Page 26 of The Sweet Life

“Yeah, but I’m not a psychopath,” she said under her breath while removing her phone from her blazer pocket. She played back the recording for him, smiling as he realized she’d gotten everything on tape. She made a checkmark in the air. “I win.”

She got to enjoy her victory for less than a minute before Chad did exactly as she’d predicted. He punched her in the face.

Jake scowled at Sage from where he sat behind the wheel of her BMW. He’d gotten worried when she hadn’t shown up at the car and didn’t respond to his texts and calls, only to hear the sirens. By the time he’d finally made it to her, the street was crawling with cops and press. Chad must have called them at the same time he’d called the cops. Something else Jake had missed in his bid to get to Max sooner rather than later.

The only positive out of the situation was the expression on Winthrop’s face when he caught a glimpse of Max in Jake’s arms. Seeing Winthrop in the back of the cop car had been a positive too, but Sage had come into view at the same time, negating the pleasure Jake had taken in the sight. If it weren’t for two cops standing nearby, Jake would have planted his fist in Winthrop’s face.

“How in the hell do you think it’s a win when you can’t see out of your left eye and your cheek is swollen?”

“It’s nothing a bag of ice and some ibuprofen won’t fix, and look, we got Max back.” She reached over the seat to pet the cat, who was sprawled in the back, sighing when Max rolled away from her hand. “I was in on your rescue too, you know. You could at least pretend to be a little grateful.”

Jake might be in a foul mood, but Max’s reaction to Sage never failed to make him laugh. The cat really didn’t like her, and he couldn’t figure out why.

“I’m glad you think it’s funny,” she muttered at him. “I knew I should have been the one to rescue him instead of you playing hero. Maybe then I’d get some love too.”

“Trust me, if for one minute I’d thought he’d punch youin the face, I would have traded places with you. But the last thing we needed was for you to get caught breaking into his house.”

“Oh, come on. How hard could it have been? It’s the middle of the afternoon. His patio door must have been open, and you knew where he’d put Max.”

“First off, I had to climb a ten-foot-high fence. Second, his patio door was locked. And third, he has an alarm, and it was armed,” he said as he merged with traffic. It reminded him why he loved his motorbike and why he hated city living. He loved being back in Sunshine Bay. He just wished Alice were still there.

“Why would he have his alarm armed when he was home?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because he had Max, and he knew the probability of you coming for him was high.”

“I can’t believe he set me up like that.” She made a face, then winced, which she tried to hide from him but failed.

He strangled the steering wheel. “I can’t believe I missed it.”

As furious as he was at Chad, he was equally furious at himself. He used to be better at this. Lifting his hand from the steering wheel, he gently traced the edge of the bruise with the tips of his fingers. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault he was able to pull this off. I should have taken more time to think it through, and I should have gone on my own.”

“Hey, you don’t get to take this on. It’s on Chad… and a little on me, I guess. I shouldn’t have provoked him with the whole checkmark thing. But I’d do it again if we got the same results. I’d be the one in the back seat of a patrol car if the cops hadn’t witnessed him punching me.”

“You realize, due to who his old man is, he’s got aget-out-of-jail-free card, right? The most he’ll get is a slap on the wrist.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She held up her phone. “I recorded everything.”

“And you know as well as I do that Massachusetts is a two-party consent state. You can’t use it.”

“Of course I know that, and it’s not like I’d give it to the press or to the police anyway. It would put Emilia, Robert, and the firm at risk, which would negatively impact my colleagues. I don’t want anyone to suffer because of Chad’s revenge plot against me.”

“You’re a lot more forgiving than me.”

“Let’s hope the other founding partners are as forgiving when it comes to the negative publicity. They share the same feelings as Robert about my ‘media stunts,’” she said, making air quotes.

“I don’t know how you work for these guys, Sage.” Admittedly, he was disappointed that she could. It wasn’t a firm the girl he used to know would have worked for. He got that the money was good, but Sage was the last person he thought would sell her soul for the almighty dollar.

“Sometimes I don’t know how I do either, to be honest. But there are benefits working for a firm as well connected and respected as Forbes, Poole, and Russell.”

“I have a hard time respecting a man who would put not only his personal assistant but also one of his junior partners at risk the way Forbes did.”

“I know. I can’t believe he’d do that to Emilia. The woman dotes on him. But it’s gotten worse since several of the senior partners who held the founding partners in check haveretired.” She glanced at him. “It’s not just about the money for me, Jake. I’m given the freedom to take on pro bono cases that matter to me. The firm has also contributed tens of thousands of dollars to the women’s shelter I work with. If not for their connections and contributions, Chrysalis House would have been forced to shut their doors by now.”

And there she was, the girl he remembered. He should have known she wouldn’t abandon her principles for a six-figure paycheck. But he was worried that she was too close to the situation to see it clearly. “And no doubt got a nice tax break for their charitable contribution and some good publicity for the firm.”

She frowned at him. “When did you get so cynical?”

“I’ve always been cynical.” He’d grown up not believing a single word out of anyone’s mouth. Everyone had an agenda. It was the one lesson his parents, if you could call them parents, had taught him. And they’d taught him really well.

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