AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I checked the time and huffed. “Mind games later, Shane.”
“I do love it when you say my name,” he said with a smile before turning and raising a hand. “Oh, Meredith! I was just looking for you. I wondered if I might procure your ballroom for a moment?”
Meredith looked startled but smiled when she saw who it was. I spared a moment to watch Shane approach her on his long legs and then another moment to appreciate his ass in his pants before turning to enter the study. Thankfully, only a few people were in the room, including Sophia, who stood near a lit fireplace. There was a glass in her hand that looked like it had barely been touched, and her back was to the circular seating arrangement behind her where the others sat.
A few of them looked up when I approached, and I softly cleared my throat to get their attention. “I apologize for the interruption, Ms. Perkins.”
“Yes?” she asked, and I was quietly impressed at the return of the sharpness in her voice.
“Mr. Berch has been calling me repeatedly, citing an emergency,” I told her, keeping my voice as believably apologetic as possible. “I’ve told him you’re otherwise occupied, but he keeps insisting.”
Sophia sighed, setting her glass on the mantle. “That man. If he isn’t fussing, he’s whining incessantly.”
The loud man I recognized from earlier, now redder in the face, chuckled. “We’ve all got someone like that on our bankroll, Ms. Sophia. That’s just the way it works.”
“A fact it may be, but that does not make it any less irritating,” Sophia said, turning to face me. “It seems you’ll have to excuse me. I need to discover if this is a fire to be put out or a man to be fired.”
The assembled men chuckled into their glasses knowingly. Clearly, not one of them was put off by her demeanor and probably had been dealing with her for years. I smiled as graciously as I could while still keeping an eye on Sophia as she crossed the room. The strong strides she’d used to enter the house were now slower, not pained, but coming off as though she was in no hurry to deal with the news I’d brought her.
“Come along,” she told me as she passed, and I could finally see how drawn and tight her features were. “I’ll interrogate the idiot outside.”
“Of course,” I said, motioning for her to go through the open door ahead of me.
We made it back to the entry room without incident, and I noted that only a few people were milling around. Even then, their attention was locked on the open doors of the ballroom, where I could hear Shane’s voice booming out.
“What is he doing?” Sophia snapped.
“Being a jester and attracting attention,” I told her, trying to subtly push her toward the doorway without actually touching her.
“I suppose that would explain how quiet it is out here. Everyone’s gone to gawk at the handsome clown,” she said with a sniff. Only when we got outside could I see how much of a toll her performance was taking on her. I spared her the need to waste more energy talking and instructed someone to get the car we’d arrived in and bring it around.
Once we were alone, I glanced at her. “There’s probably no point asking if you’d like to use my arm to keep yourself steady, is there?”
“You can hold me up if and only if I fall,” she told me, her face going paler. “I do hope that bag you left in the car has something useful in it.”
“Many useful things,” I told her. “But you’re going to have to tell me what’s wrong. And for the record, you can chew me out all you want, but if you even look like you’re going to fall over, I’m grabbing you.”
She snorted derisively, staring out at the drive as a pair of headlights came toward us. “It’s nice to know his sense of people is still intact despite all the pickling he’s done of his brain cells.”
“Who’s that?” I asked distractedly as we descended the final steps toward the car.
“My son,” she said as the vehicle stopped. “He was the one who had full confidence in your ability not to disappoint tonight.”
In the time it took me to realize Sophia had found a roundabout way of complimenting me, she was already at the car. I managed to take a step as it then occurred to me Shane had been the one to support me.
“Motherfucker,” I muttered. The bastard hadn’t said a thing to me!
“If you’re done talking to yourself, we have business to attend to,” Sophia called from within the car.
“Coming!” I all but yelped as I hurried forward.
It seemed a certain someone and I had a few things to talk about next time we saw one another.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A whole week of the same health complications wasn’t enough to put Sophia off her typical day-to-day schedule. Not that I had insisted on her taking it easy or following the recommendations, but I had at least been reminding her of them more often.
That was going to change.
