Page 21 of The Sweet Life

At her desk in the outer office, Emilia swiveled in her chair to face Sage. “I swear, you’re going to give poor Robert a heartattack one of these days. I don’t understand why he lets you speak to him that way.”

“It’s called billable hours.”

The door to Robert’s office opened and Nina walked out while, behind her, Robert yelled from his desk, “Where’s my hot tea, girl? And while you’re at it, bring me more of those iced cookies.”

“What I don’t understand, Emilia, is why you let him speak to you that way.” Robert’s assistant ignored her as she hurried off to do her boss’s bidding.

Sage said to Nina, “You should be writing him up for how he treats her.”

“I have, and I will again. But right now, I want to talk about the emails Chad Winthrop has been sending you. How bad are they? Should I talk to security?”

“They’re no worse than usual. I’m also surmising they’re from Winthrop. He’s smart enough not to give himself away.” Unlike some of the men who’d threatened her in the past. “It’s only been a couple of days since the judgment came down. Let’s give it a few more days.”

“Okay. But I want to see the emails. Have Brenda forward them to me, and I’ll pass them on to security. Like you should have.”

“I have a lot on my plate right now, and they honestly slipped my mind.”

As they walked out of Robert’s reception area—which was bigger than Sage’s and Nina’s offices combined—they heard Emilia pick up the ringing phone. “One moment please, Mr. Winthrop. Mr. Winthrop returning your call, sir. Should I put him through?”

Nina gave her a smug smile. “You see, he does take my warnings seriously.” She nudged Sage. “And you need to take these threats seriously. I know you’ve had more than your fair share of hate mail over the years, and nothing has ever come of it, but all it takes is one time.”

And that one time came quicker than Sage could have imagined.

After a productive two-hour meeting with her new client in her colleague’s office, Sage walked back to her own office.

She frowned down the hall at Brenda and Renata. The two women looked frazzled as they knocked on office doors. “What’s going on?”

Ignoring her question, they poked their heads in the respective offices, asking if the occupants had seen Max.

Sage wasn’t alarmed. It wasn’t unusual for Max to disappear for an hour or two. If one of her colleagues was having a stressful day, they’d commandeer the cat. Sage glanced at her watch. “Try Roland in personal injury. His client’s condition has improved.”

“I did,” Brenda said, fast-walking to the next door. “We’ve almost finished checking all the offices on this floor.”

When both women received negative responses at the last of the offices on the floor, they headed for the bank of elevators. “Maybe Bill took him up to the roof,” Sage suggested. The rooftop gardens had become Max’s personal playground.

Bill, who was trying to quit smoking, credited petting Max with helping him deal with the cravings. To hear some of her colleagues talk, you’d think Max was the Dalai Lama of cats.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out and glanced at the screen. Jake was FaceTiming her. They talkedevery day, mostly to ensure that he wasn’t having Zoom calls with her team. No one seemed to think Sage was cat-mommy material. Annoyingly, they were probably right.

She knew she should have left Max with him at the farm as Jake had initially suggested. She felt petty about her decision to take him with her, petty and selfish, but she couldn’t bring herself to return Max to Jake. Not yet at least. Jake brought out the worst in her. She’d been just as petty when he’d offered to take care of everything. She’d reacted like she didn’t trust him not to steal away in the night with the proceeds from their joint inheritance. In her defense, it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. The guy didn’t have a job or a steady income. And come on, he had a criminal history.

She’d also been hungover, sleep-deprived, and still reeling from Alice’s death. She still was, but work helped. She could pretend Alice was walking the trails on the farm without a care in the world. She debated whether to take Jake’s call. Yesterday, he’d been making noises about them planning Alice’s memorial service. Sage didn’t want to. She wouldn’t be able to pretend Alice was still here if they did.

Her phone stopped buzzing, and she was relieved Jake had given up. But then her cell pinged with an incoming text. She glanced at the screen.Crap.Jake was here, in the building, with the paperwork she had to sign. She’d been positive he’d said Friday. She glanced at her phone and groaned. It was Friday.

She shot off a text—I’ll meet you down there—and walked toward the elevators while calling Brenda. “Please tell me you’ve found Max,” she said as soon as her assistant picked up.

“No, and he’s not on the roof with Bill. He said Max wasn’t in the office when he went on his break.”

“Dammit.”

“I know. I’m beginning to worry he got out of the building too.”

“Don’t say that!”

“Isn’t that why you saiddammit?”

“No. I said it because Jake is here, and he’ll want to see Max, and if I’ve lost him, he’ll know I’m a horrible cat mother and take him back to the farm, and then I’ll be all—”

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