The Sweet Life (Sunshine Bay #3)

Chapter One

T he high-pitched wail of a phone alarm dragged attorney Sage Rosetti from her recurring nightmare—the one where she stood naked in the front of a packed courtroom as the judge ruled in favor of her client’s ex.

Over the alarm, Sage heard her assistant Brenda’s voice and realized that she had fallen asleep at her desk again.

“Trust me, Sage can sleep through almost anything. This is the third time this week she’s pulled an all-nighter,” Brenda said.

Sage didn’t think her team finding her asleep at her desk was a good look and tried opening her eyes, but apparently her body wasn’t taking orders from her brain.

“Doesn’t she have a partner or friends?” asked another woman, whose voice was almost as annoying as the alarm that had gone blessedly silent.

“No. All she does is work.”

Hey, she had friends… Family counted as friends, didn’t they? Sage managed to pry one eyelid open. Hovering by her desk were the blurred faces of Brenda and the junior lawyer who’d been assigned to Sage’s team yesterday afternoon.

“If that’s what it takes to make partner at this firm, I’d better start applying elsewhere. Work-life balance is a priority for me.”

Sage snorted at the idea of work-life balance—but she must have snorted in her head, because the two women kept talking as if she weren’t lying with her face on her keyboard, eyeballing them.

“Sage is a junior partner,” Brenda informed the newest member of their team. And given how the founding partners felt about her inability to toe the company line, she would remain so until the three octogenarians either retired or dropped dead.

“Really? I thought she’s one of the most sought-after divorce attorneys in Boston and makes the big bucks.”

“She is, and she does. It’s just that the founding partners are—”

Brenda’s intention to share their low opinion of the founding partners with a brand-new associate was the impetus Sage needed to lift her bowling-ball-heavy head off the desk. “What time is it?” she rasped, peeling the keyboard from her cheek.

“Time that you picked a new alarm for your phone. It’s been proven that the Radar alarm ringtone elevates people’s blood pressure and makes them grumpy,” Brenda said, handing Sage her cell phone with a pointed look.

Sage ignored her assistant’s insinuation that she was grumpy first thing in the morning. In her opinion, the morning didn’t officially begin until she’d consumed at least one grande Americano.

Bleary-eyed, she held the screen to her face. Nothing happened.

“You might want to fix your hair and your, uh, face. You were drooling,” Brenda added, a smile flirting with her lips.

Sage pushed to her feet, feeling every minute of the time she’d spent asleep at her desk.

Her knees creaked as if she were eighty instead of thirty as she hobbled to the closet-size bathroom off her office.

She might not be an equity partner, but that tiny sink, mirror, and toilet more than made up for the bonuses she missed out on.

Sage winced when she caught sight of herself in the mirror above the sink.

No wonder her phone didn’t recognize her face.

Her hair looked like she’d had a good time in bed with the partner she didn’t have and didn’t want, if her clients’ relationships were an example of the price you paid for love.

Her smudged mascara made her look like a raccoon, and thanks to the drool, there was a streak of red lip stain dangling from the corner of her mouth to her chin.

She couldn’t decide whether she looked like a rabid raccoon or the bride of Frankenstein.

As she finished up in the bathroom and washed her hands, she heard Brenda say, “Forbes, Poole, and Russell… Oh, hi, Ms. Rosetti. Carmen, of course. I’ll get Sage for you.”

Sage darted from the bathroom waving her hands and mouthing, I’m not here!

Carmen Rosetti was her grandmother. Ninety percent of the time, Sage adored her, but the other ten percent of the time, her grandmother got on her last nerve. Lately, it had been closer to twenty percent of the time.

Sage hadn’t visited her family on Sunshine Bay in months due to her heavy caseload, and there was no one who did guilt better than an Italian grandmother. Carmen knew every last one of Sage’s buttons to push, and she pushed them like a gleeful toddler.

“Sage, do you—” the junior lawyer began, her overloud voice nearly drowning out Brenda, who was in the middle of covering for Sage.

“I’m sorry, Carmen. She left the—” Her assistant sighed. “Yes, I did hear that. She just returned to the office for her phone. Here she is.”

Sorry , Brenda mouthed, handing the phone to Sage.

