Page 7 of Summer Salvation
“Are you suggesting I fuck the woman I hired to take care of my children?”
He shrugs. “Couldn’t hurt.”
“I’m not that desperate,” I tell him.
“Neither was I,” he assures me. “But when she walked into my bedroom with her eyelashes fluttering and her tits pressed against the tight, white T-shirt she wore, I couldn’t turn her away.”
I praise the gods when my phone lights up with a text message from the same number from Atlanta. Hadley. Eagerly I open it, grateful for the distraction. It’s a picture of Piper with her arms around a Golden Retriever. Both look deliriously happy. Another picture appears moments later. Colton on a boogie board sliding into the waves. “Just thought you might want proof of life,” Hadley’s text message reads.
“I’m so sorry, Jim,” I announce suddenly now that I’ve been given the perfect get-out-of-misery-free card. “There’s an emergency at home. I need to check in with the nanny.”
Jim slaps a large, meaty hand over mine. “Before you leave, there is business we need to discuss.” The glint of greed is in his gaze. “I didn’t bring you here for dinner and conversation.”
“Of course you didn’t,” I say, slipping back into my seat.
“I’ve been patient long enough, Theo. Your children and the nanny can wait.”
He knows he has me cornered. If there was a real emergency with either of my kids, I’d be gone. He calls my bluff, trapping me with his slimy scheme. Minutes pass by, my phone lights up over and over with new messages, but I don’t make a move to look at them. Instead, I’m held captive by a gluttonous pig who suggests I compromise my morals and break a few laws to increase his already bursting bank account.
“I need to look into the legality of all of this,” I tell him plainly.
“I’d expect nothing less,” he replies.
“And if the firm declines to pursue this?”
“Then I’ll take my business elsewhere. No hard feelings, of course.”
“Of course.”
Finally, Jim releases me from his grip and I bolt from the restaurant. Today is my first day back in the office, but it’s been a doozy of a day. For the first time in months, I want to call Serena. She would know what to say to put everything into perspective, to reassure me losing a client like Jim Irvine isn’t a big deal. All those years of her advice seem ironic now.
My phone buzzes but I ignore it because in Portland, I become a different man. And after the chaos of the last year, I need to figure out how to be that man again, if only for a little while.