Act Two // Book One

Chapter Five

Samantha wouldn't get the chance to talk to Harry about what she'd seen and heard. It was Saturday. Emma never said anything about her having the weekends off, but she figured after what had happened, Harry wouldn't mind if she had a weekend for herself.

She would come to find out how wrong she was about halfway through a movie with Mia. Samantha should have ignored her phone when it buzzed, but something told her not to. She should have let the phone go to voicemail when she didn't recognize the number, but something told her not to. So when she put the phone to her ear and heard a male voice demanding to know where she was, she shouldn't have been shocked.

But she was.

"Who is this?" She asked as she pushed the door open while leaving the theater.

"Your boss." He answered, the annoyance clear as a bell in his voice.

Samantha's eyebrows just about raised off of her head. He had her number? How? When? It occurred to her in that unimportant freak out that Emma had probably given it to him.

Samantha stumbled over a few different starts to her sentence when she finally stopped,

"It's Saturday." She answered.

It was a half-assed response and a half-assed excuse.

"I need you to get over here as soon as possible." Harry barked as if she hadn't said a word, "I need the following things picked up on your way..." He rattled off a list that Samantha only caught half of due to her shock at the fact that not only was he demanding she show up at his house after what she'd seen and heard, but that he wanted her there on a Saturday.

He hung up without a word when he was finished.

Samantha stared at her phone. Was this happening? And worse, why was she not telling him to suck on it? Samantha had never been this much of a doormat. In fact she'd never been a doormat period.

But she needed this job. Otherwise she would be subjected to the ridiculing of her older brother and the "I told you so"ness of her mother.

Samantha made her way back into the movie theater. She leaned down to pick up her bag next to Mia,

"I gotta go." She whispered.

Mia looked over at her, her fingers lightly gripping some popcorn kernels as she stared at Samantha like she was crazy,

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah. I'll tell you when I get home."

She left before Mia could ask any more questions. The lady behind them already looked annoyed.

Samantha was out of the theater and to her tube stop quicker than she expected. She would've liked to have been angry...if she wasn't so damn confused.

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How Samantha managed to get everything he'd told her to on the phone considering she'd missed half of it was beyond her. And frankly a little scary. Maybe her unconscious mind knew that she better get all of it because he wasn't about to answer the phone and repeat it if she called.

Unfortunately on her way to his house it had started to rain and since she hadn't been expecting to be outside she had no jacket or umbrella. Couple that with the fact that London drivers are assholes who insist on hitting every puddle and by the time Samantha finally made it to his house she resembled and smelled like a wet dog.

She stumbled into the house with the grocery bags, glancing down at Rufus who trotted out to greet her the moment he heard the door open. Samantha had noticed the cars parked outside when she got to the house but she assumed those were visitors for other houses. Her shock was evident when she got inside to see a handful of people standing in his foyer.