Chapter 82
Monday morning, my bubble of pretending the Simon “thing” wasn’t happening burst, I got a call from the prosecutor’s office wanting to hook an interview with me Wednesday morning. I talked to my manager, and she gave me the entire Wednesday morning off. Next I called Hunter. He had been allowed back to the office. This time I had made certain arrangements so that we didn’t get a repeat of the previous time.
“Sweeties, is something wrong?” he asked when I called.
“Nothing is wrong. The prosecutor’s office called me. I am to have my Interview on Wednesday morning and I wanted to ask if I can borrow Seymour?” I asked.
“I will make sure he is available, and I’ll bring him home for dinner Ennoreme to your can talk,” Hunter said,
“You don’t need to do that. He has a family he should get home to.” I objected.
“He will survive eating dinner with us. He will be coming whether you like it or not, Hana. The best you can do is accept it,” he said.
“Fine. Thank you, I will feel better having someone with me, es
“I only wish I could go with you,” Hunter told me.
especially someone I k
“I know. But we both know why that would be a bad idea. I’m more than happy with Seymour.”
“Do you want me to come along and wait outside?”
“No,” I said. “It would be a waste of your time. Focus on work and we will talk after we get off work on Wednesday, I will even let you bring food home with you”
“Okay, it’s a deal,” he agreed.
By the end of the day, I wished they had booked the interview sooner. It was a distraction that I had a hard time ignoring. It was like a hidden internet browser window that played constant music. I tried to ignore it, but it was just picking at the edge of my mind constantly. By the time Hunter got home from work, I had run out of ideas on how to distract myself. After he had given me the usual hello kiss, he looked at me and frowned.
“You don’t look so good,” he told me:
“Have you run out of compliments?” I tried to joke.
“Sweet, you know you are always gorgeous, but it looks like you haven’t slept in a week. Which I know isn’t the case since I have a habit of watching you do it,”
The told me. “Is it the interview?”
“You watch me when I’m sleeping?” I asked both because it was news to me and in an attempt to distract him
“Every chance I get. Don’t try to dodge the question.”
“Fine. Yes, I can’t seem to get it out of my head,” 1 confessed.
“Is it because you don’t know the people or are you afraid of what they are going to ask you?” He wanted to know.
“I think it’s a combination. But mostly the questions. I’m afraid I’m going to say something that will land you, or Jason, or your company in trouble. I’m not good at these sorts of things. I get nervous, and when I get nervous, I ramble and say things, I don’t know if I can have it on my conscience if I did something that would land any of you in trouble,” I told him. He smiled and caressed my cheek.
“I’m not worried one bit. I have seen you negotiate with a Russian mobster. I have seen how you handled the detectives in my office and how you handled Mandy You will do fine. Especially after you have had a sit down with Seymour. And don’t forget, he will be there with you. If he thinks you are heading into dangerous territory, he will let you know. He won’t let you incriminate yourself,” Hunter reminded me.
“You re right. He will be there and he will have my back.” Lagreed.
“You need to have more faith in yourself, Hana. I won’t say it will be easy, but you will be able to do it.”
“Thank you,” I said with a sigh. Hunter pulled me into a warm hug and I leaned my head on his shoulder.
“Any time, sweetness.” He kissed the top of my head and let me stay like that until I was ready to face the world again. I sighed and straightened up. “Now, I think you promised to show me how to make real tacos,” he told me. I laughed.
“I did. So get in the kitchen, I will need your help. As always, cooking with Hunter was fun and calming. By the time we got ready for bed, most of the restlessness
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Chapter 82
was gone. Hunter made sure I worked the rest off, and when he finally drew me into his arms after my third orgasm, 1 fell asleep in minutes.
The next day, I prepared and put the roast into the even during my lunch break. I had planned to make it for Sunday dinner, but I wanted to make sure Seymour got something nice to eat when he went to the trouble of talking to me after hours. I also made sticky toffee puddings and made sure the toffee since was ready to be made. Hunter sent me a text when he and Seymour left the offer and by the time they arrived, I had the dining room table set and dinner ready. Hunter walked up to me and gave me a kiss.
“It smells divine,” he told me.
“Thank you. Hello, Seymour. Thank you for coming over. I hope you didn’t have any important plans,” I said.
“Not at all, Hana. And I will agree with the boss. It smells amazing,” he said.
“I hope you both are hungry. I may have gone a bit overboard,” I confessed as I showed them into the dining room.
“Sit down Seymour, I’ll just help Hana with the food,” Hunter said. And followed me back to the kitchen to help me carry everything to the table. “Do we have anything left in the refrigerator?” he asked with a chuckle as he saw all the dishes.
“I think we have some tomatoes and a stick of butter. It will have to tide us over until we go shopping.” I joked with him. We sat down and for a moment we focused on the food. Both Hunter and Seymour were generous with their compliments.
“I think it’s time to get to the issue at hand,” Hunter said as I served the sticky pudding.
“Yes. Before we get started, how honest and frank do you like me to be?” Seymour asked.
“Completely.” I told him before Hunter had a chance to answer. Seymour looked at his boss. Hunter nodded.
“Okay, then before we go through what we can expect from them, Are you living here permanent or temporary? And if it’s temporary, when are you planning on moving out?” he asked. The room fell silent. That was really straight to the point. Me living with Hunter had started as something temporary, before our relationship had changed. Now? I didn’t know. We hadn’t talked about it, so I guessed it was still temporary. Hunter looked at me and I looked at him. Neither of us
was ready to answer.
“We haven’t talked about it,” Hunter finally said. Seymour nodded.
“Could Hana move out, temporarily, until the trial is over?” he asked.
“No. There is no way she can go back to that place. It’s not safe,” Hunter objected
“Could we let her use one of our safe houses?” Seymour asked.
“Why do you feel it’s important?” I asked in return. Seymour sighed.
“What I’m about to say in no way reflects my opinion, or the opinion of those who know you or have seen you interact.
act. But just looking at your relationship on paper, it looks a bit… odd. The prosecutor wants a win on this. It’s a big case. They will scrutinise every aspect of it, every witness, and they will hunt down things about their witnesses so they can get a handle on it before the defence blindside them during the trial. They will look at your relationship and they will look at it from the jury’s point of view and they will hate it,” Seymour told me. “Hunter is your ex–husband’s father. So not only does the prosecutor need to sell the fact that you had no knowledge of your ex–hushand’s criminal activities. They will also need to sell that you had never met Hunter before the divorce, that the two of you fell in love in an instant, and now live together. All in a couple of months. Your relationship will increase the risk of you being seen as a calculating gold digger rather than the abused wife that heroically fought to get free. It’s a risk for the prosecutor and they will not be kind in their pursuit of a win,” he continued. Hunter looked Like a storm cloud and I felt that each of his words placed a cold stone in my stomach.
“We will talk about it and give you an answer tomorrow,” Hunter told him. Seymour nodded. He looked relieved to have that out of the way. He changed the subject and started going through questions with me. We talked about what kind of questions they would ask, and how I should answer them. He reminded me to only answer the asked questions, never offer them more than they asked for. I should be cooperative, but let them do the work. When he left I both felt better and worse than before. But I was happy that he would be with me during tomorrow’s interview. Hunter and I were putting away the leftovers in silence. It was getting on my nerves, we both knew we needed to talk, but both were reluctant. When the last thing was put away and the dishwasher was running, we both stood there.
“Are we going to talk about it?” I asked. Hunter rubbed his face with both his hands.
*We really don’t have a choice. Let’s get this over with,” he said and walked over to the couch. I followed.
