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I snorted, blinking my stinging eyes. “Not me. Just a fed up trophy wife.”
She shook me a little. “Nope. Hero. Now get out those bottles for me to open.”
I fanned my face and went over to the butler’s pantry where my wine was stored. The rest of the house had stayed in the living room. I turned on music.
Antonio and Kate came up to me with their arms around each other’s waists. “We’re staying,” said Kate.
“Yes,” said Antonio. “Don’t worry, I will be here. This terrorist will not come near us.”
“Thank you,” I said, blinking.
Kate patted me on the shoulder. Antonio poured himself a glass of wine. “Now we will eat the beautiful seafood caught fresh this morning. Life is good, no?”
“Life is good.” I smiled.
Hazel walked up to me. “Hey, Sally, do you want all the extra boxes in the office for now?”
“Yes. Hazel, why don’t you stay for dinner? Then I’d love your help cleaning up after.”
“Sure.”
“Help yourself to wine if you’d like some. And I was thinking, I’ll pay for a health care plan for you, if you don’t have one—or cover the monthly of what you already have.”
“Oh my God, yes. That would really help out.”
“Okay, great. Let’s set up a salary-based position—can you meet with me on Monday? Oh, do you like dogs?”
I’d actually discreetly written to my lawyer about Hazel and had some paperwork drawn up to create boundaries and protect myself from liability. She seemed to be doing sex-work as a side hustle and I’d rather it wasn’t done in my laundry room.
“Yes. I love dogs—well, as long as they’re nice,” she said as she turned away to tidy up the boxes.
Amber and I carried the wine bottles to the ice buckets by the pool. Since Antonio had Hazel to boss around and help with the meal, I stretched out on a comfortable lounge chair next to the pool and sipped on iced rosé.
“I haven’t heard from Marcus,” said Amber.
“They played early this morning, right?” I really hadn’t been paying close attention to football.
“Yeah, they did. So they’ve been done for a long time.”
Clint walked in right then with his phone to his ear. His eyes focused on me, and my nipples tightened. I smiled at him. He put a hand over his face and turned away. Well, it was going to be grumpy Clint again. What did I expect?
“Listen, shug,” I said to Amber on the chair next to me. “Could you take some vacation time this coming week? Like for three days?”
She blinked at me. “Yeah, I could do that…”
“Let’s go somewhere fun. My treat.”
“Like Disneyland?”
I gaped at her. Then I started cracking up, fumbling to set my wine glass down. “I’m sorry—no, give me a second.”
“Oh, shut the front door.” She crossed her arms.
“Okay, Disney is an option. I was thinking more like Vegas. Quick flight, lots of sin, no Snow Whites looking down their noses at us.”
“Hmph.”
“Wouldn’t there be school kids crawling all over Disney right now? Ouch, that look. It could be fun—especially if I had some really good drugs to take.”
