When I Saw You

by Laura Branchflower

  “But with Eric and Ned I was deceived. They betrayed me.”

  “So you’re going to let them continue to hurt you by keeping you from a more healthy relationship?”

  “But that’s just it. I don’t know if I have the ability to recognize a healthy relationship.”

  “I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit. You’re a smart girl. I think the signs were there in both relationships and you chose to overlook them.”

  Her mother was right. She’d chosen to ignore the fact that Ned seemed to lose interest in sex overnight, and with Eric, well, Eric never seemed interested in anything but getting her into bed. “Why would I do that?”

  “With Ned, you were young and had these idealistic beliefs about what a marriage should be. And then with Eric…” She shook her head. “Your self-esteem was so low after the breakup with Ned. I don’t think you were thinking clearly. But I think you’ve grown up a lot in the past four months, honey. You have a good job, and I think you’re starting to realize you can take care of yourself.”

  “I am. And I don’t want anyone to mess me up.”

  “No one can mess you up unless you let them. You need to keep your eyes open and trust yourself. Take it one day at a time and judge this man for who he is—not who you want him to be.”

  Taylor arrived home Sunday evening and promptly announced she was going to be a big sister. “Because Daddy and Candice are having a baby,” Taylor said before looking back at her father. “Right, Daddy?”

  “That’s right,” Ned said.

  “Daddy isn’t actually going to have it,” Taylor said. “Candice is, but its Daddy’s baby too because they’re married to each other.”

  “That’s nice.” Lia smiled at Taylor. “Say goodbye to your daddy.”

  Lia hated the thought of Ned and Candice having a baby, but even that news couldn’t damper the warmth that enveloped her whenever she thought of Joseph.

  When Lia hadn’t heard from Joseph by Thursday, she literally felt sick. He’d made love to her five times, basically agreed to a monogamous relationship and then hadn’t so much as sent her a text since Saturday. The insecure part of her worried he was a liar, but another part, a deeper part, couldn’t believe that was true, so after putting Taylor to bed and having a glass of wine, she picked up her cell phone and called him.

  After five rings it went to his voicemail, and she hung up without leaving a message. It was 9:45 p.m. She tried again an hour later and this time left a message when he again didn’t answer. And then she lay down on her bed and wondered where he was at 10:45 on a Thursday night.

  Joseph opened the door to his apartment a few minutes past 11:00 p.m. After pouring himself a glass of scotch, he dropped down onto the couch in his family room. He’d had a late meeting with Sam Malone, and the latest updates on the Zurtech investigation brought more questions than answers. Marcos Rodriguez was a regular visitor to the Zurtech house, but it was unclear why. He would show up the day after a reception and enter the house alone, then leave ten minutes later. Malone was convinced he was picking something up, but needed more time to figure out exactly what. As far as the connection to Carmen was concerned, Malone had learned they shared a rented home together in Centreville, Virginia, several miles outside of Reston.

  Joseph took a long swallow of scotch before laying his head back on the couch cushions. Malone had checked out the other Zurtech facilities throughout the country and, as far as he could tell, Stan Hall was running a lone wolf operation. And the B2Bs’ promiscuous behavior wasn’t a secret among the business elite of Northern Virginia. According to Malone, the extra perks were a real incentive to many executives. But there was no proof. And why Mike Hall bankrolled the operation remained a mystery. To date, Joseph had shelled out over fifty thousand dollars to Malone and another six thousand to pay restitution for Lia’s wardrobe.

  He reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and took out his cell phone. There were ten texts, five missed calls and four voicemails. He scanned the texts, listened to and deleted three voicemails, and then he was pushing the speaker button and listening to the fourth as he leaned back on the couch and loosened his tie.

  “Hi, it’s Lia. I thought I’d call and say hello. I hope you’ve had a nice week. You can call me back, um, whenever—I’m usually up late. Okay, bye, Joseph.”

  “It’s about time, Lia,” he said aloud, before tapping the display and bringing the phone to his ear.

  “I’ve been thinking about you,” he said as soon as she picked up.

  “You have?”

  “Obsessively.” He unfastened the top two buttons of his oxford shirt.

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “Is that a serious question?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t think I was supposed to. I thought you were dictating the speed of our relationship.”

  “I didn’t mean you couldn’t call me.”

  “Well, I wish you had told me. I would have called you a dozen times. I’ve missed the hell out of you.”

  “You have?”

  “I have.” He laid his head back and closed his eyes. “Are you going to let me see you this weekend?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this okay?” Lia asked two days later as she glanced down at her white sleeveless top and black cropped pants. She was standing in the middle of her mother’s kitchen, awaiting Joseph’s imminent arrival. He was taking her to a 7:00 p.m. Nationals’ baseball game in Washington.

  Her mother looked up from a magazine. “You look very nice.”

  “Not too dressy?”

  “No, you look perfect.”

  She felt nervous, very nervous. Once she’d decided to let Joseph in, she felt like she actually lost a bit of control. It suddenly mattered very much what he thought of her.

  “I think your date has arrived.”

  “What? Where?” She turned towards the front of the house. “I didn’t hear the door.”

