Page 7 of Breaking the Ice

Bob shifted uncomfortably. “Ray will be fine.”

Samantha shook her head. Bob really couldn’t see his nephew for what he was. “Ray is a lazy, useless slug. Goodbye, Bob.”

Samantha strode to her office and slammed the door. How dare he choose Ray over her. That… that… old fool! She emptied out a box of printer paper and threw her desk items into it. A photo of Bec and the girls. A paperweight that Jess, her niece, had made in kindergarten. Her nameplate. A stack of Post-it notes. Strictly speaking, they weren’t hers but considering she was owed a corner office, Bob was getting off cheap.

Besides, you could never have enough Post-its.

There was a knock on her door and she growled at the intruder to go away. “What, no longer Uncle Bob’s blue-eyed girl?”

Samantha’s head snapped up as slack-jawed Ray lounged in her doorway. She looked at the faux innocent smile and seriously contemplated murder for the first time in her life. It was only the thought of being cooped up in a cell with her baby-crazy eggs for company twenty-three hours a day that stopped her from testing the crack resistant properties of her window.

In her mood, she didn’t doubt she could hurl the little weasel through the bulletproof glass.

“Don’t you have a company to bankrupt?” she said through gritted teeth.

Ray chuckled as he moved into the room and came to a halt in front of her desk. “Sammy, Sammy, Sammy.” He curled his hands into fists, placed his knuckles on the wood and leaned in. “You always did underestimate me.”

Samantha blinked as Ray’s veneer fell away before her and she saw a cold calculating light frost his gaze. Suddenly she saw it all. His vacant stare replaced by a razor-sharp alertness, his hapless grin traded for a shark-like grimace, his keen, eager-puppy expression lost to a take-no-prisoners sneer.

She shivered at the utter cunning of it all. He’d been playing her. He’d had an agenda all along and that was to force her out. Unfortunately for Ray, she’d seen his work and figures didn’t lie. He may be scoring an A in scheming, but he was pulling a big fat F with numbers.

A fistful of conniving didn’t compensate for a shitload of dumb.

“I give you six months.”

Ray laughed as he pushed away from the desk and strutted to the window. “You know, Samantha, I could speak with Uncle Bob. Put in a good word.” He turned his gaze from the view to her. “Of course, I would expect you to be… grateful.”

Samantha took a moment to compute the latest twist in the mind-bending saga that was Ray, who was looking at her breasts like they were covered in whipped cream and sprinkled with nuts. He was seriously going to add sexual harassment to his list of incredibly dumb things to do at work?

Her eggs shuddered as she picked up her box. “I’d rather be unemployed for the rest of my life.”

The protestors dropped their placards and cheered as she walked out, box in her arms. It was obvious to them she was leaving and they congratulated her for her courage.

She felt like a fraud but their cheers lifted her spirits after the enormity of what she’d done and the enormity of the unknown she was launching herself into, hit big time.

Great. Now what the hell was she going to do?

Have a baby.

Oh shut up, eggs, she ordered, as for the first time in her adult life, she walked into the great unknown.

4

“I’m getting a tattoo,” Sam announced as soon as Bec picked up the phone.

“So… your fear of needles has improved then?”

“I am not frightened of needles.”

“You fainted when you took Jess to the hospital for her stitches last year.”

“It was a big needle.”

“And tattoos aren’t?”

“No. They’re little needles.”

“Lots of little needles.”

---