Chapter 2

"You know I hate these fucking nine AM meetings. Don't you?"

Marc was familiar with his brother's complaint. He'd heard it often enough and affected a yawn, "I'm pretty tired today, too. Maybe you could send Zdenka out for coffee?"

Todd rolled his eyes, "She'll probably spit in mine, but I think I'm too tired to care." He stepped out of his office and said something to his assistant in Russian. Whatever she answered, it sounded sarcastic. But, she smiled at Marc and swung her hips as she left.

"Is she ... flirting with me?" asked Marc, momentarily distracted from the matter at hand.

"I hope so." Todd sat back down behind his desk. He looked thoughtful, "You know, if you're interested, I could put in a good word for you."

Marc raised his hands as if surrendering, "I don't..."

"You'd be doing me a huge favor, actually."

Marc frowned, "Wait. Why?"

Todd reached across the desk and flicked Marc's ear, something he'd been doing since they were both children. Marc jumped and covered his ear, "What the fuck?"

"Don't be a dumb-ass, dumb-ass. Why would I want you to fuck my incredibly hot secretary?"

Marc thought about it, but slowly. His mind was taken up by other things. Todd held up his finger like he was loading another flick. Marc covered his ear again, "Wait. You're fucking her?"

Todd rolled his eyes again, "You must be the only person who hasn't figured that out. You're such a Boy Scout. Why else would I hire a receptionist who barely speaks English?"

"I still don't understand why you'd want me to fuck her, though."

"She figured out I'm not really going to divorce Allison. Since then, it's been kind of awkward." Todd shook his head, "On the plus side, she's a total gold-digger. If she were fucking some nice land developer who drives a shiny, silver BMW, she'd probably stop grinding my knob over my wife."

Marc shook his head, "My life is sort of already complicated enough as it is."

"She does anal."

"I..." Marc stopped and imagined his brother buggering Zdenka over his desk. He shook his head to clear the image, "I fucked my babysitter."

Todd looked up from his computer, "Does she do anal?"

"She's fifteen," said Marc. "I think I fucked up bad."

"Maybe," offered Todd. "Was she crying?"

"Before or after?"

Todd sat back in his chair, "What I'm trying to ascertain, little brother, is whether the girl would consider herself a willing participant in said activities."

Marc jumped up, shocked, "Are you asking if I raped her?"

Todd shook his head, "You definitely raped her. The state of New Jersey says that a fifteen year-old girl is incapable of consent. The question is if you just kind of raped her or, like, knocked her out, dragged her off by the hair, and went all caveman on her."

"It wasn't like that," protested Marc. "She stayed the night. I made her breakfast."

"Did she seem to like you this morning? Was there any ... resumption of activities?"

Marc nodded, "She kissed me before she left."

That got him a nod, "It's not a blow job, but it's a good sign." Todd rose from his desk and walked over to his shelf full of barely-touched law books, "Basically, you're guilty, but statutory is really hard to prosecute, particularly if you have a decent lawyer. If the girl won't cooperate with any possible prosecution, it's pretty much a non-starter. Even so, you should start damage control as soon as you can."

"Right. So, I need to cut off contact?"

Todd smacked him in the back of the head, "No, dumb-ass. You want her to be uncooperative with any possible prosecution. That means you want to keep her happy. Do you think fucking her and then cutting off contact is going to make her happy?"

"No?" It came out as a question.

"Trust me on this. No." Todd sat on the edge of his desk, "How close is her birthday?"

"I don't know."

"Find out." Todd shook his head, "Prosecutors hate starting a case with a girl who's already legal by the time she complains. It's not a guarantee they won't. In some ways, you'd be better off if you were some dirtbag trucker on his way through town. A lot of people hate you, Marc. If this comes out, there will be pressure to prosecute you. So, you want to try to keep people from finding out and you want to do what you can to make prosecution hard."

"You sound like you've done a lot of thinking about this."

