Page 7 of The Millionaire's Mechanic

She wished that her diffident voice and cowed posture were a conscious response to dealing with Mitch’s dick behavior—because standing up for herself only made him worse. But her pounding heart and the desire to crawl into a hole was nothing so calculated. She hated being singled out, her visceral desire for flight exacerbated by Mitch’s larger size and smug swagger.

Rainer is taller and broader, her brain pointed out. But her reaction to him hadn’t been remotely similar to this.

Also, Georgia couldn’t afford to not stand her ground. Not with what was happening at home. “I can make up the time after hours,” she said, trying not to sound like an unsure teenager. “But I had to go to Ephraim’s bank while it was open, and there was a long line.”

Mitch considered that, his eyes flicking to the side. She knew Dale and Alfredo were watching them, but, in this case, it worked in her favor. Everyone at Elite knew Ephraim. Thanks to Mack, they were aware of the problems that Ephraim’s business was going through.

“Fine. But you better do an entire hour,” he said, tossing the towel on a nearby bench before disappearing into his office.

Dale walked off without commenting, but Alfredo—Fredo for short—nudged her in commiseration. “Forty minutes of unpaid overtime. That sucks.”

“Yeah,” Georgia muttered, but she was aware that it could have been worse.

“Sorry Ephraim is still having a shitty time,” Fredo said, not rubbing it in that he’d been late yesterday morning, but Mitch had only givenhima warning.

Georgia knew better to expect Fredo to stick his neck out for her. Mitch didn’t treat Fredo as badly as he did her, but Fredo had taken enough shit from him over the years. She wouldn’t ask him to set himself up for more.

“Ephraim will be okay,” she said. “He just needs a little time to figure some stuff out.”

Fredo made a sympathetic noise before walking away. Sighing, Georgia put her bag in her locker, getting to work before Mitch docked her another hour of pay.

CHAPTERFIVE

Two weeks later

Georgia shuffled the heavy paper sacks in her arms, swearing when one ripped. The contents spilled all over the worn welcome mat of her childhood home.

“Damn it.” That had been the sack with the glass jar of pasta sauce. Twisting, she spotted the jar in the dirt next to the concrete path. Picking it up, she thanked the stars it was still unbroken. Friday evening was spaghetti night, and her dad hated when their routine was upset.

It took two trips from the car to the kitchen to get everything unpacked and organized before Georgia could start dinner. After starting the water for the pasta, she bustled around the small kitchen, opening and closing cabinets as she prepared dinner for two.

The worn wooden cabinets needed a new coat of lacquer, but, otherwise, this place looked the same as the day she had arrived in Casa Levi-Jones when she’d been a damaged eight-year-old without hope.

She certainly hadn’t expected this to be her forever home. Georgia had been burned too many times before to believe something as absurd as that.

The modest four-square house, nestled deep in suburban San Diego, hadn’t been Georgia’s first foster placement. More like the seventh or eighth, but she only had clear memories of the last two. But recalling that skinny black girl who clutched a garbage bag of her belongings no longer hurt—thanks to Diamond and Ephraim, the foster parents who had claimed Georgia as their own.

By the time Georgia had been assigned to them, she’d met enough new ‘parents’ for several lifetimes. Her unspoken skepticism had been in her refusal to unpack her things and her monosyllabic answers to any questions she was asked.

It didn’t help that she wasn’t their first foster child. They had a boy in the past. The social worker had told Georgia that as if it were agoodthing instead of a huge red flag.

Georgia would later find out that the Levi-Jones’ hadn’t willingly given their foster son up. Mack, whose real name was Shane Mackenzie, had a mom who wanted to keep him, at least she did when she was sober. Unfortunately for Mack, his mother’s clean periods were few and far between. But she tried, and Mack was fiercely loyal to her. He deeply resented the efforts of the conscientious social worker, who would repeatedly pull him out of his mom’s house to stick him back in the system.

Mack was a problem child who had gotten kicked out of more than one foster home before being assigned to Ephraim and Diamond. Being goodhearted, they had done their best to make sure Mack knew he was wanted—even when his mother asked for him back. And they always welcomed him home when she inevitably messed up, even when he’d made it clear he didn’t want to be there.

Being forced back two or three times a year messed with Mack’s head, but he’d never taken it out on Georgia. Not once she’d told him her mother didn’t want her.

Taking out the pasta strainer, she stroked the little planets on the wallpaper her foster mother had covered the shelves in because she loved the stars.

Diamond had been larger than life. Black, voluptuous, and garrulous, she had taken Georgia by the hand and shown her so much love it had broken through the thick walls she’d had built around herself.

Georgia had been more doubtful about Ephraim. Quieter than his chatty and loving wife, he’d stayed in the background during those first few weeks. He’d been perfectly nice and welcoming, but he rarely spoke, letting his wife do all the talking. Ephraim was the quintessential nebbish Jewish accountant.

Thin and buttoned-down, Georgia’s first impression of her foster father had been of a lanky human scarecrow. But she had liked how he would be there, working or washing dishes in the background, frequently smiling at something his wife said or did without actively engaging.

Then Mack, her foster brother, had come home, and Georgia’s family had been complete. For a while anyway.

“You didn’t have to make dinner,” her dad said, appearing at the threshold to the living room. Except for his thin hair and a more prominent bald spot, Ephraim hadn’t changed at all in the last sixteen years.

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