Slave to Love by Julie A. Richman Read Free Book Online Page B

7:30
    Seriously, it’s not like it’s a date or something.
    Just promise me you won’t shit in the restaurant. Ha-ha, amusing. Throw my own words back at me.
    I’m very professional on business dinners, Hale. I’m shaking my head. I can’t date him. This is business. Anything else will end badly for me. Very, very badly.
    Yeah well, we have a dinner date tomorrow night. Goodnight, Sierra. I really don’t like being dismissed.
    Hale I’ve let five minutes pass.
    Yes, Sierra
    My ass is off-limits The guy needs ground rules.
    So are you saying your ass is not on the table?
    Yes
    I can still work with that. Goodnight, Sierra. Dog.
    Girls will be girls. It doesn’t matter if we are sixteen, thirty-three (my age) or sixty-three. Girls will be girls. And based on that irrefutable fact of the universe, I am forced to call an emergency meeting of The Swale Club.
    Three-way call initiated. Text shared with all parties. Monica and Beverly up to speed, it’s time to beat this topic to a dead horse.
    “You have to call Cuntessa about something tomorrow and dig around. Find out if she saw him in the last few days.” Beverly is all about gathering facts and then putting together a strategy.
    “I’m reading this,” Monica cuts in, “you really have to look at the sub-text. It’s like he’s totally over this exile and just wants to come back and go for it. He’s really very funny, Sierra. I like his sense of humor.”
    Why am I the only one not laughing? I really need to lighten up.
    “The ass comment,” Beverly laments, “I’d kill for my darling husband,” her voice drips with sarcasm, “to say something like that to me.”
    “He wants your ass against a wall, Sierra. Or maybe on your kitchen counter.”
    “Well, that’s not happening. I have to work with the guy. We have two very major events to get through. When I no longer am in his ‘quasi-employ’, then maybe we can explore having something. This might not mean anything. This could just be his normal pig self.” I keep reading his words. Just reading his double entendres is killing me. I want to know what his mouth tastes like and what it feels like to be nestled against his muscular frame. I want to know if my kisses can get him hard. And I want to feel their power pressed up against me.
    “You’d better call us immediately after he leaves,” Beverly demands.
    “If he leaves,” Monica loves to torment me.

Travis Heights is quintessential Austin . The location, bordering the Colorado River, makes it prime and expensive real estate and like many other older Austin neighborhoods, homes are being bought strictly for the choice location of the lot and then knocked down, giving way to large new homes next door to 1940’s Craftsman cottages.
    As I pull up to Sierra’s house, I think how much it looks like her. Sunshine and comfort, amid change. And I wonder if what is changing is actually me. A year ago, I would have been banging Robyn Stiles in my office and last night she just grossed me out.
    Taking a deep breath before I knock, I have no idea how to play this. The last time we saw one another I was completely inappropriate. She has to be nice to me because basically she works for me. But what would she be feeling if work were out of the equation? Would she even return my texts?
    Lifting my hand to knock feels like an uncovering of my fate and I’m immediately grabbed by that uncomfortable clench in my belly, something that I learned to quell overseas and does not happen often to me. I am not yet ready for this answer.
    Her smile is automatic as she opens the door.
    “Hale.” She seems genuinely happy to see me. “Come on in.”
    Relief is instantaneous, fears dispelled by just a smile. Refreshing is the word that comes to mind, especially after the likes of Robyn Stiles, as I take in the girl that mirrors her neighborhood. Quintessentially Austin. In a short white linen sundress and well-worn cowboy boots, Sierra is clad in Austin’s version of