Rich Bitch: Everything's Going to the Dogs Read Online Free PDF

his over-sized paws to gnaw at the meat. However, as soon as she and Mimi resumed their journey, he picked up his bone and followed.
    Sophie bit her lip. What to do? He wore no collar, and no one seemed to be looking for him.
    “You have to go home now, Sir Galahad,” she said, as firmly as she could. He wagged his tail and kept following her.
    Mimi was no help; she could swear the little scamp was flirting with their big, dark protector.
    When they reached Vince’s building, the dog seemed disappointed but not surprised not to be invited in. He settled on a small patch of grass beside the entrance and resumed devouring his bone.
    ***
    “Hiya, buddy,” Vince said when he arrived home from work to find a black Doberman wagging its stub 
of a tail at him. A bleached-looking bone lay at his feet. “Now this is what a real dog looks like,” he said as he rubbed its head, wondering vaguely where the owner was.
    Once Vince reached the door to his apartment he hesitated for a second, then knocked before putting his key into the lock on his own door. It seemed appropriate to knock when there was a woman inside—a woman he was neither related to nor sleeping with.
    He opened the door and was immediately struck by mouth-watering smells of dinner cooking, by the hysterical yappy delight of Mimi, and by the fact that his nanny had a rip in her jeans, a bandage on her knee, and she seemed to be limping.
    Bending to give Mimi an absent pat, he never took his gaze off Sophie. “What happened?”
    She glanced at him and away again, and in that instant their gazes connected she looked guilty as hell. “I’m so sorry,” she said, stirring something on the stove, which put her back to him. “I did a very stupid thing.”
    His fourteen million dollar toy poodle was safe, so he figured he could handle her stupidity, but he wasn’t happy that she’d ended up limping on her first day working for him. “What happened?” he asked a second time, more mildly.
    When she didn’t answer right away, he walked up behind her in the small kitchen and touched her shoulder. “This might be easier if we sat down and discussed it face-to-face. Unless Mimi’s missing or you’re quitting, it can’t be that bad.”
    She smiled absently and sat at the pine table she’d already set for one.
    “You didn’t have to cook for me,” he said, trying not to think about how pathetic the table looked with one place mat, one fork, one knife. She’d even folded a napkin and laid it beside the fork. He usually ate in front of the TV if he was eating at home alone, which he didn’t do very often. Pre-Mimi that was. He now realized he was going to have to change his ways or get some extra dog-sitting help.
    “Cooking for the family is part of my job. I enjoy it,” she said, then drew a deep breath. “I took Mimi out with her expensive collar on today,” she said quickly. “She wouldn’t wear the other, and I thought I’d take her straight to the pet shop and get her a new one that she liked.”
    “And?”
    “We were mugged.”
    “What?” The hell with the dog, he couldn’t believe some thug had messed with Sophie. “I can’t… How did it happen? When?” He shoved a hand through his hair. “Where?”
    “In the park, the one you gave me directions to. A man knocked me down and grabbed for the leash. I-I should have known better. You told me not to use the good collar and leash. I’m very sorry.”
    “So he took the diamond dog stuff and left it at that?” Relief was hammering through his veins. New
 York was a lot safer than it had once been, but there was still too much violence. He hated to think of what could have happened.
    “No,” she said with a small smile. “He didn’t get anything. Mimi was very brave and bit his hand.”
    At the sound of her name, Mimi danced over to lick Sophie’s fingers.
    “That gave me a chance to get to the mace in my purse. But we still would have been in trouble without our