If the junior lawyer followed through with her plan to quit, Sage was requesting a low talker for her replacement. “You’ll have to make it quick, Nonna. I’m due in court in an hour.”

Three hours, actually, but she had to see how far she’d gotten on the briefs before she’d fallen asleep. They were due to opposing counsel this afternoon. She prayed she hadn’t hit the Delete button with her cheek.

“Work, work, work, that’s all you do. No time for your family. I’m not getting any younger, you know.”

Sage tucked the office phone between her ear and shoulder and walked to her desk. After placing her own cell phone beside the keyboard, she woke up her computer. “You’ll probably outlive us all. You’re in better shape than I am.”

Sadly, it was true, but it was also true that her grandmother at seventy-four wasn’t getting any younger.

Bringing up her calendar on the screen, Sage continued, “I’ll come this weekend. I can fit you in on Sunday from twelve to five.”

“What? You’re such a big shot now that we have to make an appointment to see you?”

Sage winced. “No, of course not. It’s just that my caseload is heavy right now, and if I don’t work on the weekend, I’ll get behind.”

Back in January, she’d represented a high-profile client whose divorce had received a lot of attention in the press, in part due to the exorbitant support payments Sage had demanded for her client, and subsequently received.

The publicity from the case was the reason she’d been inundated with new clients… and made junior partner.

She glanced at her calendar, mentally moving things around.

“How about I sleep over on Saturday? We can have a movie night with everyone at Zia Eva’s.

” Her aunt Eva had a large oceanfront home and would happily host a family movie night.

It would be nice to see everyone, Sage grudgingly admitted to herself, even if it required her to pull another all-nighter.

“Si, that’s good. We need to talk about your mother.”

Sage sighed. She was the Rosetti family’s official problem solver. “Okay. We’ll talk Saturday night. I have to go—”

“Come for a late lunch. We’ll have time to talk before the movie then. I’ll make gnocchi the way you like it.”

Sage’s stomach grumbled at the mention of food.

She couldn’t remember when she last ate, and there was nothing she liked to eat more than her grandmother’s fried potato dumpling pasta with Gorgonzola cream sauce and fire-roasted tomatoes, which Carmen well knew.

Her grandmother could offer master classes on the art of manipulation.

Sage could use a master class on the art of saying no, but she had been missing her family. At least she had been when she’d had a moment to think about anything besides work. She reminded herself that she loved her job, and she really did.

There was nothing more satisfying than ensuring that women were protected, financially as well as mentally, and sometimes physically, from the men who’d promised to love and cherish them but instead treated them so badly that they destroyed their confidence and stole their identity.

She’d been raised by three strong and loving single mothers who went out of their way to help other women.

Sage had known from an early age that she wanted to do the same.

Except she didn’t provide a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen or free meals and babysitting services.

She went after the men where it hurt most, their bank accounts.

“Okay. Ciao, Nonna. I’ll see you Sat—”

“Don’t hang up! I didn’t call to chat. I called to ask you about Alice Espinoza. She’s missing.”

Sage slowly lowered herself onto her chair. “What do you mean, she’s missing?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean? She’s missing. It says so on Facebook. No one has seen her since yesterday. You haven’t heard from her, have you? She didn’t come to the city to see you?”

As much as Sage’s mother, aunt, and grandmother had been her role models, Alice Espinoza was the reason she’d become a lawyer. Alice had begun mentoring her at sixteen, and Sage had spent the majority of her weekends and school holidays with Alice at her home and law offices on Ocean View Drive.

“I haven’t spoken to her since…” Sage racked her brain, trying to remember when they’d last talked. She was positive it had been within the past two months, but then it hit her. “… New Year’s Eve.” She briefly closed her eyes at the realization she hadn’t spoken to Alice in five months.

She’d called Sage around nine o’clock on New Year’s Eve.

They’d laughed at their similar plans for the night, working at home while watching Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen ring in the New Year.

Then Alice had shared her surprising news.

She was buying a lavender farm outside Sunshine Bay.

She planned to relocate her law practice to the farm as well.

Sage had promised to help her with the move, and Alice had texted her the date last month.

Sage had meant to call her, but time had gotten away from her.