Chapter 13
Sarah psyched herself up before heading into work. Luca would be there, and if she were up to her usual tricks, she’d do everything she could to get Sarah’s attention. She loved attention of any kind, didn’t she? Even giving her negative attention would make Luca’s day.
Sarah would be professional. That was it.
Yet Ms. Moreau was perfectly calm as she prepared for the meeting in her office.
Abby popped in to confirm she would head to the manor that afternoon to check in on Russell before leaving the room again.
Alicia hustled by with a request to see Sarah as soon as the meeting was over. Nobody mentioned Ms. Blackbourne.
Damnit. Sarah was going to have to do it, wasn’t she?
“May I ask where Ms. Blackbourne is?” she asked her boss. “I thought I’d be taking notes for both of you this morning.”
“You’re in luck. She called in this morning.”
“Called… in?”
Danica didn’t often look at her when they spoke, but that morning she made a point of glaring at Sarah. “Personal matters. Nothing that concerns us.”
That was the polite way of saying nothing that concerns you.
Alicia hovered around her wife’s door an hour later. Sarah emerged first, tablet filled with notes her boss expected her to compile into readable sentences. Rather hard to accomplish when the boss’s wife came straight for her the moment she had a breath to herself.
“I have an errand for you.” She directed Sarah toward her desk. Sarah didn’t bother to sit down. “Since Abby is… out… you’re the only one who can help me this morning.”
“What is it, Mrs. Moreau?”
“I need you to stop by Mr. Lowenstein’s home and pick up some files he has prepared for me. The man threw his back out and will be on his couch for a while. Either his housekeeper or one of his assistants will pass off the files to you. You can take my car. Does that sound okay?”
“I’ll leave in a few minutes.” She could type up some notes in the car. Perhaps that would spare her some time before lunch. I haven’t been to the gym in forever. Her bosses rarely gave her time to enjoy her free access.
“Thank you, Sarah.”
Sometimes it threw Sarah off that Alicia called her by her first name. Was it a sign of friendliness between them? Or did it mean that Alicia thought so lowly of the help that they didn’t even deserve formalities?
Sarah grabbed her things a few minutes later and took the elevator down. Alicia’s car and driver awaited her by the curb. She looked at her phone and was somewhat disappointed that Luca hadn’t tried to contact her. Only somewhat, though.
“Thank you. Tell your employer that I hope he feels better soon.” Sarah stepped down the steep stoop of the townhouse as soon as the manila folders were in her hand. Alicia’s black sedan idled by the curb on a street that was barely big enough for two-way traffic.
It was an old neighborhood. An old but affluent neighborhood, where at least three generations could claim to be doctors, lawyers, professors, vice presidents of large companies…
basically, not rich enough to own their own penthouses or manors, but rich enough to claim this historical part of town for their families.
The brick townhouses were some of the first luxury single-family homes built in the city hundreds of years ago.
The ex-wives of the wealthy lived here on nothing but alimony.
There she goes now. Carolyn Graham-Mathison hustled down her stone walkway and ducked into a taxi without a single regard for anyone around her.
Sarah opened the back door to Alicia’s sedan and slipped in. As soon as she closed the door behind her, another black car slowly passed by on the street.
She didn’t think much of it as the driver recalibrated his GPS.
Sarah buckled up and happened to glance out the tinted window as the other car came to a stop in front of a different townhouse.
What fantastic timing! Because that was Luca emerging from the back before her driver or bodyguard could open the door for her.
And the bodyguard stood very close as they approached the door of someone else’s home.
“Wait,” Sarah said to the driver before he pulled out onto the street. “Ms. Moreau might want to know about this.” She turned on her phone camera and held it up to the window.
Let’s see what skeletons you have in your closet, Luca. Sarah wouldn’t feel guilty. After last night? It was a miracle she didn’t get out and make a spectacle of spying.
Who lived here? Another booty call? The wife she claimed to have divorced?
Luca stood in the middle of the front yard, her bodyguard right behind her, alert. The black townhouse door opened. A much older woman with gray hair and a matronly sense of style stepped out before calling into the house.
