Although their hands were clenched, their other hands were busy… on their phones. The place was so quiet save for the Ramones music playing on the speakers that they had to come up with some way to communicate what they really wanted to say. Because all of it was not fit for public consumption.
“On the couch over there.” Sylvia looked over at the red couch in the middle of the café. “I want you on top of me right now.” Her hand squeezed his even harder. She only put her phone down so she could pour herself more tea from the pot they shared.
Joseph considered the couch with wary eyes before typing a reply into his phone. “I was thinking more about this table here. Bend you over it and make you look out the window while everyone looks up at me ramming you.”
“It’s raining, babe. Nobody’s looking up at us.”
“They should be. You have a fantastic O face that needs to be shared with the world.”
Sylvia leaned forward. Even though she wore a thick sweater to keep out the December cold, her T-shirt beneath offered an excellent shot of her cleavage. “And you have a fantastic face in general,” Sylvia said.
Joseph put down his phone and leaned his chin against his hand. “Nothing compares to your face, Sylv.”
“Really? Nothing?” Sylvia lifted her teacup. “Not even this tea? Because it’s pretty damn good tea.” She loved her black tea spiced with cinnamon. It went well with the whole café, which smelled of cinnamon and lavender. Hell, she loved anything spicy these days. It made her think of her hot boyfriend, who always wore scents that popped right off his skin. Sylvia could be dizzy for days if Joseph wore the right (or wrong) aftershave. Not that he had been shaving much lately. Half his face was covered in fuzz. Which felt really, really good against a girl’s thighs when she was getting spoiled…
“I said nothing, and I’m sticking to it.”
Sylvia chuckled. “Sometimes I wish you weren’t a man of such few words, but in this case I don’t mind it.”
“Why use a lot of words when I can express myself physically instead?”
Sylvia glanced around the room before slipping her foot up his leg. “Indeed, sir, why not?”
Joseph shuddered beneath the touch of her toes. The great thing about him being a quiet guy recently was that it was one of his many ways of showing her intimacy. Kinda like shuddering whenever she touched him like this. “Watch your mouth, Ms. Rogers.”
“Never.”
Sylvia sat back in her seat with the intention of pushing her breasts up and showing off more of her cleavage. Instead, she was caught off guard by her ringing phone.
“Really?” Joseph muttered. “We’re in a nice café, Sylv.” He tsked for extra effect.
Sylvia was going to shut off her phone until she saw who was calling her – someone she hadn’t spoken to in a very, very long time.
“Uh, hang on.” Sylvia let go of her boyfriend’s hand as she stood up and answered the phone. “Be back in a few.” She held the phone up to her ear on the way out of the café and down the stairs to the street, where the rain dripping off eaves gave her more privacy than sitting around a tiny café. “Hello?”
The voice of Judith King was one she never thought she would hear again, even if their paths crossed in the coming future. “Hello? Is that you, Sylvia?”
“Of course it’s me. Who else would it be at this number?” Sylvia had gone through numerous changes in the past year and a half, but switching her phone number was not one of them. “What is it? You’re not someone I ever thought would be calling me like this.”
“You’re right. It would take something pretty crazy for me to want to call you.”
At least they could agree on that. Not much else they could agree on, though. Judith and Sylvia were old co-workers back at the Château. Last Sylvia heard, Judith was now in some exclusive ménage relationship with two men who barely knew each other. God only knew what Judith had heard about her. (The most pivotal thing Judith had heard lately was that Sylvia was now shacked up with a Hispanic man who was almost hotter than her Hispanic man. Almost. Judith would never consent to calling any men hotter than the ones she already had.)
“So let’s cut to the chase.” Sylvia was growing colder by the second, after all. “What can I do for you?”
“I need to know what Cassandra Welsh told you the last time she came by the Château.”
“Huh, what? Who?” That name sounded vaguely familiar. “Cassandra? Wel… oh. Her.”
