Free Choice Matters (Southern Heat Book 1) by Jamie Salisbury Page A

brings you to my
humble abode?”
    “I want to run a situation by you that just occurred
upstairs. See what you think. It involves Caitlyn, but on a professional level.
I don’t like what I overheard. It makes me wary.”
    “You wouldn’t happen to be talking about Don and his visit
to Caitlyn’s office, would you?”
    “Yes, how did you…never mind. Renee called, didn’t she?”
    “Yep. Don’t worry. I’ve got it handled. Consider Don in our
radar.”
    I shook my head. “I should have known she’d call you.”
    “The man was speaking to your executive vice president in a
manner he shouldn’t have been. Renee overheard just enough. That’s when she
called me. Anything else I can do for you?”
    “No, that’s all for now.”
    “Good, then if you don’t mind, I have this stack of incident
reports I need to go over.” He smiled. He loved thinking he was ahead of me.
And he was, some of the time.
    I chuckled, shook my head, and left Jacob to his work.
Sometimes, I had to wonder if he and Renee had built-in radar.
    Walking into the executive elevator, I pressed the button to
my floor. A vision of Caitlyn’s mother crossed my mind. She certainly was
everything Caitlyn had said she was. Pushy, domineering, every man’s nightmare
for a mother-in-law. But then, the lady and I have just met. She obviously
loves her daughter. She just doesn’t give Caitlyn credit with having the smarts
to know how to run her own life.
    For now, I’ll just step back and see what transpires in that
situation.
    Now, comes the hard part. Bringing Caitlyn into my dark
world. I can make a game of it for a while—let her think I’m something I’m not.
Just until I’m sure that she won’t run. That she won’t leave me as the others
have.

 
    * * * *

 
    The following week, with Apolo on
the other side of town at a meeting, I made peace with my mother by promising
to have lunch. As much as she protested at the parameters she had forced me to
lay down, she relented, agreeing to meet at a nearby restaurant.
    My plan was set. Renee would call me after precisely one
hour, reminding me of some bogus appointment I had. It was the only way I could
escape my mother’s need to know things that didn’t concern her.
    Mother, of course, was waiting on me. Seated at a table, a
glass of white wine in front of her, she anxiously left her seat to greet me.
As we sat down, I declined a glass from the bottle mother had ordered and began
scoping out the menu.
    “So, now that I’ve got you cornered, you must tell me all
about your new boss, Caitlyn.”
    “What is there to tell? He’s nothing like the hard-edged
business man the media portrays him to be. Although, he is shrewd…”
    “Don’t play coy with me. You know exactly what I’m talking
about. What’s Apolo Choice really like. You know,
away from the office.”
    The waiter approached again with my iced tea. I quickly
recited my order. Mother followed, her eyes never leaving me.
    I continued once we were alone again. “There’s nothing to be
coy about, Mother. If you’re referring to the other night when we went to his
brother’s restaurant up at Lanier, that’s all it was…dinner.”
    “That’s not what the media inferred.”
    “What you refer to is what Apolo’s own brother fed to the paparazzi. He was simply looking for a way to gain
publicity for his restaurant.”
    “Bull.”
    “Mother, think what you will, but it’s far more interesting
to read that Apolo and his dinner guest went
somewhere like his houseboat afterward than to have simply left and returned to
Atlanta.”
    She picked up her wine and took a sip, her gaze never
leaving my face. “So, did you go to
his houseboat, or did you just return to Atlanta?” I was about to say something
when she chimed in again. “I knew it! You don’t have to say a word, Caitlyn.
Your expression gave you away.”
    “Mother, really. You’re imagining things. We drove back to
Atlanta, end of subject.”
    “No, I don’t