit of shame. “Apologize to Brady for me?”
“For what?”
“I think I might’ve taken some things out on him that weren’t meant for him. Old Wash issues. He’d never address me properly, refused to use a title. When Brady didn’t do that for you, I got upset. It was my baggage, not his.” She smiled again, and Sam had a feeling it was the last time she’d see her friend. “You’ve got a good one there, Samantha. Hold on to him.”
I intend to.
Hanna walked toward Phillips. “Samantha,” he said.
Sam’s gaze shot toward him.
“Mr. Pierce would like to speak with you.”
Yeah. She’d been expecting that.
Taking the envelope she’d prepared from her purse, Sam rose and made her way around her desk. She’d worn her interview suit today, the same skirt and blouse she’d worn when she’d first walked through the doors.
It seemed like a good way to bookend her time here.
Pierce had the bridge of his nose pinched between his thumb and forefinger when she entered the room.
“Mr. Pierce?”
“Close the door.”
Nice greeting. Sam followed his instruction and sat down across from him.
He lifted his head. “I specifically told you not to mention the Choate file to Hanna. You went against my wishes.”
“I did.” She didn’t feel the need to reach for her necklace, even though it felt good to have it back on. Her Boston Bombshell confidence had returned.
“Why?”
“Because it was the right thing
to do.”
Pierce narrowed his eyes, then shook his head. “I’m glad you did.”
Sam blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Hanna never would’ve come forward on her own. Who knows how long she would’ve been doing this, or what other clients she would’ve stolen from.”
“She told you I figured it out.”
“No. But I imagined someone had to be holding something over her, and you were the only other person with access.” He shook his head. “I gave you this project because it was a mess and I wanted you to organize it. I never expected you to discover forgery.”
“Honestly, I thought it was you.”
“I’m glad you were so diligent.” He chuckled out a laugh, then sighed. Sam felt bad for judging him wrongly. “What a mess. I don’t suppose you’d like a job as a legal secretary.”
“Actually, Mr. Pierce—” she slid the envelope across the table, “—I’m offering my resignation.”
“You’re what? Why?”
“I don’t think I belong here.”
She’d taken Brady’s suggestion to heart. She needed a reboot. Not just at home. Everywhere.
Pierce frowned at her. “I had a feeling you weren’t long for that job.”
“It wasn’t the right fit. And I appreciate your offer, but I don’t feel right taking Hanna’s place.”
He looked hard at her, swiveled back and forth in his chair.
“There might be another opportunity for you,” he said. “We’re opening up a new arm for the firm. A new subsidiary. FS&P Government.”
“Government?”
Pierce nodded. He was watching her. Carefully.
“It’ll provide legislative and regulatory counsel to public and private sector clients on a wide range of both federal and state policy issue, ranging from lobbying to building grassroots coalitions.” He swiveled back and forth again. “Interested?”
Sam must’ve looked like a cartoon character, her mouth had fallen so far open.
“Hell yeah, I am.” She wanted to take the words back as soon as she’d said them, but then Pierce laughed. Cursing in front of her boss. Brady was going to be so proud. “What would the job be?”
“It’ll be a new position, but I see it as a legal assistant-slash-government consultant. We’ve got some good attorneys on the team but no one with any government background. They could use someone with your skills.”
This was too good to be true. “But you said federal government.”
“I did. The job will require some travel to Washington, but the main offices are here in Boston.” He gathered his files, then glanced up at her. “It would be full time, too.”
Shit. That was the catch.
“Thank you, Mr. Pierce. I’ll need to talk to my husband first.”
He stood and extended his hand. “Let me know what you decide.”
When Sam left the office a few hours later, it was a warmer day than usual for late April, the magnolia trees starting to bloom pink and white. It reminded her of the DC Cherry Blossom Festival, of new starts and fresh possibilities.
She wanted this job. But whatever she and Brady decided about it, she needed to stop looking backward and start looking to the future. To let go of what she’d once had and imagine what her life could be.
Brady greeted her at the house with a smile.
“What are you doing home?” Sam asked, although she wasn’t upset to see him there.
“I took a half day,” he said. “So what happened?”
She filled him in on everything, first about Hanna, and her apology to him, then about the job.
“That’s perfect for you,” he announced, jubilant.
Sam wasn’t on board yet. “But the hours, the travel. How do we work around that?”
He crossed those huge arms of his, muscles barely contained under a lightweight long-sleeved shirt. “Why be the CTO of a huge company if I can’t change my hours?”
Sam stopped staring at his chest long enough to absorb his words. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“I told Wendell and Myles that I was burning out and needed to be more available to you and the girls. I can do a lot remotely, so three days a week I’ll leave midafternoon and work from home. I’ll have to switch it up if there are any meetings, but it means I can get them off the bus instead of a sitter every day. And you can take this awesome job.”
