She gestured toward his suit. “You had something important today?”
“A meeting with a big client. We’ve been working on the site for months.”
“Oh.” They never talked about Helios, other than her being annoyed by how much of his attention it took. She never appreciated how hard he worked, all he’d done to keep this family afloat.
He began unpacking. “You wanna sit? Tell me what’s wrong?”
“How do you know something’s wrong?”
He put a container of milk in the fridge. “Because of how you looked in the car. I know you, and this is more than just us.”
Warmth spread over her, from her shoulders to her toes. All that time she’d felt invisible, but maybe he hadn’t stopped seeing her at all.
Maybe she was the one who’d stopped seeing him.
“Something is going down at the firm,” she said as she made her way into a chair. “Something with Hanna that could be bad.”
He froze. “With Hanna?” he asked. Sam nodded. “What is it?”
She started talking, and telling him felt normal. Comfortable. Like they hadn’t been living separately for six days. By the time she’d told him everything, Brady had his hands braced on the back of a chair, his expression grim.
“Why didn’t you tell me when it started?” he asked.
Sam shrugged. “We haven’t been talking much.”
“True.”
Strange how he acknowledged it without making a joke, but it was nice, too. “So, what do you think?”
Brady pulled out the chair and sat. “First off, the girls are not going over there again. I don’t want someone who broke the law around our children.”
It seemed harsh, but Sam agreed. And she liked this fierce, protective side of her husband.
“That’s fair, but what about work? If I tell Hanna, Pierce could know I talked to her and I could get fired. If I tell Pierce, Hanna could go to jail. And what if she finds out I told him? She could expose what the three of us did together.”
“You think she’d do that?” Brady asked.
“I don’t know. People do stupid stuff when they’re angry.”
This time, she meant herself. Brady reached out, like he was going to take her hand, then put his hand on the table.
“First off, I don’t see why she’d do that,” he said. “Exposing you exposes her, and you said she’s super private, so that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Right.” He’d always been good at analyzing things. Something else she hadn’t recognized enough.
“And second, even if she does get mad, I don’t think she’d be mad at you. She might get scared and feel trapped and not know where to go, but I don’t think it’s you she’d be upset at.”
Sam gazed at him. “Are we still talking about Hanna?”
He smiled faintly. “Mostly.”
Maybe he was trying to tell her he wasn’t mad at her, but it seemed too precarious, too soon to make this conversation about them. Sam crossed her arms on the table to stop herself from reaching for him. “And we were so close to having a new sitter.”
“I might’ve found a few options,” Brady said. “Two B.U. students answered our ad. So did a retired grandma, and a high school student who moved in down the street.”
“Is that the moving van I saw?”
“Yeah. I met her and her parents the other day when we were waiting for the bus.”
She looked around the kitchen, at this room she’d fed her family in. She’d hated having to clean it, felt powerless in it and overrun by the chaos in her home, but now it was the only place she wanted to be.
“I don’t know what to do, Brady.”
He leaned in again, and Sam felt that draw. The need to close the gap between them, and not as his Mistress, but as his wife.
“You’ll figure it out. I have faith in you.”
Sam swallowed hard. He believed in her? Even after everything that had happened?
She’d fucked up as a Domme, a wife, a mother. She had a husband she thought didn’t see her anymore, and maybe he hadn’t in many ways. Maybe her mother was right: sometimes in a marriage you stop seeing the other person, forget the reasons you fell for them and stuck with them.
Sam remembered it now, remembered Brady’s gentleness, the way he’d made her feel in college, and when she’d come back from DC. He’d been there for her when she was at her lowest, sitting next to her at a bar with those eyes and smile and love that had never dimmed.
She didn’t deserve him.
Brady smiled again and stood up. “I’ll get the girls ready.”
He left the kitchen, and Sam felt her pulse race. She wanted to be back here, to fix them. In her romance books, the character who’d messed things up needed to do something huge to make things up to the other one. She hadn’t done anything like that yet. She couldn’t come home without getting out of the mess she was in, the one she’d gotten them all in, first.
Her children’s chatter got louder as Brady herded them down the stairs. Sam stood and went to the door.
“Ready?” she asked the girls.
“Ready,” they replied without enthusiasm.
Brady held up a hand. “Wait. I got you something.”
He went into the kitchen and returned with a box of Lucky Charms.
“Here,” he said as he held it out to her. “Thought you might need it.”
Sam’s heart pounded and her eyes went hot. She took the box from him and stared at it. “Thank you.”
Sam turned toward the door, then stopped. Her feet felt glued to the floor.
“I don’t have any milk at my parents’ place,” she said as she turned around. “You think we could eat this here tonight?”
She was asking him permission. Flipping the roles.
She didn’t care.
His big, baby-faced smile was her entire world. “I think that would be okay.”
32
On Saturday morning, Sam sat on a bench in Newton Center Park.
She’d gone back to the apartment last night with the girls, after they’d all had cereal for dinner and she’d decided what to do. Now Allegra and Hope were running across the playground while Brady sat in the car nearby. A public spot was the safe place to do this. She knew what she was risking here. But it was the only option she could handle.