A little boy who couldn’t be old enough for kindergarten bounded out and ran right into Luca’s waiting arms.
The way she picked the boy up and hugged him, their laughter echoing in the yard, their smiles that same boisterous blasphemy… Sarah put down her phone, shocked.
She was in for a greater shock when a woman closer to their age stepped out of the house, in the midst of putting on an earring. Her fresh-off-the-runway dress instantly marked her as a woman used to having means.
She also had familiarity with Luca, for she said something to her before kissing the boy on the head and continuing her way… to Luca’s car.
The driver made sure she was situated before heading down the street. As soon as the black car rounded the next corner, Luca put down the boy, their hands clasped and voices ringing toward the older woman still standing in the doorway.
Sarah could barely hear them.
“I hear your housekeeper makes the best grilled cheese around, Sonia.”
“That’s what I hear, too.” She put her hand on the boy’s head. “What do we say, Victor?”
“Can Mom come in?”
“May Mom come in.”
“And June and July and August.”
Luca shrugged. “He’s bright about what matters most.”
The woman stepped out of the way so mother and son could enter. Sarah had seen enough. She told the driver to head back to the office.
You lying sack of shit. Sarah almost hoped Luca would see her on the way by, but the windows were too dark. Besides, Luca only had eyes for the little boy leading her into the townhouse. Sarah would know the look of a doting parent anywhere.
Personal matters. Personal. Fucking. Matters.
Sarah was too disgusted to even send hate texts. Perhaps Luca had never lied about being divorced. But having a kid? That seemed important. And wasn’t it curious that it hadn’t been in any of her public profiles?
A son. A son. Luca had a kid, and not only refused to divulge that to the woman she courted, but what were the circumstances?
Who was that woman? Luca said she was divorced, but her ex was back in Denmark, right?
Was that woman who left Luca’s sister? The nanny?
Or is this her family? What if she never got divorced?
Was the penthouse a front for cheating scum?
What did that make Sarah?
No longer giving a fuck about Luca’s shit, that’s what.
“You gonna answer that?”
Sarah’s phone continued to ring on the kitchen counter, where she had left it while preparing and eating dinner. Nigel stood in front of the sink doing the dishes. Did he have a problem with her ringtone or something?
She glanced at the caller. “Nope.”
“Block it, then.”
“Nah.” Almost amusing to see how persistent Luca was.
This was her third call of the evening. What?
Was she finished playing with her little boy?
Sitting at home feeling lonely? Wanted her booty-call to show up and pay attention to her pussy?
What is this? Her shower? To be fair, Luca had given as well as she had taken.
Damnit, don’t think about her going down on you in the shower.
Sitting on that bench, water spraying on them… “Nah,” she said again.
Nigel grabbed his earbuds and plugged them into his phone. That was one way to ignore his sister’s incessantly ringing phone.
She was busy, anyway. Busy packing for a trip to New York to stop by her favorite club. She’d have to take the train instead of flying this last-minute, but she didn’t care. That gave her more time to get into the headspace of the persona lurking in the back of her closet.
Angel had been dormant for too long. If anyone could help get Luca out of Sarah’s system, it was that trashy, slutty blonde. She was the one who got them into this mess, anyway. The least Angel could do was pull Sarah back out of it.
This time tomorrow, she fully intended to be up to her chin in hot, eligible idiots who were ready to give her exactly what she wanted.
None of those silly mind games Luca liked to play.
Maybe they were also cheating scum, but they wouldn’t lie about it – for long.
Angel had no morals. Sarah was starting to think her persona had the right idea.
The less she cared about those she fucked, the better.
Here was hoping the next one didn’t show up at her damn office Monday morning.
“What are you thinking about over there?” Nigel asked as soon as the dishes were finished. “You look like a supervillain plotting the demise of the city.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Nigel shrugged. “Yeah?”
Her poor baby brother (by five minutes, but who was really counting?) couldn’t handle the answer. Sarah grabbed her phone, turned it off, and went into her room to pack.