AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t need a babysitter.”
He’d started to say that he knew that, that he’d asked Anna to stay just to keep her company, when he realized that she never had company in the evening—not with him safely ensconced behind the closed door to the master suite.
And then he’d thought, Why did I use that word? Safely? Why would I need to feel safe in my own home?
But by then Cat had stormed away, and the clock said he had less than forty minutes to shower and change and get downtown to Sam’s. And now he was with Sam, and yet not with her, going through the motions of a date and stealing glances at his watch.
“…want to tell me, Jake?”
He blinked. Sam’s artfully made-up face swam into focus. She was leaning over again, all that cleavage on display, but there was a sharp glitter in her eyes.
“Sorry. I, ah, I didn’t quite hear what you said.”
“How could you? You aren’t paying the least bit of attention to me.”
“Sorry,” he said again. “Business problems. You know how it is.”
“I don’t know how it is. How could I? You don’t call for weeks and then you ask me to dinner—and where are you?”
“Sam—”
“Is this a…” She licked her lips. “Is it, you know, a farewell meal? Because if it is, if you’re breaking up with me—”
“No,” Jake said quickly, “it’s not that. I’ve been…busy.”
“Busy doing what?”
He looked at her. Sam was sophisticated. Urbane. Maybe she could help him figure out the best way to deal with a woman who, until just two weeks ago, had lived a sheltered life.
He cleared his throat. “Someone—someone died.”
“Oh, Jake—”
“Nobody I knew,” he said hastily. “Just someone I have a connection to.” He pushed his untouched plate aside. “It’s complicated, but the bottom line is that I’ve been charged with a difficult responsibility.”
“What responsibility?”
“I’m supposed to introduce a girl to society. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I’m supposed to introduce her to Brazilian society.”
“Here? In New York?”
“Yes.”
Sam frowned. Or would have frowned except for the Botox. Botox, at her age? He shouldn’t have been surprised. When Sam frowned, when most of the women he knew frowned, they only managed to turn their eyebrows into caterpillars scaling their foreheads at a forty-five-degree angle.
Cat would never do that to herself. He knew it as surely as he knew she’d never spend half the time Sam had spent putting on her makeup tonight…
“Jake?”
He blinked again. “Yeah. Sorry.”
“I asked you how old this child is.”
“She’s—” Whoa. Shaky ground. Why had he thought this would be something to discuss with Samantha? “You know what?” he said briskly. “Let’s not bother talking about her. How about dessert? I know you’re always counting calories, but—”
“How old is this child, Jake?”
“She’s not exactly a child.”
