Helping Sarah

Chapter 6

Sarah

Lisa's tone was utterly innocent, but it didn't fool me. It was the same tone she had used when she'd told me that she most certainly had not schemed for me to be alone with her brother when he'd been home for Christmas when I was sixteen. Even though Andrew and I had been alone at their house for almost two hours and she'd made sure I wore my new dress.

If I told her that I thought Michael was cute, she would give me that smile she deployed every time we talked about men, specifically when we talked about nice or good-looking men.

If they were all of those, she would smirk smugly for hours afterwards.

"I suppose," I said, keeping my voice neutral. Then smiled at Charlie when he came back to us and claimed my hand. I would much rather look at my son than at Lisa who knew me so well she could read me like an open book. "He looked kind of like a young Hugh Grant."

"Ugh." Lisa's smile deflated. "Not for me then, but you've always had a thing for Hugh Grant."

I met her gaze with as firm a glare as was possible. "You know I'm not looking for anything like that."

It wasn't that I was utterly opposed to a relationship. Just not right now. Maybe at some point in the future I could see myself with a new man in my life. When Charlie was older and Lenny was gone. When I would have something more to offer than constant dark circles under my eyes, a son who had absolute precedence on my attention, and a massive, unpaid debt left to me by my husband.

"You should," Lisa snorted. "You haven't been with anyone since Andrew. I'd be climbing the walls by now from pent-up need and frustration."

"Lisa–"

"I'm not saying you should marry the guy, just have a one-night stand to take the edge off."

"What's won-nigh stan, Aunty Lisa?" Charlie asked with a puzzled frown that reminded me so much of his father it sent a tiny stab through my heart. If not for the subject of his question. Which, with my luck, he would repeat in front of Cynthia.

Sighing, I raised my eyebrows at my friend. "Don't you have to go to work?"

She only grinned. "That's only for adults, sweet pea," she told Charlie with a wink. Then shrugged one shoulder to me. "My boss is off somewhere. He texted me earlier that he won't be in the office until later."

"So you don't have to be there either?"

Lisa shrugged the other shoulder. "Not really. My job these days is to keep him out of his office and off too much coffee. He's managed that, the first part at least, by himself for the morning."

I glanced at her. "Doesn't it bother you, not having a real job?"

"It's real," she declared. Then grimaced on a sigh. "Sort of."

"You're babysitting a grown man." I'd never met Mr Bradford, but from what Lisa had told me, her job had changed quite drastically since he'd sold his firm. He used to be a complete workaholic, and she had managed his contracts, his meetings and correspondence, and his employees. Pretty much the entire firm. But since Zen Media's own people had taken over, Mr Bradford had very little to do and Lisa even less, other than manage him.

Lisa's grimace deepened. "I know, but I really like Michael, and he'll only go back to working all the time if I'm not there to kick him out of his office. A chuckle made her smile. "I'm really rather proud that he's managed to find something to do for an entire morning without my interference."

"You don't know what it is he's doing?"

"Nope," she grinned. Then rolled her eyes. "He's probably out shopping with some tart who'll then conveniently have forgotten her credit card when it's time to pay."