Free Nothing to Lose by Angela Winters

refusal to “check in” before going ahead. Down the hall, to the left, was the corner office belonging to her husband who was a principal on the lobbying side of one of the largest law firms in the country.
    She’d been prepared to bypass his administrative assistant, Candy, as well, but she wasn’t there. All the better for the element of surprise. Sherise wanted to catch Justin off guard so he couldn’t dismiss her so easily. She wanted to talk to him, needed to talk to him.
    However, she was the one caught off guard when she entered the office and saw Justin sitting at his desk, with a beautiful young woman leaning over him from behind. Both of them looked up immediately as she entered. Sherise tried to hide how much this scene irked her. Who in the hell was this woman?
    She was a strikingly beautiful woman, who looked to be in her midtwenties. She had a classical type of beauty, and she looked to be of Italian or Spanish descent, with warm olive skin, dark hair, and large brown eyes. She was on the thin side, but she had enough curves to make her the kind of woman you wouldn’t want to find hanging over your husband’s shoulders, with her cleavage in full view.
    â€œSherise.” Justin said her name as if he had just remembered it that second. “What are . . . Um, what are you doing here?”
    â€œNice to see you too,” she answered, closing the door behind her.
    She approached the desk as the young woman stood up. At least she no longer had her breasts all up in her husband’s face.
    â€œYou’re supposed to be in bed.” Justin quickly got up from his chair and came around his desk.
    He opened his arms to her and she hugged him. She reached up, grabbing his face gently, and brought it down to her. She kissed him passionately and he hugged her a little tighter. It was important to set the stage.
    â€œWe’ll talk about that later,” she said as they finally separated.
    Sherise knew how to deal with her husband’s attractive coworkers. She took the ignore approach. They were unimportant. She would never make them think they even mattered, let alone were a threat. So, after the initial moment of seeing them together, Sherise kept her attention completely on her husband, who seemed, at the least, confused to see her.
    â€œI came to take you to lunch,” Sherise said. “And don’t protest, because I called Candy this morning and she told me your lunch was free.”
    â€œWell, that was before,” he said. “I have a working lunch now.”
    Sherise wasn’t about to be turned down by her husband in front of this woman. She gently caressed her husband’s cheek. “We’ve worked around working lunches before.”
    He smiled at her and this made her confident. Justin used to be so weak to even the most simple of her flirtations, but that had gotten lost in the mix of their madness. She knew he still wanted her, so she made sure to look amazing before coming over here to make it harder on him if he considered resisting.
    They hadn’t talked since the brief argument they’d had the other night; she wasn’t going to let things lie like that.
    The woman, still standing behind Justin’s desk, made a sound clearing her throat. Sherise smiled at Justin, but she still paid her no mind. It was Justin who, having forgotten about her (to Sherise’s delight), remembered there was another person in the room. He swung around.
    â€œOh, Elena, I’m sorry.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” she said, smiling. She came around the desk, preparing for her introduction.
    â€œHoney, this is Elena Nichols, one of our new associates.”
    Elena laughed flirtatiously. “I’m not that new, Justin.”
    Sherise didn’t like the way that woman said her husband’s name. Way too familiar for her taste.
    â€œBasically off the boat from Cleveland,” Justin said jokingly. “Just kidding.