10. Chapter 10
“I’m sorry, but I have the same opinion as last time.
” The gynecologist sat down across from Sarah with a thick stack of papers in her hand.
“You’re free to look for a second opinion.
In fact, I encourage it. That said, we should discuss some of the other things you’ve been telling me about your sexual health. ”
Sarah stared blankly before her, the white office blending into one giant ivory hue.
The blond gyno attempted to get her attention, but all Sarah heard was, “You can’t get pregnant.
That was taken away from you, too.” That’s all she heard from her gynecologist ever since her miscarriage.
Because infertility made her feel so much better about what happened to her.
The doctor went over some of the answers Sarah gave the nurse when she first came in.
“Are you engaging in unprotected sex?” “Do you engage in anal sex?” “How many partners have you had in the past year?” “When was your last HIV test?” The only thing the doctor approved of was how often Sarah got tested.
Both kinds of tests – the STD tests and the pregnancy ones.
I remember when I got my first positive result on a pregnancy test…
Her period had been a week late. Back then, Sarah approached her pregnancy news with pure pragmatism.
I was pregnant. I had decisions to make.
That first decision she made was to tell the father, the worst decision she could have made.
“Are you sure?” Sarah said at the end of her consultation. “About the pregnancy thing?”
The doctor slowly nodded. “There is still a lot of evidence of the past trauma you have described. I’m not saying you absolutely could not get pregnant, per se, but I would be very concerned about your ability to carry to term. There are some options we can discuss.”
Sarah left with another hole in her heart. Who was to say she wanted children? That wasn’t the point. The terrible point was that the choice was ripped from her, doused in kerosene, and lit up in flames. Ah, like Russell’s ex-wife…
Sarah stopped on the sidewalk on her way back to work. She had arranged to have an hour off so she could go in for a regular check-up. Now, she might be late because she was too fucked up from the same news as usual.
And the fact that she had blown Luca off after promising to call her last night. What did Sarah do instead? Take out her frustrations with a healthy usage of sex toys and fantasies that included only Luca giving her exactly what she desired.
Life was bullshit.
I didn’t call her because it’s wrong. Wrong to blend her professional and personal lives. Wrong to continue sleeping with a woman she met under such unusual circumstances. Wrong to sleep with anyone she had a personal connection to.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
She made it to work by ten, as promised. The office was already well underway with its routines. Abby was gone, taking care of the meeting Danica was in. As for Sarah, she was to report to Alicia as soon as she got in.
The last person Sarah wanted to see. Perhaps more so than Luca.
Alicia Moreau was not her enemy, nor was she an undesirable person in Sarah’s life. But she had something that Sarah would never have – no, not the baby, although that tied into it. She has the choice. She gets to have that baby. She gets to have her lover’s child. A Moreau child.
Sarah had to take a deep breath before going in. Alicia looked up from her desk with a smile and a brief inquiry regarding Sarah’s well-being. Sarah ignored that and went straight into taking dictation notes.
When she was finished, she walked out and saw Luca hovering around her desk.
“Ms. Blackbourne,” she greeted, sinking into her chair and acting as if she were a nuisance. “Can I help you?”
“I can almost believe it.” She crossed her arms. “Giving me this hot and cold bullshit.”
“Please, not here.”
“Fine. I know where to take it.” Luca went into her office, closing the door behind her.
Sarah’s phone buzzed in her pocket.
What the…
She pulled her phone out to find a text from an unknown number. Please. Like she didn’t know who it was from. If Luca could find out where she lived, then she sure as hell could find Sarah’s personal phone number.
“Are you hot for me right now? Or cold?”
Sarah leaned her elbows against her desk as she texted back. “We’re at work, Ms. Blackbourne. Try to be professional.”
“Why didn’t you contact me last night?”
“Because I didn’t feel like it.”
“Didn’t feel like it, or didn’t want to?”
Sarah turned her personal phone upside down on her desk and went back to work. She wasn’t supposed to be sending personal texts while on the job, anyway.
The only reason she didn’t put it away was because she enjoyed watching it buzz every ten seconds.
“A woman could get quite frustrated with these games, Sarah.”
“Do you enjoy toying with me like this?”