The memories came with the next blow of the wind. One moment Sylvia had blissfully forgotten that someone like Cassandra ever existed, and the next? Thinking of that night Cassandra came up to the Château for some “therapy.” Which meant she had sex with almost everyone there and threw extra money at Sylvia and another girl to act as her therapists for the rest of the night. Sylvia was used to playing that role with clients, even female ones, as few and far between as they had been in her previous life. When Cassandra said she needed some sympathetic ears to listen to her, nobody said no, even though nobody was friends with her outside of the Château. (Perhaps that made it better for the young, emotionally fragile heiress.) Sylvia had heard a lot of weird shit that night. Mostly about Cassandra’s previous lovers, names that Sylvia knew so well she was shocked to know that one woman had managed to sleep with them all. Some of them still ongoing!
“Why do you need to know that after all this time?” Sylvia held her sweater closer to her body. “What’s going on?”
Judith sighed. “Not that it’s really any of your business, but it’s possible one of my boyfriends is the father of her child.”
“Really?” Sylvia could have guessed that easily enough. Judith would never fall for men below certain income levels, and Cassandra loved her heirs and first-generation moguls. Hell, if Cassandra had spread herself anywhere in the PNW, Sylvia wouldn’t be shocked to know that Joseph had fucked her too! The man was the son of a Latin king of investments. Cassandra would probably eat that right up – and Joseph too. “I’m not sure what you want me to divulge. She didn’t tell me who was impregnating her.” She hoped Judith could hear her rolling eyes.
“So it’s true. She really was pregnant, huh?”
How could Judith not know that for sure? “That’s what she told us. You know, after we were all finished with her.” How many times would that ever happen at the Château? Wasn’t every day a woman in her first trimester popped in for a lesbian orgy and then some “oh you poor dear!” therapy. It was the sort of story Sylvia hanged on to when people like Joseph asked her to tell them the craziest thing to happen in her hooking career.
Speaking of… Sylvia glanced up and caught her boyfriend’s eyes looking back down at her from the second story window. He waved at her. She waved back.
“She didn’t insinuate who she thought the father was?”
“I don’t think she knew.” Or so Sylvia recalled. Most of what Cassandra spilled from her pretty lips was her sordid sexual history that contained some famous names. Names Sylvia had slept with before. Names she still often saw in the social papers, when she bothered to read them anymore. “Who’s your boyfriend? Maybe it will ring a bell.”
Judith was hesitant, but finally said, “Seth Christens. He used to be a gyno.”
“Huh. I don’t remember the name, but she did say something about seeing a gyno who was also her lover. Honestly, by then I was going along with everything.
“I’m sure. As I always say, err on the side of the craziest fucking story, because it’s probably the true one.”
“She didn’t say anything about him being the father though, sorry.”
“No worries. It’s probably not him anyway if the rumors about her promiscuity are true.”
“Based on what she was telling me that night, yeah. Either that or she’s got a big mouth on her. Er, not that kind of big mouth.” Or maybe she did! Who really knew? Not Sylvia. She only had sex with the woman once, and there were two other women there.
“Anyway, that’s all I had to call about.” Typical Judith. She wouldn’t admit she was nosy about Sylvia’s life as well. “See you.”
“Yup. See you next week, probably, if you’re going to the Christmas gala.”
“What? You’re coming back to visit?”
“Uh huh.”
“Well! How about that? Suppose I will see you around, then. Have a nice trip over.” Judith hung up without any other words.
Sylvia returned to the café to find her boyfriend still at their table. Joseph was too polite to straight up ask her what the phone call had been about.
Like she could hold it in.
“Looks like there’s going to be enough drama at the Christmas gala to impress us both.” The only reason Joseph agreed to go – so Sylvia could spy on old acquaintances and pretend to be fancy, of course – was because his father the investment banker agreed it would be good for him to get to know the upper echelon of higher new England society. He already had a friend in first generation billionaire Vincent Lane, who was also going to this big fancy gala neither of them had heard of until that year. Neither man was inclined to put himself into that awkward situation, but Vincent needed to expand his business network, and Joseph had to be useful to his father’s family if he hoped to get any personal inheritance from his father. (The business inheritance was never happening.)