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“I don’t want to be your kept woman.”
I laugh. “My version of a kept woman is you naked, tied to my bed, with another spanking thrown in just for the pleasure of it.” I stroke her cheek and soften my voice. “We’ll figure it out. I promise.” I don’t give her time to argue. “Tell me something I don’t know about you. Why law school?”
She hesitates, like she isn’t going to move on, but finally seems to succumb to the shift of topic. “I was obsessed with legal shows from the time I was a pre-teen, forward. I even went to sit in on court cases while I was in high school. What about you?”
“My mother was an attorney and of course, there was my father.”
“But he was into wine too, right?”
“He invested in the winery. I just signed that deal you saw in my office, and now I’m set to sell it.”
“Sell it? You’re into wine. You like it. You know it. Why not keep it?”
“I like to drink wine. I don’t want to grow my own grapes. More importantly, we’re becoming a full-service firm and spreading our wings into malpractice law, and that means financing large cases before they pay out. You saw the sale. That alone will go a long way.” I change the subject. “What happened with your mother and her date?”
“He’s going to have to fight to get her back. She’s pretty tough. She says my father loved her and she isn’t settling for less than my father, and yet my father gambled away all of our security. I don’t get it.”
“Your mother must think he’s a good man who made a mistake.”
“Maybe,” she concedes, “And maybe I’ll see it differently when I get us out of financial ruin.”
“What’s that going to take?” I ask. “Is it all medical bills from your mother’s stroke?”
“I’m not answering that.”
“Come on, sweetheart,” I urge, resting my hand on her hip. “I need to understand what you’re going through.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re together and what affects you, affects me.”
“We’re new.”
“And that means what? Tell me.”
“Medical bills and other debt.”
“Did your father have life insurance?”
“Not nearly enough.”
Which means the policy was small or the debt was enormous. “Was he good to you before that?”
“He was,” she says, “but that doesn’t feel real. I don’t know the man who left us like this.”
In other words, I’m living in the shadow of her father who she now feels is one big lie. “Let’s talk about rules,” I say, trying to set the solid ground work between us I now know is critical if I want to keep this woman in my life and I do.
“I don’t want anyone to know about us at the office or in a work environment.”
“What about Cat and Reese? They already have an idea about us.”
“Not yet if we can help it. I’d like to have some time for us to figure this out, but I know they do and I can’t lie to Cat any more than you can Reese.”
“Agreed, but if you have to tell Cat, just tell her. I’ve seen how hiding things from her stresses you out.”
“All right,” she says. “How does the hotel work for us in LA?”
“I’d like to say that you get your own room and stay with me or me with you, but not this time. Not when we’ll likely be watched.”
