When I Saw You Read online

  Instead, his father was an American who wouldn’t give up a fiancée to marry the seventeen-year-old he’d impregnated. Joseph was the only student in his high school not sharing his father’s name. He was the only student who was the son of a servant. He was still popular with the other students and teachers, but he knew he was different. When he went home on break it wasn’t to mansions like his friends. He went home to a small cottage he shared with his mother and grandmother. While his friends were vacationing in the South of France, Aspen and Palm Beach, he was helping his mother polish silver.

  He spent his whole life on the edge of his father’s world. He became fanatical about proving his worth to his classmates and had inherited the brains and natural athletic ability to do it. He excelled at everything in high school, becoming captain of the rowing team, tennis team and debate team.

  Like his father and grandfather before him, he graduated valedictorian of his class. He was one of three students in the country that year to receive a perfect score on his SAT, and he was accepted to Yale University. After graduating magna cum laude with a degree in English, he took the LSAT and received a score high enough to gain admission to Harvard Law School.

  During his final semester before graduation, Joseph’s grandmother died of a heart attack and Tony offered to drive him home. When they arrived at the estate, they were greeted by Mr. and Mrs. Williams, and within minutes they were offering Tony a room in the main house.

  Joseph excused himself and was almost in tears when he reached the cottage. He found his mother curled up on the couch crying, and as he pulled her into his arms he too began to cry. Later, when the Williamses called to invite them to the main house for dinner, Joseph declined.

  He was sitting on a porch swing, drinking his fourth Heineken, when Tony strolled up the path from the main house hours later.

  “Hey.” Tony stopped several yards from the porch. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine.” He took a long swig from the bottle in his hand.

  “This place is unbelievable,” Tony said glancing towards the gardens to his right.

  “You mean your parents’ place in McLean isn’t like this?”

  “Hardly. We’re paupers compared to this.”

  “I wonder what that makes me.” Joseph kicked off the porch with the tip of his loafer, sending the swing back in a wide arch. “What’s lower than a pauper?”

  “I was kidding,” Tony said. “How’s your mother?”

  “She’s sleeping. Cleaning up after other people all day is hard work.”

  Tony watched him in silence.

  “Has your mother ever made a bed, Tony?” Joseph asked, not looking directly at him, but off towards the main house.

  Tony brought his eyebrows together, confusion marring his handsome features. “Of course.”

  “You mean you didn’t have a maid?”

  “Not that lived in the house.”

  “So you had one that came during the day, but went home at night.” Joseph’s gaze moved from the house to Tony.

  “No. We had a service come to the house a couple times a week.”

  “Did you ever think about those women?” He jumped off the swing and closed the distance between them in several long strides. “Where they went when they left your fancy house?”

  “No, Joseph, I didn’t.” Tony met his eyes. “What in the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing…nothing at all.” He tilted back his head as he finished his beer and then he tossed the empty bottle onto the porch. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to the Williamses? I mean, the servants’ quarters are somewhat below you, aren’t they, Prossi?”

  “I only agreed to stay up there because I thought you’d want some time alone with your mother…It’s not a big deal, Joe.”

  “To you maybe.” Joseph moved to walk past him, but Tony gripped his arm. “Take your hands off me,” Joseph snapped, his eyes moving to the hand on his arm.

  “What are you going to do, Joe? Hit me?” Tony moved his head back so he could meet his friend’s eyes. “You’re going to hit me because Mr. Williams invited me to stay in his house so you could have some time alone with your mother?”

  “That’s not why he invited you.” Joseph roughly shook his arm free and turned to face him. “He invited you because your father’s a fucking senator and he thinks you’re too good to stay here.” He waved his hand towards the cottage.

  “That’s bullshit.” Tony placed his hands on his hips. “He invited me to stay there because of you.”

  “You’re naïve,” Joseph said dismissively, before walking off in the direction of the gardens.

  “I’m naïve?” Tony jogged to catch up to him and then fell into step beside him. “The man just spent an hour and a half talking nonstop about you.”

  “Right.” Joseph shook his head, continuing forward. “I’m sure he gets a real kick out of the success of the maid’s son.”

  “That guy is proud as shit of you. He has a folder an inch thick with clippings of your accolades. Jesus, Joe, even I was impressed. You had a perfect fucking SAT?”

  “What?” Joseph’s head turned in Tony’s direction.

  “He talks like you’re his grandson. He thinks you’re brilliant.”

  “He said that?” Joseph stopped at the entrance to the gardens. “He said I was brilliant?”

  “Yes.” Tony nodded. “You are, Joseph. You’re the smartest guy I know. And you’re a great friend, but this obsession you have about where you come from is destructive.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You’re the son of a senator.”

  “You don’t see it, but people respect you, Joseph. And they respect you for your accomplishments, not your father’s.”

  “They’d respect me more if my last name was Prossi.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “What if my last name was Eastman?” he asked, his eyes intense. “Would they respect me more if I was Richard Eastman IV?”

  Richard Eastman III was a senior partner at Eastman and Brothers, one of the most successful investment brokerage firms in New York City.