  “Look outside,” Elaine said. “I’m assuming he’s the one out there with Taylor.”

  Lia followed her mother’s gaze to the bay window behind the kitchen table, where she was watching an animated Taylor interacting with Joseph, who was standing beside the swing set in the backyard. “That’s him.” She felt a flutter in her stomach.

  “She really likes him.”

  “I know.” Lia continued to watch. “He’s handsome, isn’t he?”

  “Very.” Elaine nodded.

  Lia gave them about ten minutes before opening the door and stepping out onto the deck and telling Taylor it was time to come in.

  “Mommy, did you know Joseph didn’t have a swing in his backyard when he was a little boy?” Taylor scraped her shoes across the dirt in an attempt to slow the swing.

  “No, I didn’t know that.” She watched as Joseph reached out and slowed Taylor’s swing. “Why don’t you bring him up to the house so he can meet Grandma?”

  “Isn’t that sad about him not having a swing set?” Taylor called out. “I told him I have two.”

  “Two?”

  “Yes, one here and one at Daddy’s.” She bounded up the stairs and stopped in front of Lia. “Remember?”

  “Now I do.” She met Joseph’s eyes as he came up behind Taylor, and a wave of attraction passed between them. Dressed in charcoal-gray pants with dark shoes and a combed white cotton oxford shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal his muscled forearms, he looked casually elegant and very handsome. “I’ve never seen you in anything but a suit.”

  “That’s not true. You’ve seen me without it,” he said, bringing a blush to Lia’s cheeks.

  “Mommy, I’m going to go get the picture I made today and show Joseph, so don’t leave yet.” Taylor opened the French doors and disappeared inside the house.

  “God, you’re beautiful. If we weren’t being watched, I would push you back against that wall and show you how much I’ve missed you this week.”

  Lia breathed in deeply, her heart
beating wildly in her chest at his words. “That would be my mother.” She glanced back and saw her standing in the kitchen, openly watching them through the window. “Do you want to come in and meet her?”

  “You’re moving a little fast for me,” he teased.

  “You’re funny.”

  After Lia made the introductions, Taylor shouted from the next room that she couldn’t find the picture and Lia went off to help her.

  “My granddaughter seems to be very smitten with you,” Elaine said as she watched Joseph watch Lia leave the room. “She doesn’t usually warm up to people so quickly.”

  “I’m smitten with her too.” He waited until Lia was out of sight before turning to Elaine. “She’s beautiful. They both are. It’s beyond me how he could have ever let them get away.”

  “Me too,” Elaine said softly, her eyes meeting his. “Me too.”

  It was the perfect evening for a baseball game. At least, it would have been perfect if Lia had remembered to take a jacket. But the temperature reached seventy-five degrees during the day, and she never considered how cool it might get in the evening. By the time they reached the ballpark, the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees, and Lia was cold just making the short trek from the parking lot to their seats behind home plate. She was contemplating how she was going to survive a nine-inning game when Joseph shrugged out of his suede jacket.

  “Here, slip this on.”

  “No. I’m the one who was too stupid to remember my jacket. You shouldn’t have to suffer.”

  “I’m not cold.” He laid the jacket across her shoulders. “Really, come on. Put it on.”

  Lia thankfully slipped her arms into the sleeves and leaned back in her seat, breathing in the smell of leather mixed with what she now recognized as his scent, a clean soap smell with the undertones of woodsy-scented cologne.

  “Do you like barbeque and beer?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  Ten minutes later, he returned wearing a Nationals’ jacket and carrying a box of food and two beers from Blue Smoke balanced precariously on a cardboard tray.

  “I knew you were cold! And you had to buy an expensive jacket because of me.”

  “I’ve always wanted a Nationals’ jacket.”

  “You’re lying. You probably don’t own one item of Nationals’ clothing.”

  “Now I do.” He lowered his head and kissed her for the first time that evening.

  Three beers and seven innings later, with the Nationals up 9 to 1 over the Dodgers, they left the ballpark and drove to the Lincoln Memorial a few miles away.

  “This is one of my favorite places in Washington,” Joseph said as they walked hand in hand along the reflecting pool towards the Lincoln Memorial. “I like to run here at night.”

  “Last time I saw my father, we came here. It was on my sixteenth birthday.”

  “Really?” Joseph’s gaze swung to her profile. “Why so long ago?”

  “He lives in California with his wife of…” She paused. “Gosh, it must be close to fourteen years, and they have three children.”

  “Have you met them—his other children?”

  “No.” She brought her gaze to his momentarily as they continued to walk. “He left us when I was twelve, and then he slowly weaned himself out of our life. We were standing somewhere right around here when he told me he was married and had been for a couple years and that he had a son.” She shook her head, remembering. “It was so strange. I remember looking at him and thinking, ‘Who are you?’ He had this whole life going on that I was no part of, and in my mind he was still this huge part of my world because he was my father. And then something clicked in my head and I realized he didn’t want to be my father, so…I stopped talking to him.”

  “Just like that?” Joseph slowed as they approached the steps to the memorial. “And he accepted this?”

  “Pretty much.” She turned to face him. “I mean, I think we represented this huge failure in his life. If he didn’t have to see us, he could pretend we didn’t exist, except once a month when he signed the child-support check.”

