Page 15 of Lost Room Lawyer
“Not with poker, Ma.” I chuckled and leaned back in my seat.
She returned to the table with a cup of coffee. “Come on!” she exclaimed out of nowhere. “I can tell from the tip of your nose that something happened in the last few days. Spill it already! This is unbearable!”
I grew unnervingly serious and even dug my nails into the back of my neck. Although I couldn’t control the urge, the sharp pain gave me a fleeting sense of control.
“See?!” she said, pointing at my mouth. “Dimmi tutto!”
For a while, I just stared at her. She looked as young as Hector. When she had once come over to my place and Dominic had seen her, he had also guessed her to be in her mid-thirties. Now she was gazing at me with the same intensity that Hector had, but instead of making me feel hot, a cold shiver coursed through me, causing me to shudder.
“Well then,” I said finally. I could get this off my chest here and now. Better sooner than later, because she would find out eventually. She always did. “But you keep it to yourself.”
“Of course.”
“Okay… I met someone there, and we had a bit of fun together.”
“That’s nothing new,” she said, slightly disappointed, taking a sip of her coffee.
“It was Hector Lando.”
Now I definitely had her attention.
“Excuse me?” She looked up in shock. “Why would you do something like that with your future boss?”
“I didn’t know he was my future boss.”
“Hadn’t you met before?”
“Dad organized the internship at such short notice that we didn't have time to meet.”
“What’s Google for, for heaven’s sake, Nicola! Didn’t you talk to each other? You were sitting at the same table, playing poker.”
I rolled my eyes, closed them for a moment, and took a deep breath. “Different names were used,” I justified.
“But… The man is old!”
“Younger than you,” I muttered.
“Married! With two kids!”
I raised my eyebrows knowingly and nodded.
“The poor woman.”
Now I was alert. “The poor woman? What about me? I stood in his office today and felt like the biggest idiot!”
“Well… you got yourself into this mess.”
She did a good job of hiding her grin, but not perfectly.
“You think this is funny?”
“Of course! God finally took his time to punish you.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “This is a nightmare.”
“So, how is Lando?” She sounded like a teenager. “There must be something about him that you two…”
“He’s hot,” I admitted, rubbing my face with both hands as if trying to wake up from this nightmare. “Shit! This can’t be real.”