“Don’t tell me you want things to remain strictly professional around us, proceed to grab my pussy and ask me to fuck you, and then not have the decency to call me later so we could at least talk it out. Jesus, is this how we women are supposed to always feel? Strung along?”
Sarah chuckled and finally put her phone away. If Luca wanted to make a real ass out of herself, she could come out here and do it.
But she never emerged from her office. Not even when Danica finished her meeting and appeared, Abby trailing right behind before breaking off to sit at the desk opposite Sarah’s.
“Is my wife here?” Danica asked her other assistant.
“In her office, ma’am.”
“Thank you.” Before she continued, she said, “If Luca finishes her work early, tell her I want to do lunch and discuss a few things.”
“Absolutely, ma’am.”
Abby sighed the moment their boss was gone. “Don’t know how you do it, Sarah. I type and type and then…”
A courier waltzed into the office carrying a small bouquet of orange and red rose blossoms. He spotted the assistants sitting at their desks and instantly approached. Sarah recognized him. Local florist that Danica used to send flowers to her wife and mother whenever the mood struck her.
She didn’t think twice about signing for them. No idea what the occasion is, and I don’t care. Abby remained flummoxed as she lightly touched a dewy rose petal. “Be right back,” Sarah said to her fellow assistant. “I’ll take these to Mrs. Moreau.”
“Oh,” the courier said before taking back his tablet. “These are for you, Ms. Clayborn.”
She sat back down in her seat. “What?”
Abby snatched the card from the bouquet. The moment Sarah realized who the flowers were from, she grabbed the card out of Abby’s hand.
“Have a nice day, ladies.” The courier tipped his green hat and left the office.
“Who the hell are they from?” Abby pulled the vase over and fluffed two of the blooms. “Red and orange? Who’s sending you flowers like these?”
Red for romantic, sexual love. Orange for desperate desire. Sarah knew who they were from, and Luca knew that she knew they were from her. At least she didn’t sign the card. Only three words were punctuated onto the tiny card.
No, not those three words.
“God. Damnit. Sarah.”
This was kinda fun. Make the woman sweat and twist in her seat.
Make her salivate over Sarah from her tiny office in the corner of the corporate headquarters.
Make her seethe in frustration because she couldn’t have Sarah whenever she wanted.
Make Sarah go so crazy that she finally gave Luca what she wanted.
Whatever that was.
“I’m guessing based on that smug-ass face that this is a good thing,” Abby muttered.
“Jealous?”
“Ain’t nobody sending me flowers around here, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Sarah pocketed the card, smelled the flowers, and picked up the vase to carry over to the receptionist’s desk. Abby followed her with a steady gaze.
“Your desk looks lonely,” Sarah said to the receptionist. She placed the vase of roses on the left corner of the desk, arranged it so it caught the right light from the windows, and smiled at her coworker – who was in the middle of a confusing phone call.
“There. That should brighten things up around here.”
“Hey, if you’ve got a crush on me,” the receptionist said with her quick wit, “you could just say so. I’m straight, but…”
“So was I, once, against my better judgment.” Sarah went back to her desk and checked her personal texts one last time.
“You are incorrigible. I can’t stand it. Or you. Keep the damn flowers!”
The sheer amount of frustration in those texts sustained Sarah for the rest of the day.
Nigel was the only one who got a text from her personal phone after Luca’s ramblings finally subsided. “I’ll be home late tonight. At the office.” He responded to confirm that he received her warning and told her to make sure she got some rest that day.
Ha. Hahaha.
Sarah stayed at her desk long after the Moreaus left with their coats on and kissy-kissy faces pointed in one another’s directions.
Abby bemoaned that she had to miss her favorite show that night due to a sports game on TV.
The receptionist chastised Sarah for sharing flowers that she was allergic to.
All Sarah truly paid attention to was Luca’s office.
She had only appeared a few times that day, and each time, Sarah was too busy with other people to spare her an extra glance. The last time she saw Luca, she shut herself up in her office to take a marathon’s worth of phone calls.
Sarah waited until it was close to six, when the office was nearly empty, and the cleaning crews were still not due for another couple of hours.
She finally shut down her computer and cleaned up her workspace.
The last thing she did before getting up was lock her purse in a small safe in the far corner of her desk. She didn’t need it where she was going.