  “He sounds like a great guy.”

  “Oh, he wasn’t so bad. He was weak.”

  “Weak?” Joseph narrowed his eyes. “Weak is not being able to keep yourself from having another drink. What he did—abandoning his own children—is criminal.”

  “I guess, but when I wrote him out of my life I stopped caring. My brother, on the other hand, had a much harder time dealing with it. He moved out there after high school and reestablished a relationship. He’s still there now.”

  “And?” Joseph prompted, when she didn’t immediately continue. “Did he reestablish the relationship?”

  “I guess, but at a great expense. I mean…” She paused as she lifted her gaze back to his. “He moved three thousand miles away from me and my mother so he could bond with a man who rejected him. I always thought that wasn’t really fair to my mom.”

  “So you haven’t spoken to your father since you were sixteen?”

  “No, I have. He called when he heard I was getting married, and then again after Taylor was born. I think now that he’s older he’d like to have a relationship with me, but I have no desire for one. He hurt me so much during those first four years after he left. I had to push all thoughts of him from my mind, and when I did that, he lost the power to hurt me. Now he’s a stranger to me.”

  “Jesus, I would never put my child through that.” Joseph shook his head, the side of his jaw clenching. “Men like him should be jailed.”

  “I’m sorry.” She laid her hands on his chest. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I don’t know what made me tell you that. I’m a real downer, aren’t I?”

  “No.” He moved his hands to the sides of her face, his eyes looking into hers. “I think you’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

  “You do?” Her heart jumped.

  “I do.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re beautiful, and strong, and when I’m with you my mind isn’t consumed by the hundred unfinished jobs I have waiting in the office. I’m only thinking of you. You overwhelm me.”

  As she looked into his eyes, she too felt overwhelmed. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say you’ll come home with me.” He kissed her softly before resting his forehead on hers. “I want you.”

  “What about Taylor? I—”

  “I’ll take you home before morning. I need to be inside you.”

  There was no way she could say no to him. “Yes.”

  Joseph was alone in the law office when he met with Sam Malone a couple weeks later.

  “Thanks for coming in so late,” Joseph said, meeting him as he came off the elevator. “This is my only free night this week and I didn’t want to wait to see what you found.”

  Sam Malone was a small, wiry man with a thick head of gray hair and skin that had seen so much of the sun it looked almost like leather. “I prefer evenings,” Malone said in his raspy voice as he pulled a thumb drive out of his pocket.

  “Where’d that come from?” Joseph’s eyes were on the thumb drive.

  “A digital video recorder in the house.” He followed Joseph back to his office. “And if you have anything against pornography, you may have a problem with it.”

  Five minutes later, Joseph pushed the stop button on his computer. “Jesus!” He leaned back in his chair. “I suppose this means Hall doesn’t leave it to his employees to tell him which clients they’ve been with.” The thumb drive showed the activities in one of the bedrooms from the night before as two women, apparently employees of Stan Hall, were having sex with a male.

  Malone dropped down into one of the club chairs. “Every bedroom in that house is equipped with a camera.”

  “Why?”

  Malone shrugged. “Maybe this is how he and his brother get their jollies? Wouldn’t be the first pervert I’ve come across.”

  “And you think Marcos maintains these video recorders?”


  “I know he does. He installed a new one three days ago. I caught him on surveillance video.”

  “Surveillance video?” Joseph frowned. “You set up surveillance video in the house?”

  “Outside. They left the shades open in one of the bedrooms. I had it set up in a tree in the back.”

  “How did you get this?” Joseph held up the thumb drive.

  “The house doesn’t have a security system,” he said, not directly answering the question.

  Joseph leaned back in his chair. “The more I learn, the less I think Zurtech is involved. This sounds like some peep show for the benefit of Mike and Stan Hall. These B2B women get nice bonuses for participating, and the Zurtech clients have easy access to sex with beautiful women.”

  “Could be.”

  “There’s still no proof this is prostitution.” Joseph tapped his fist against his mouth. “All we know for sure is this Marcos Rodriguez is video recording them. How do we even know the Hall brothers are aware this is happening?”

  “Rodriguez is being paid by Tia Tacos. They’re compensating him for something.”

  “Maybe they’re charging the clients.”

  Sam shook his head. “Hall wouldn’t go through the expense of setting up these cameras just to see who to charge for sex and which girls should receive bonuses, no way.”

  “But you think he would go through the trouble of setting it up to feed his own personal fetish?”

  “I’m not saying it’s reasonable, but I think it’s more possible.”

  “What does Rodriguez do with the videos? Have you seen him with either of the Hall brothers?”

  “No, never. I’m guessing his girlfriend passes them to Stan Hall when she goes into Zurtech.”

  Joseph blew out a stream of air. “We’ve got to be missing something. There is no way the only purpose of this house is to feed some perverted fetish.”

  “Maybe they’re blackmailing the clients.”

  “I don’t know. According to the women I talked to, there were a lot of repeat customers. If you were getting blackmailed based on video, it wouldn’t make sense for you to continue to give evidence to your blackmailer.”