Page 80 of Empowered
“I’m in love, Damon. I wanted to tell you sooner, but we were waiting for the right moment. I was actually going to tell you this morning.”
“In love? With her?”
“You make it sound so farfetched.”
“Do you even know half of her history?”
“She’s told me enough.”
“Then you know what a hazard dating someone like her could be. And I would’ve said thatbeforethat film and her apparent inclinations came out.”
“This is going to shock you, Damon, but a situation like that is how we met. I’ve never been shocked by what she gets up to on her days off.”
“Jesus Christ. You need all the blessings you can get.”
“Never stopped you from marrying the first women you had a whiff of feelings for. How did that all go down, again? One night you were insisting that you would never bother with women again. Next thing I know, you’re announcing your City Hall marriage and inviting me to your real wedding to be your best man in the Czech Republic.”
“That was a different situation. Alice never…”
“Sarah and Alice are different women with different personalities and pasts. Drop it there, Damon. You have no room to judge me.”
Sarah couldn’t hear their grumbled words after that.
Alice emerged from the bathroom shortly thereafter and suggested to her husband that they leave. They had never removed their coats, and Sarah did not doubt that their driver kept one of the cars idling by the curb. It was only Monday, yet Mrs. Monroe’s face was so pale with fatigue that even Sarah was compelled to ask if she was all right.
“Trying, stressful times,” she said, hovering near the front door. Her husband stood in the hallway, on his phone with their driver. “I’ll be fine. Thank you for your concern.”
“Don’t go into labor on account of us, Alice,” Lucas said drolly.
“I should hope not. I still have a few weeks until my due date.”
Yes, Sarah knew all about that. She was the one who had not only scheduled Mrs. Monroe’s ninth month of pregnancy to accommodate possible labor at any moment, but had accompanied her to a few of her doctor’s appointments and overheard talk of “right on schedule,” and “nothing to fear that I can see.” Must have been nice.
“Keep in touch with what’s going on.” Damon hung up his phone and put his arm around his wife’s midsection. “We’ll be heading home from here. Get some sleep, Luke. I’ll see you in the office at nine sharp.”
Sarah went back into the kitchen to clean up and to text her brother that the Monroes were gone. Lucas approached from behind, keeping a respectful distance from her, but remaining close enough to only be a call away.
“Sarah…”
She finished loading the dishwasher and turned it on. “Lucas.”
“Please tell me what I can do.”
“You can tell me what your PR person is saying.”
He sighed. “My PR manager or my divorce lawyer? Because my lawyer is blowing me up more than my PR manager right now.”
“How so?”
“She says this is terrible for my custody case. No judge is going to award me part-time custody, let alone full-time custody, if they think I’m a pervert.”
“They think you’re a pervert because you’re dating me, a woman who does disgusting gangbangs and says things like‘Pet me there, sir.’”
“It freaks me out how easily you say that stuff.”
“You know what you need to do, Luke.” Sarah didn’t want to say it, but perhaps it was for the best. “You need to let me go.”
“What? You mean break up with you?”