Todd nodded, "And I know the ADA who generally handles this sort of thing. You should meet him. He's a good guy, very loyal to his friends. And, I'm pretty sure his kid is looking for a job. Maybe he'd want to go into construction."

Marc frowned and shook his head, "I don't really need another worker."

"That's good. I've met his son. I wouldn't expect any work out of him."

By the time Marc got home, he needed a drink.

He'd left Todd's office feeling cautiously optimistic. That feeling lasted until he got to the office. On the way in, he brushed the desk with his hip. His screen saver winked out, revealing the browser window he'd left open, the nanny-cam still feeding a view of his now-empty couch.

He might as well have gone home then for all the work he got done. He imagined his employees all gathered around the desk, rewinding the feed, and watching him with Tamara. As he stared at a paving permit application, trying to make sense of it, his mind's eye played a scene of Sheriff Beaufort leading a SWAT team into his front yard. The rational part of his mind was pretty sure Middlesex County didn't have a SWAT team, but in his imagination, they seemed incredibly real, not to mention ludicrously trigger-happy.

As he was searching his office for any sign of tampering, his assistant Angela walked in, scowled at him, placed a folder on his desk without speaking, turned and left.

Marc breathed a sigh of relief. At least Angela was acting normally. He'd hired the stout matron for her steam shovel-like efficiency, not yet realizing she had a personality to match. She'd seemed downright pleasant in the job interview.

The next six and a half hours had passed agonizingly slowly. He'd finally given up, told Angela he was going to inspect one of the sites, and left. That got him another scowl. A steady mist had fallen all day. Marc's foreman had spent the day inside the trailer. There was no point in going to the job site.

Marc sat in Sweetie's driver seat, a cold feeling in his stomach at having been caught in an obvious lie. Then, his shoulders shook as he tried to contain his laughter. It burst forth and, once free, went on until there were tears in his eyes. He realized that anyone watching him from outside the car would probably think he'd lost his mind. He glanced around the parking lot to see if he was being watched. That brought a fresh wave of laughter.

He'd momentarily forgotten he was the boss. It didn't matter where he was going. It didn't matter if people thought he was crazy. No one could fire him.

When Marc arrived home, a figure in white appeared from behind his house. Marc felt a surge of fear before he realized it was neither an avenging angel nor a SWAT team member who'd accidentally worn his winter uniform, but a soaked and bedraggled Tamara in a hooded sweatshirt.

"Hi," she said as he emerged from Sweetie. Marc wondered if he should be worried. But, Tamara was hunched over, hands buried as deeply in her pockets as they could go, hood pulled tight. She looked pathetic, not threatening.

"Hey." Marc closed the driver's door, "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to babysit." Tamara's teeth chattered.

Marc had completely forgotten his plans for tonight. Even so, her answer didn't entirely make sense, "I don't need you until seven."

Tamara shrugged, "I thought I could come early, do my homework here."

Marc opened the back door of the car and crouched down to unbuckle the seat belt that held Adam's car seat in place, "Outside ... in the rain?"

"I forgot you wouldn't be here."

"You should have extended the awning and sat on the back patio," Marc offered.

"I didn't know how."

Tamara's answers were spawning more questions than Marc was asking. He lifted Adam out of the car, "Why don't you come inside? You need to get dry."

Tamara nodded and followed him. As he unlocked the front door, he glanced down at the girl next to him. Suddenly, he had a vision of his future stretched out in front of him. He'd worried so much about going to jail or being gunned down by a fictitious SWAT team that he hadn't really considered the possibility that he'd rashly committed himself to coming home every night to a girl who was literally too stupid to come in out of the rain.

As soon as the front door closed, Tamara stripped off the sweatshirt and let it fall to the hardwood floor with a wet thud. Underneath was either the same tank top she'd worn last night or its twin. That came off next. Before Marc could respond to that development, Tamara had unhooked her bra and let it fall on top of the other clothes.