“Hey, love.”
Sam jolted when Hanna appeared from behind her. Aliyah and Imani were with her.
“Thanks for inviting us out.”
“No problem.”
Hanna patted her daughters on the back. Mimi wasn’t with her—still sick, maybe. “Go on. Go play.”
They ran to join Allegra and Hope. Hanna sat beside her, and Sam tried not to visibly stiffen.
“How are you?” Hanna asked.
Devastated. “I’m okay.”
She was so sad this was happening. It was like a different person was sitting next to her. The attraction was still there—there was no denying that—but what Hanna had done eclipsed everything.
“You look more than okay,” Hanna said. “Like you’ve figured things out.”
Maybe she had. For the first time, Sam really looked at Hanna. She was wearing skinny jeans in butter-soft denim, a white T-shirt with a designer name on the front, a linen jacket with the sleeves bunched up, and stilettos. Inappropriate for a playground, and a stark contrast to Sam’s sneakers and sweats. And too expensive for a single mom on a secretary’s salary.
“Are we going to talk about it?” Sam asked.
“About what?”
“The Choate file.”
Hanna’s eyes went cold. Her jaw worked as she looked out at the playground, as if she were on the lookout for danger. “What do you know about the Choate file?”
“Pierce put me on it. To clean up the files.”
“So?”
She’d hoped Hanna would at least play innocent. But her answer wasn’t a question. It was defensive. And borderline hostile.
“I know y
ou’ve been stealing, Hanna.”
Her friend’s laugh was almost a hiss—a sharp, short exhale. “Why would I steal from an old lady?”
“I don’t know, but you are.”
“That’s why you invited me out here? To accuse me of—”
“Hannaleen.”
Hanna froze. It was so clear now—how powerful a name could be. It quieted her, changed the dynamic, told Hanna she was under Sam’s control. How often had Sam done that to Brady, calling him pet outside of their play? When she did that, he stopped being in control of himself, too. It was a flicked switch, tethering him to her, to her authority—not a good thing when they were outside the bedroom.
She shouldn’t have done that to him. Maybe it wasn’t right to do it to Hanna now either, but Sam needed to take control of the situation.
“You told me that people who got involved the way we did shouldn’t keep secrets.”
Hanna tensed, but didn’t reply.
“I know you’ve been writing out checks to cash from Mildred Choate’s trust. And you’ve been doing it for a while.”
“You can’t prove that.”
But she wasn’t saying she didn’t do it. “Your wallet fell on the floor when we went to lunch. I saw the receipt for the corset. And the Saks one. They match checks written from the trust.”
Hanna’s lips pursed. Sam stared at her.
“Why’d you do it?” She couldn’t hide the hurt in her voice. “I brought you into my house. My bed. I trusted you.”
“You act like it has something to do with you.” Hanna’s gaze snapped back toward hers. “It doesn’t.”
She looked at her daughters again and was quiet for a long moment.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” Hanna finally said. “To try to take care of your kids and feel like you’re doing a miserable job. That you’re not providing a good life for them.”
Sam gazed at her own children. “I might know a thing or two about that.”
“You don’t. You can’t. You’re white. A citizen. Middle class. With a husband who takes care of you. I’m mixed, I’m an immigrant and I’m alone. You don’t know what my life is like.”
Her words were needles, piercing into everything Sam took for granted.
“You’re right. I don’t. But I do know what you’re doing isn’t right.”
“And what is right?” Hanna barked. “Mildred Choate—she has nobody, no kids, no one who needs her after she’s gone. Her money’s going to charity. I want my babies to grow up the way I did. With nice things. Nice clothes and jewelry they can use as their armor when people look down at them because their daddy left them or because of the color of their skin.”
The clothes, the jewelry, the makeup—it was more of Hanna’s armor. For her and for her kids.
“But Hanna,” Sam said gently. “You’re not just taking money for them. You’re spending it on makeup with caviar in it, and a six-hundred-dollar corset.”
Hanna threaded her fingers together. “You could’ve taken the receipts to Pierce. You could’ve told him.”
“But I didn’t. I’m telling you.”
And what was the fallout going to be from that? What price would Sam have to pay? One cost was clear as she watched Allegra and Aliyah twirl around and laugh.
This sucked. This all just sucked.
“At first it was only to pay a few bills,” Hanna admitted. “Stuff when money got tight. Then I rationalized it out. Told myself Mildred wasn’t missing anything. I only stole for things I couldn’t afford but made me feel…” she sighed heavily, “…better.”
Sam didn’t have an answer for that. What could she say that wouldn’t make her sound like she was on some kind of high horse? She had privileges Hanna didn’t, ones that went beyond the color of her skin. She had parents who checked on her despite the fact that they’d moved across the country, and a husband who wouldn’t think of walking out the door, no matter what she’d done.
“They’re going to press charges,” Hanna added, and only then did Sam hear the fear in her voice. “It’s fraud and forgery. I could lose my green card or go to jail. They’ll take my babies.”
