ɪ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴍʏ ᴅᴏᴍ | ʙᴅꜱᴍ𝟣𝟪+

ᴛʜɪʀᴅ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ

Heidi leanedher elbows on the counter, staring intently at her ancient coffeemaker as it groaned and hissed, as if her focus could encourage it to brew faster.

"Come on, baby. You can do it," she encouraged, but the machine couldn't seem to hear her over the sound of its own sputtering, and it took its sweet time, as always. She could practically hear Paul now, telling her to ditch the thing and buy herself one of those cool single-cup doohickeys, but she knew she wouldn't. Unlike her assistant, who was constantly on the hunt for the newest and the best, Heidi was a creature of habit. She'd stick with this coffee pot until it finally bit the dust. Or until she finally threw it off the fire escape in a fit of un-caffeinated rage.

With a pained sigh, she turned and slid down the cabinet to the floor, resting her forehead on her bent knees. These late nights had to stop. She'd moved to Boston to make a healthy change, personally and professionally, to increase her client base, to take on new challenges, to get out of her comfort zone… and yeah, to get just a little distance from her family who, as much as she loved them, could take her from zero to crazy in two-point-four seconds. Portland was plenty close enough to visit, but far enough away that her mother wouldn't be dropping by to inspect the contents of her refrigerator for artificial preservatives, and her incurably romantic younger sister wouldn't constantly be trying to fix her up with anything that had two legs and a penis.

Princess tiptoed over and prodded Heidi's arm with her nose in a dignified way, a queen who'd been forced to come begging. Heidi huffed in amusement and unbent to pull the little dog into her lap.

"Poor Princess," she said, gently stroking the dog's silky head and scrunched up face. "It's not easy to go from being the center of attention to the sidekick, is it, baby? You miss Mr. Reynolds, don't you?"

When her mother's elderly neighbor had fallen and broken his hip earlier this year, his family had realized, a little too late, in Heidi's opinion, that Mr. Reynolds couldn't live alone any longer. So, they'd moved him to an assisted living place, apparently not knowing (or not caring)that the place wouldn't accept his beloved dog, Princess Daphne Du Maurier (Mr. Reynolds being a big fan of Rebecca). Poor Princess had been left in… how did they say it in the old-school romances? Reduced circumstances. Heidi had been glad to take her in, but Heidi knew she was a poor substitute for Princess's real master.

"No antique carpets to piddle on in this place, huh?" she asked the dog. "No fancy dog collars. No one to cuddle with all day. But it's better than the pound, right? Better than being locked up."

Princess sank her head onto Heidi's thigh with a sigh of agreement and closed her eyes.

Heidi leaned her head back on the cabinet, patted the dog absentmindedly as she listened to the coffee maker give the loud gurgle-hiss-splat that she knew was the crescendo right before the end, thank God, and mapped out her day.

First step, coffee. Of course. Then, since Paul was celebrating his arrival in Boston by spending a long weekend on Cape Cod with some friends, there was no reason to rush to the office. Instead, she'd pull all the documentation Paul had acquired on their new client and review it. The all-important first meeting was fast approaching, and she knew from experience that she needed to be on top of her game.

She'd yet to work on a contract where the employees actually welcomed an outsider coming in to audit their financials, especially when the scent of corruption was in the air. Knowing that Heidi had all that sensitive information in her possession—annual salaries, executive bonuses, corporate investments, reimbursement requests for all those late-night business meetings at Hooters—made people feel vulnerable, and vulnerable people tended to behave like recalcitrant toddlers. Still, in the Difficult Client Olympics, these guys took the gold. They hadn't responded to a single one of her requests for financial or personnel information.