  Tony opened his mouth, but then closed it. “If you were Richard Eastman’s son, you’d be rich and spoiled and probably never work a day in your life.”

  “And what if I was his bastard?” he asked, meeting Tony’s eyes. “What would I be like then?”

  Tony stared at him for several seconds and then his eyes widened. “Fuck—why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  “What was I supposed to say? ‘Hi, I’m Joseph Craig, Richard Eastman’s bastard’?”

  “I don’t know…Do you know him?”

  “No.” Joseph’s eyes dropped to the ground and he kicked at the dirt under his shoe.

  “So he never supported you?”

  Joseph actually laughed aloud. “Yeah. And that’s why I grew up in a fucking shack behind a mansion.” He swung his leg back and kicked a small rock into the air.

  “You’ve never tried to contact him?”

  “No.” Joseph shook his head. “When I meet Richard Eastman, I don’t want him to have any illusions that I’m after his money…I’m going to be established on my own first.”

  Three years out of law school, after serving as a clerk to a US Supreme Court justice and then working at a private law firm for two more years, Joseph partnered with Tony Prossi and Kevin Stuart, a successful trial attorney and friend of Tony’s father, and opened the doors of Prossi, Stuart and Craig. Within two years they were the “hottest” law firm in Washington, DC, and their rates were the highest in the city. Separately the men were brilliant litigators, but the chemistry created by the partnership brought them up to the level of genius.

  Joseph’s mother was killed in an automobile accident the year he turned thirty. Joseph returned to Massachusetts for the first time since graduating from Harvard. When he disembarked from the plane at Logan International Airport expecting to see the Williamses’ chauffeur, he instead was greeted by the eighty-two
-year-old patriarch of the family. Theodore Williams smiled as Joseph walked towards him.

  “Mr. Williams.” Joseph held out his hand as he stopped before the elderly man. “This is a surprise.”

  “Hello, Joseph…I’m so sorry about your mother.” Instead of taking the hand Joseph offered, Mr. Williams wrapped his frail arms around him. “We loved her, Joseph,” he said when he finally pulled back, tears glistening in his tired blue eyes.

  “I know.” Joseph smiled sadly. “She loved you too.” And she had. Two years earlier he tried to get her to move to Washington.

  “This is my home,” she’d told him. “I don’t want to leave.” And there was nothing he could say to convince her otherwise. She was content to be someone else’s servant, even preferred it over any other option he presented. “They’re my family, Joseph…I love it here,” she’d said. He called her once a month and flew her down to Washington the next two Christmases, but their relationship wasn’t close and their conversations were superficial.

  As the limousine wound its way down the long road leading to the Williamses’ home, Joseph’s eyes took in the familiar scenery. And then Theodore Williams turned to him and invited him to stay in the main house.

  The funeral was small and intimate, and afterwards Joseph shared a scotch with the older man in the study where they used to play chess.

  “Joseph, there are some things…things you have a right to know,” Mr. Williams said as his shaky hand brought his glass to his lips. He was staring at the fire, sitting in a high-back chair beside Joseph, the same chair he’d sat in when he talked to Elizabeth about her grandson thirty years earlier. “I’m not young, and I want to make sure you know the truth before I die.”

  Joseph’s eyes swung to the profile of the older man. “About Eastman?”

  The old eyes turned from the fire and looked directly into his. “You know?”

  “That Richard Eastman was the man who got my mother pregnant? Yes, I’ve known since I was fourteen. I found a letter.”

  “Your mother never said—”

  “She didn’t know. I never discussed it with her.”

  “I learned when you were a month old, and I contacted your grandfather.”

  Joseph sat up straighter in his chair. “They knew?”

  “Yes. Your grandfather and father knew. They never told your grandmother. Your grandfather paid for your education,” he said. “He was very proud of you, Joseph.”

  “What do you mean he paid for my education?” Joseph pulled his eyebrows together in a frown. “I received grants.”

  “To college. But he paid for Choate Rosemary. He asked them to tell you they were scholarships.”

  Joseph shook his head from side to side. “He had no right…You had no right.” He abruptly stood and walked to the window.

  “You were his grandson…his only grandson. He wanted to help you.”

  “And my father?” Joseph turned from the window. “How did he play into all of this?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never discussed you with him…but he was there. He attended all your graduations.”

  “My graduations?” Joseph turned from the window.

  “Harvard, Yale, Choate Rosemary. He and your grandfather attended them all.”

  “They had no right!”

  “Your grandfather was so proud, Jo—”

  “He didn’t have a right to be proud! He had nothing to do with who I am. My mother and you…You were the only ones I wanted. You were the ones who were there for me when I was growing up.”

  “Your grandfather was a good man, Joseph. You remind me of him.”

  “No!” Joseph glared at him. “I’m a Craig, not an Eastman. I would never not acknowledge my son or grandson. I’m nothing like them.”

  “Joseph,” Mr. Williams began weakly.

  “Don’t mention them to me again,” Joseph said coolly. “Don’t mention them again.” And he didn’t. Theodore Williams died a few months later, and as Joseph stood before three hundred mourners at the private service, delivering a eulogy at the request of the family and honoring the only father figure he’d ever known, Richard Eastman III sat in the audience.