“Maybe Pierce won’t do that if you talk to him.”
“Then what? At the least he’ll fire me, and I won’t get another job like that, not without a recommendation.”
“Could you call your parents?”
“They won’t care. Not after all this time.”
Movement to the left caught Sam’s attention. Brady had gotten out of the car. Leaning against it with his arms crossed, he was watching them, stealthy and silent, her own personal secret service. Her giant knight in a shining T-shirt and jeans.
“In my experience, people who care about you will still care, no matter what you’ve done, if you talk to them.”
Hanna glanced in the direction Sam was looking. “Things better with you two?”
Better didn’t seem like the right word to explain it. Healing? On the path to it?
“Maybe,” she said, hoping it was true.
Sure, Brady drove her crazy sometimes, but she’d married a good man. She’d gotten disconnected from that, blinded by her own desire to experiment, looking for something exciting when she’d had that right in front of her. The sexual connection she’d been craving, she already had. She’d just lost track of it somehow, and even when she found it again with him, she hadn’t been careful with him. His submission was a gift, and she hadn’t honored that.
They locked eyes across the grass, and Sam didn’t want to break that contact. She didn’t know what lay ahead of them, wasn’t even sure they’d return to a totally monogamous lifestyle if they were able to work everything out, but there were two things she did know:
One, she wanted him. And two…
She looked at Hanna. “Whatever happens, we can’t be intimate anymore.”
“I get it.”
Hanna stood and waved Aliyah and Imani over.
“Please do the right thing,” Sam said.
Hanna didn’t answer. She took her kids’ hands in hers and walked away.
Brady kept his eyes on Hanna until she was out of sight. Then he walked to the bench where Sam was sitting. Allegra was practicing dance moves on the grass, and he was still several yards away when Hope ran up to him.
Brady paused, but when she silently reached her arms up to him, he picked her up, ignoring the way his knee bitched about it.
“Are you and Mommy talking again?”
“What makes you think we’re not talking?”
She looked at him but didn’t say anything. Of course she’d picked up on what was going down with him and Sam. Kid barely spoke at all. She’d notice when other people were doing the same.
“Okay, you’re right,” he said. “Mommy and I had a fight.”
“About what?”
“Sometimes grownups fight. They say things that hurt each other. And they have to stop talking for a while, so they don’t hurt each other more.”
“You told me sometimes things hurt, but you have to keep going.”
Jesus, was this kid seven or forty? “I did.”
“So do you and Mommy then.”
“You’re pretty smart for a munchkin, you know that?”
She giggled. They neared the bench, and Brady lowered Hope to the ground.
“You two can play more,” Sam said to her and Allegra. “Daddy and I are going to hang out here, okay?”
The question was directed at him. The girls ran off, together it seemed. Brady put a hand over his pocket, checking that what he’d put there earlier was still inside it, and asked, “How’d it go?”
“Not great. We’ll have to see what happens at work.” She pulled her legs up, the bottoms of her sneakers on the bench. “Thank you for being here.”
“You’re welcome.”
He hadn’t known what could happen with Hanna, but he was ready to run in if Sam needed him.
“Sit?” she asked.
He sank on the bench
beside her. Sam wrapped her arms around her legs, rested her chin on her knees and looked up at him.
“We never talk about it, you know,” she said.
“Talk about what?”
She reached up, stroked a finger over the scar line on his head. He closed his eyes at her touch.
“These healed, so I felt you were, too,” she said. “We never talk about what you lost that day.”
Her hand fell away. Brady opened his eyes.
“I don’t know if we need to talk about it,” he said, and he wasn’t blowing it off. There was a simple answer to this. “I lost football, but then I found you.”
Sam’s smile was sad. A breeze lifted her hair off her shoulders, a red halo framing her face. “You said the other day that you didn’t know how to be everything I want.”
“I did.”
“You already are, though.”
His lungs got tight. Sam lifted her head and moved closer.
“You’re strong, honest and decent. Kind and sweet. Your bravery, your goodness, your tech skills—it’s like being married to Superman and Clark Kent. A superhero geek.”
It was the best compliment she could’ve given him. “You’re definitely more Wonder Woman than Lois Lane,” he said.
“I don’t know about that. I’ve made a lot of mistakes. It’s hard to figure this out.”
“This?”
“Marriage. Parenting. Dominance and submission,” she said. “Life.”
Brady chuckled. “I’ll drink to that.”
“I got wrapped up in things. I thought I was rediscovering this part of me I’d lost. But I was hurting you. Hurting the kids. I got selfish and fucked everything up.”
“Samantha Archer,” Brady said with a smile. “Language.”
A small laugh bubbled out of her. Suddenly he could breathe again.
“I’m sorry for not taking better care of you when you were always taking care of me,” she went on. “I didn’t see you, or what you needed. I’m sorry I made you feel rented out, or like I didn’t value you. I promise I won’t ever be that blind, or hurt you like that again.”
Their Discovery (Legally Bound Book 3) Page 30