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“I trust you were able to find everything you needed?” Sabrina asked, refraining from adding, “This time.”
“Indeed we did. Thank you for being patient with us,” Mr. Hargreaves said, then extended his hand which now contained a rectangular golden box with a matching sparkly gold ribbon and bow wrapped around it. “Consider this a gift from all of us at Hargreaves Direct for your time and patience.”
Sabrina accepted the gift reluctantly but with a forced smile and without any of the social graces required in a situation like this, viewing the chocolates as yet another jab at her femininity aimed at reminding her she was merely a woman, prone to womanly vices.
Sabrina didn’t even like candy. Much. She was more of a salty carbs kind of girl.
“Please present your files, Mr. Hargreaves, and stick to the highlights. This morning’s delays have put me behind in my schedule and I’m afraid I’ll have to cut this meeting short.”
With a bit of a stutter and rushed directives to his little helpers, who she’d caught eying her with no small amount of appreciation that turned into resentment in a snap, they got to work trying to gain her favor, while Sabrina looked on with bored satisfaction.
Chapter Two
Binx was purring the moment she opened the door.
“Hey, boy,” she said, her voice tired. Slipping off the cheap ballet flats Shawna had picked up for her after this morning’s shoe emergency, she dropped everything on the entryway floor and stooped down to pick up the only man in her life who wasn’t a raging manwhore.
And that was all thanks to Doctor Kale who chopped off his little pom-poms when Binx was just a kitten.
“How was your day?” she asked him as she scratched behind his ears while carrying him back to the bedroom.
“Meow.”
“Sounds like it was better than mine.”
“Meow.”
“Oh, you don’t want to know all the gory details. I just want to put this awful Monday behind me and sleep.”
“Meow.”
“No, I’m not hungry…unless you’re offering?”
“Meow.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so.” She plopped him on the foot of the bed where he liked to curl up and started searching dresser drawers for something more comfortable to wear. “You know, Binx, you’re lucky you’re just a cat, or you’d be a shitty roommate and I’d have evicted you a long time ago.”
“Meow.”
“Yeah, I know. You do give some nice massages, even if they are focused mostly on my boobs.” Giving him a little pat on the butt, she headed for the bathroom for a little self-pampering session.
After securing the Hargreaves account after reluctantly agreeing to keep the three men who turned out to, in fact, be his sons in her employ, and then meeting another pretentious client who she declined to continue working with primarily due to his flagrant use of the wordirregardless, she was running on mental fumes. Made even worse was her lack of anyone to vent her frustrations to. Her parents were out of town, her friends were busy with their own lives, and she was completely alone.
Binx was her only reliable confidant, and they didn’t even speak the same language.
Filling the bathtub with hot water and dumping lavender scented Epsom salts in, Sabrina slid into the bath with a sigh and put her head back to relax away the tension.
As tough as she carried herself and as hard as her thoughts toward the opposite sex were, she needed a man in her life. Someone to listen to her complaints and offer advice and massage her breasts—the good way—and to give her amazing orgasms and justbe therefor her. Good God, she wanted someone to come home to, eat dinner with, and fall asleep next to. At twenty-eight, it shouldn’t feel as if she’d missed the boat on her life, but that’s exactly how she felt.
And she had one person she could track all of her life’s misgivings back to: Lance Carter.
Unlike how most sob stories went, Lance hadn’t been a playboy or a jock who moved away and left her behind. He hadn’t broken her heart. On the contrary, she had broken his.
Yes, all the blame for her current dissatisfaction sat directly on her shoulders. At the ripe age of eighteen, just graduating high school and with a full scholarship to Princeton, she simply hadn’t appreciated the riches right in front of her.
When Sabrina let Lance go, she hadn’t realized it was going to be a pivotal moment in her life. She’d just thought she was making the best choice for both of them. Love in person was hard enough to maintain, let alone across states. She’d even told him that they should use the time to explore other options and focus on their studies, and if they were meant to be, then they would find their way back to each other. It was her way of letting him down easy.It’s not you; it’s me.
Lance had begged and pleaded with her not to do it. He’d told her they could make it work, that he loved her to the moon and back and so many other clichés that she couldn’t remember now, and she’d rolled her eyes at all of them, thinking he’d been acting ridiculous. Her impatience had ended in an argument that resulted in her walking away on not-so-good terms, and she’d always kind of regretted it.