  “Mr. Craig?” His secretary’s knock preceded her entrance into his office. At sixty-one, Martha Godfrey was without question the top secretary at the law firm. Originally Tony’s, she’d come to Joseph a year and a half prior after a small scandal erupted involving him and his very attractive secretary. The brief indiscretion cost the firm a fine secretary and close to one hundred thousand dollars.

  Joseph looked up from the stock portfolio displayed on his computer screen. “Yes?”

  “Ms. Paige is here to see you.”

  “Hello, Joseph.” Kathy stepped around his secretary. “Goodbye, Martha.”

  “It’s okay, Martha.” Joseph pushed back his chair. “Switch the phones to the answering service and start your weekend.” His gaze shifted to Kathy as he came to his feet.

  Kathy Paige was the epitome of beauty with long, straight blonde hair, large catlike green eyes, full lips and a perfect complexion. Standing a smidgen under six feet without shoes, she had the head-turning appeal of a movie star. “You haven’t called me in three days,” she scolded as she slid her perfectly manicured hands up his chest. “Where have you been?”

  “Working,” he said before brushing his lips over hers, his hands lightly gripping her hips.

  “You could have at least texted.” She trailed her lips along his jaw as she leaned her body into his. “I missed you.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Too busy to answer my texts?”

  “Pretty busy. And I’m still busy. I have a few things I have to wrap up.”

  “Come on.” She flicked her tongue over the sensitive skin behind his ear. “Haven’t you missed me? I’m sure you have time for a break.” One of her hands was at the front of his pants.

  Joseph closed his eyes, breathing deeply as she rubbed him through the thin material of his trousers. “Baby—”

  “Your body doesn’t want to go back to work,” she whispered against his ear.

  “I have things I’ve got to get done today,” he insisted, but his hands had slid from her hips to her butt, and he was propelling her backwards towards the door.

  “I hate it when you don’t call before the weekend. I don’t know whether or not to make plans.”

  “I’m sorry.” He pushed her back against the wooden door, his lower body pressing in to hers. “I should have called.” He slipped one hand beneath the hem of her dress, slowly trailing his fingers up the inside of her thigh. “Jesus,” he said deeply, slipping a finger into her. “You’re so wet.” A second finger joined the first. He sank his fingers in and out of her for several seconds. “Is this for me?”

  “Yes,” she breathed, pushing against his hand.

  His free hand dropped to his belt. “Go lean over my desk,” he whispered against her ear, removing his hand from beneath her dress. He turned the lock on his door before following her across the room, his eyes traveling over the back of her legs and butt.

  “Joseph—”

  “Shh. Bend over.” He placed a hand on the center of her back, slowly pushing her upper body forward until she was lying over his desk. “Spread your thighs a little.” He moved his knee between her legs. “Good.” He pushed his pants and briefs down just enough to free himself and then without warning thrust his hips forward, plunging inside of her. He pulled out slowly before ramming into her again, dropping his mouth to the back of her neck as he increased the rhythm of his thrusts, the sounds of his body slapping against hers magnified in his office.

  He freed her breasts from the confines of her dress, kneading them with one hand as he continued to pump in and out of her, her cries of pleasure filling the air. “You’re too loud,” he warned, but she continued to cry out, her moans growing louder. “Quiet,” he whispered, with no real conviction, his body driving into hers. He reached around her, running his fingers over her
clit. “Come for me, baby,” he said a moment before she screamed out, her body clenching around him. Seconds later, he groaned deeply, his body collapsing over the back of hers.

  “You’re bad,” she said a short time later as she adjusted her dress.

  “I’m bad?” He chuckled as he pulled up his zipper. “You’re the one who showed up at my office not wearing underwear.”

  “I didn’t hear you complaining a minute ago.”

  “I’m still not complaining,” he said as he buckled his pants. “But know when you show up in my office without underwear I’m going to fuck you.”

  She slipped her arms up around his neck, her green eyes meeting his brown ones. “Is that a promise?”

  He lowered his head, pausing with their lips inches apart. “You’re intoxicating,” he whispered before settling his lips on hers.

  She ran her hands down his back, continuing until they reached his butt, her hands pulling his lower body into hers.

  “Give me a minute, babe,” he said against her mouth. “I don’t recover that quickly.”

  “Sometimes you do.”

  “Not today.” He intercepted her hand before it reached the front of his trousers. “Not today.” He stepped around her and dropped down into one of the two club chairs facing his desk.

  “So where have you been?” She lowered herself into his lap.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” she began, moving a thumb to his lower lip and rubbing at a lipstick stain, “why haven’t I heard from you for three days?”

  “I told you. I’ve been busy.” He opened his mouth and tried to capture her thumb. “Come to an opening in New York with me for the weekend.”

  “I can’t. I have to work tomorrow.” She began to finger the hair falling just above his collar. “Don’t go away. I missed you this week.”

  “Did you?”

  “Desperately. Where were you last night? I must have called you ten times. It just kept going straight to voicemail.”

  “We settled the case against WNTC and they took us out to celebrate. At some point, my phone died.”

  “When did you get in?” She frowned. “I dropped by your place at two in the morning.”