Sam threw her arms around him. It always annoyed her when this happened in her romance novels—when everything worked out into that perfect, sappy, Hallmark Channel Christmas movie ending. But it turned out in real life, she didn’t mind so much. She sank into him, into his scent, into the safety and certainty of her husband.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For loving me.”
“I always have,” he said. “I take care of you, you take care of me. End of story.”
Sam smiled. It wasn’t the end. It was a beginning.
The girls wanted to stay outside when they got off the bus. Sam unearthed a box of sidewalk chalk, which Hope used to do math problems on the driveway. Allegra asked to borrow Sam’s phone, turned on some music and practiced the dance routine she’d be doing at her party. The highschooler who’d moved in down the street came to check out Allegra’s moves, and before Sam knew it, both her daughters were asking to go to her house.
“My parents are home,” the young girl said. Sam had met her parents the evening before, a quick hello when they were all taking their trash out. They’d invited her in for a few, and they were waving now from inside the window.
“Okay.” But Sam didn’t agree just to placate her children. She had her own agenda. She took down the girl’s cell number. “Bring them back by five.”
When she and Brady watched their daughters disappear safely into a house down the street, Sam took her husband’s hand. “Take me inside?”
He turned to look at her. His eyes had gone turquoise.
They went into the house, past the pile of Post-it Notes they’d pulled down, agreeing to find a better way to manage responsibilities together.
“There’s one more thing we haven’t discussed,” Sam said, stopping at the stairs. They needed to talk about this first, before they went into the bedroom and things got foggy. “For the past few months, we’ve had this overlap. There was no line between how we were in bed and how we are in the rest of the world.”
“Okay,” he said. Sam inhaled steadily.
“See, this is what I don’t want—to always be the one in charge while you wait for instructions. Inside the bedroom, I like that. But outside it, we’re equals. No more pet and Mistress out here. I want your input. And your help.”
“Oh,” he said, and got quiet for a second. She waited, knowing it took longer for Brady to get his thoughts out, that if he was trusting her with them, she had to be patient and listen.
“That line got messy for me, too. I got upset when Hanna told me what name to call you, but the thing is, she was right. I want to be a dad and a boss, a husband and a man, your hero and your pet, but I can’t be all of them at once. I need some separation. Times when I’m your pet and when I’m definitely not.”
“I need that, too,” she said. “I don’t want to always be your Mistress. I like calling the shots in bed, but outside it, I need there to be times when I don’t have to tell you what to do.”
He grinned. “So you’re just the boss in the bedroom.”
Sam glanced around at the house. It was a disaster. “And maybe sometimes a little bit in other rooms, too?” She was going to need a tub of disinfectant and pitchforks to wade through this mess.
“Fair,” he said. “But we’re partners first, kink roles second.”
She liked that. “So, you still want it?” Sam asked. “You said you wanted a reboot. I thought maybe you wanted one with the kink, too.”
“I don’t want to undo everything,” he said. “But I want to back up. Start slow. Still be where we are, but figure us out first. M
ake sure we’re solid before anything or…anyone else comes into the picture.”
“Anyone?”
He shrugged, chin dipping with his smile. “I know what it’s like to stifle something. I did it for too long. You’re gonna want something like what we did with Hanna again, with someone else.”
Sam tried to protest, but he quieted her softly, one finger gentle against her lip.
“I’m okay with it. We can leave things open to a possibility in the future, but I’m not anyone’s sub but yours. That’s my hard limit going forward.”
Her heart beat furiously. She wanted to kiss him, to show him how grateful she was, to let him see all the possibilities they could have with just the two of them, right now.
“So I’m only going to call you pet when we’re playing,” she said. “And that balance of power between us, it only shifts when you let it.”
That furious blush of his appeared. “Could we shift it…now?” he asked.
Sam exhaled, a quick, hard shudder. “Take me upstairs.”
Brady grinned, then picked her up quickly, flipping her over his shoulder like a caveman. Sam laughed, watching the first floor disappear. When he’d laid them both out on their bed, Sam turned and rolled their bodies until she was on top of him. He gazed up at her, supplicant.
“You know,” he said, “I never asked what you needed, after.”
A tight breath shuddered out of her. “I need you to see me.”
He kissed her then, softly, and Sam didn’t mind that he’d done it without permission. But she didn’t have the capacity, or the time, to be gentle. Their kisses turned heated, and then Sam was grappling with his shirt. Their clothes came off between scrapes of teeth and heavily panted breaths.
“I love what you let me do to you,” she said. “Things you won’t let anyone else see.”
“Just you.”
Just her. Sam hummed and ground her hips in tantalizing circles, until his eyelids drooped and his shoulders shook. “There’s nothing sexier than watching a strong man go weak with hunger.”
His eyes fluttered open, a hint of insecurity in them. “You like me weak?”
“Yes,” she said, then bent down and kissed his neck. “But only when you’re weak for me.”
Their Discovery (Legally Bound Book 3) Page 31
