ChapterTwo
The trendy café in Capitol Hill was the kind of place Sam Reddy noticed on her morning runs and weekly errands, but it was not the kind of place she’d willingly enter and sit down in with a cup of $6 coffee.
For one thing, Sam felt like the oldest person here. She was barely thirty, yet when she looked around the café named “highlight”—stylized with quotes and all lowercase lettering—she couldn’t discern who was a twenty-year-old college student and who was a fifty-year-old hipster with perfect skin they paid out the nose for.
Even if she wasn’t the oldest person in the room, she was definitely the most overdressed. But she was used to that. For every client who wanted to meet in an upscale restaurant or their corporate office tower, there was someone like Bianca Black who suggested a place like “highlight”. A place that offered ten different kinds of not-milk.
Fortunately, Sam took her coffee black. She’d been nursing it since she arrived. It was now ten minutes past the time her meeting with Bianca had been due to start. Yet Bianca was nowhere to be found.
She scanned the café, on the off chance that she’d missed the woman’s arrival. But Sam was good at her job. She hadn’t missed anything. All that looking around the café did was remind her of how much she stood out. Between Seattle’s lack of skin tone diversity and the café’s penchant for high-waisted jeans and cropped sweatshirts, South Asian Samhitha Reddy, sitting underneath a neon kombucha sign while armored in her suit and hard demeanor, might as well have advertised herself as “Outsider for Hire.” She was surrounded by three different groups of Gen-Z teens taking selfies of themselves every three minutes. Bonus points for their drinks actually making it into the shot.
She returned her eyes to the entrance, locking her attention on it like any bodyguard who knew her worth. Alertness was Sam’s default state. Preparedness was second nature to her.
Yet, when the café door jingled open, she was wholly unprepared for the sight of Bianca Black, fashionably late heiress.
Sam knew what Bianca looked like, of course. Several photos had been provided to her, courtesy of Vivianne Black. And as always, Sam had done her research online and on social media.
But the photos and videos didn’t do the young beauty justice. Waist-length curly hair, as pale as it was golden, was gathered in a loose ponytail at the top of Bianca’s delicate shoulders. A sheer kimono did little to cover the strapless dress beneath. Her chunky heeled sandals and perfectly pink toenails reminded Sam that, for many in the world, the day was bright, warm, and sunny. Unlike her world, which was always consummately professional, and a little sweaty. Or very sweaty. The suits didn’t disappear in the summer.
As Bianca removed her rose-gold sunglasses, their gazes met. But the young woman didn’t yet join Sam at the table beneath the neon kombucha sign. She turned toward the barista, who greeted her with a nonchalant hello while making a valiant attempt not to ogle his customer. Because Sam’s client knew how to dress to impress.
And attract.
Sam was dangerously close to ogling Bianca, too. The mesmerizing swish of the dress. Her tanned legs peeking out from under it. Her svelte hips.
Hips like those? They would be the death of Sam.
Control yourself, Reddy. You’re a professional. She arranged her things on the table, from her phone to her cup of cooling coffee, ensuring everything was in its rightful place. Maintaining order was a habit she’d developed during her time in the Air Force. She’d served for six years before going into personal security, and many of the skills she’d learned in the Air Force had carried over to her career of choice. They had helped her immensely when she started her own company only a few years ago. Since then, it had grown to become one of the most successful security firms in the Seattle area.
But there had been plenty of bumps in the road along the way. One in particular, which had caused her to lose confidence in herself in ways not even her mother could achieve…
No. Not going there.That job was in the past. She had enough to focus on in the present.
Like the girl in a peacock-inspired dress who was heading Sam’s way.
“You must be from Rainier.” Bianca’s light, melodic voice carried a hint of haughtiness.
Sam stood up, extending her hand. But Bianca only planted herself in the seat across from her, setting a small juice on the table and slinging her cross-body purse around the back of her chair.
“Samhitha Reddy, founder and CEO of Rainier Protection Services.” When it became clear Bianca would not be shaking her hand, Sam sat back down. “You can call me Sam.”
“Samhitha is a nice name.”
“Like I said, Sam is fine.” She was slightly taken aback that Bianca had said her name with a near-flawless accent. She’d been called ‘Samantha’ more times than she could count. But that wasn’t the reason Sam didn’t often go by her full name.
She waited for Bianca to formally introduce herself, but the girl just leaned back in her chair, arms and legs crossed as she studied Sam’s face. “I wasn’t expecting the head of a premier security firm to be so… young.”
Whether that was an insult or a compliment, Sam couldn’t tell. It was exactly why she didn’t often tell clients her age. As long as she got the job done, it didn’t matter that she was only 30.
But Bianca didn’t give Sam a chance to reassure her of that fact. “Trevor and Brent made it sound like you were much older. My mother was under the impression that they’d be following me around all day, if you can believe that. I can’t say that fits my aesthetic.”
Her aesthetic? Is she serious? “Trevor and Brent are two of the best on my roster. They won’t give you any grief as you go about your day. This I can assure you, Ms. Black.”
“I don’t care if they can do magic tricks on command. I don’t want huge men following me everywhere, lurking outside my apartment door. I have a life to live.” Bianca picked up her juice and took a hearty sip through the clear straw. “It’s not my fault my mom is paranoid.”
It’s like talking to a bratty teenager. She’s not taking this seriously at all.
But Sam’s irritation did little to quench the other feelings she was experiencing toward Bianca Black, all of which were decidedly unprofessional. Her unapologetic uber-femininity appealed to some part of Sam, a part of her that she didn’t often let speak. Attraction, desire, lust—she didn’t have the time or patience for any of that. She had more important things to concern herself with. Namely, her business.