Something About You (Just Me & You) by Lelaina Landis Page A

I’ve got
your back. Now you get mine.
    After the condom wrapper incident, the Hon. Rep. went on the
down low, covering his tracks with the expertise of a seasoned survivalist and
taking his early-morning rendezvous to posh downtown hotels instead. But
Sabrina could sniff out his nefarious deeds. Today they smelled like
gingerbread pancakes from the Four Seasons and Un Jardins Sur le Nil .
    Once everyone left for lunch, she sprayed Theo’s
perfume-drenched leather bomber with odor neutralizer and ran a lint roller
over the lining to pick up long, curly red hairs, grunt work she’d seen
Violetta do hundreds of times before. Sabrina wondered what Jillian Ward
thought when her husband came home smelling like Febreze.
    Sabrina kept her eyes averted from a professional studio
photo of Jill and the girls that hung on the wall. Sabrina hated the cover-up.
It made her feel sleazy. Her job description shouldn’t include making sure Theo
didn’t join the fifty percent club, as Carlton called it. 
    Theo’s conscience was his cross to bear, she reasoned. As
long as the Hon. Rep.’s biennial infidelities didn’t threaten his chance for
re-election — and therefore, her own career — his private life was
none of her business.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Cadence Corners was still lively by the time Sabrina got
home from work at dusk. 
    She loved the smell of freshly made food and espresso that
filtered out of the cozy restaurants and wafted down Plum Street, the
neighborhood’s main avenue. Couples strolled down the street pushing prams and
walking dogs. The resident semi-pro cyclists were out as well. They nipped
around the Audi on their light aluminum bikes, reflectors gleaming under her
headlights.
    She pulled her car into the driveway without bothering to
reach for the automatic garage door opener. She still felt a rush of giddiness
at the sight of her beloved 1930s Tudor Revival-style bungalow. The small
gingerbread-colored brick house, with its white-frosted front door, windows and
gables, seemed to have been custom-built for two — and possibly the
occasional overnight houseguest. The small yard had just enough no-maintenance
greenery to suit her tastes. Skyrocket junipers flanked the entry gate, and the
low brick fence was smothered in fig ivy. There were slender beds of earth on
either side of the walkway, just in case she had a yen to plant herbaceous
borders.
    Sabrina hesitated in front of the solid oak door and looked
at the mailbox with dread. Woman up , she coached herself. A week’s worth
of envelopes, postcards and fliers were stuffed inside. She thumbed through
them, hastily shoving her mortgage note and the communiqué that contained a
copy of her civil servant’s check stub to the end of the pile. She tossed the
mail on top of the mantle, where it joined another week’s worth of its friends.
The note wasn’t due for another three weeks.
    Time to focus on what she could control: tidying up all of
the frayed ends of her broken marriage.
    A nonthreatening pile of boxes sat in the guest room,
wedding presents from Jackson’s side of the family. Sabrina had adamantly
refused to sign up for a gift registry, against Molly’s advice. “Suck it up,
sister,” her best friend had told her. “And don’t come crying to me about a
bunch of terrible gifts when you don’t.”
    Terrible was an understatement. There was the garden gnome
dressed in a T-shirt bearing the mascot of Jackson’s alma mater. And a musical
figurine of two owls cozied up together that played the maudlin theme from a
movie about star-crossed lovers. The one that topped them all, however, was a
frilly pink apron with “Kiss the Cook” printed across the front.
    Sabrina taped each box shut and placed a return label on the
front. After her task was done, she eyed the canvas luggage that was lined up
in the corner of the room. She opened a smaller bag and sorted through a
colorful mélange of sexy, silky panties and bras, wedding gifts from Molly.
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