Page 7 of Maid For Each Other

The shirt—my favorite shirt, actually—had a picture of a squirrel wearing underpants. The letters above it readHamilton Won Chip, and the letters below it readWorking for Underwear. I couldn’t even fathom what the attempt had been, but it made me smile every time I pulled it out of the dryer.

“Does it mean something?” he asked, seeming irritated that he didn’t understand.

I made a face like he was an idiot for being confused and said, “Obviously.”

“I don’t have time for this today.” Those green eyes moved all over my face before he said, “I’ll be in touch. Answer my call.”

And then he just turned and started walking away from me like a freaking king who had no more time for peasant interaction. I wanted to throw a rock at his perfect suit as he strode toward the parking lot in gorgeous leather shoes that surely cost more than my car.

“What are you going to do? What does ‘I’ll be in touch’ mean?” I yelled, wanting to chase after him and force him to put me out of my misery. “You don’t even have my number.”

“I’ll get it from Carl,” he yelled, not even looking back at me.

“Who the hell is Carl?” I said to myself, frustration filling every molecule in my body. I didn’t need this; I had enough problems, for the love of God.

“My doorman,” he replied, apparently in possession of both supersonic hearingandprivileged arrogance. “According to him, you two are thick as thieves.”

Damn it, Carl.

I sighed and watched him disappear, my stomach sinking with dread as I wondered how long I had before the millionaire jerk destroyed my life.

4

Wherein a Deal Is Arranged

Declan

I cannot believe I’m doing this.

I sat in my car—my parents were clearing their stuff out of my place so I’d been relegated to my vehicle for privacy—and pulled her up in my contact list.

Abi Mariano.

After utilizing Google to (a) make sure she wasn’t an actual criminal (I believed her about the infestation), (b) ascertain whether or not she was a functioning member of society (she’d graduated with honors from UNO and had a LinkedIn profile), and (c) determine her sketchiness factor, I consulted with my buddy Roman, who convinced me to take a huge-ass gamble.

I hit the FaceTime button and waited while it rang.

And then she answered. “Hello?”

Her face popped up, her eyebrows all scrunched together like she was confused by the call. Which, I supposed, was fair since she didn’t know my number and we weren’t friends.

“Mariano.”

“Yes?” She sighed and gave me an impatient glare before glancing at something beyond the phone and muttering an “excuse me” to someone.

“Can I have your attention for a moment?”

Her eyes shot back to me and she looked pissed, even as she said, “It is yours.”

I could tell by the narrowed brown eyes that she wasn’t in the mood to be messed with, which irked me because who did she think she was, using my house as her personal Airbnb and then acting like I was an ass for being unhappy about it?

She was a five-foot-nothing bundle of red hair and attitude who’d be cute if she wasn’t the cause of my current headache, but alas, Abi Mariano had seemed incapable ofnotcausing me difficulty. I said, “I have a proposition for you.”

“Oh, joy.” She was walking beside a congested street, but I couldn’t tell where she was in the city. She looked at me through the camera and said, “Listen, let me stop you right there because I’m not interested in anything sexual or illegal.”

“As if I am.” For someone who’d squatted in my residence last night without permission, she sure had a big chip on her shoulder. I would’ve called her boss immediately if I wasn’t so desperate to keep my career on its current upward trajectory. “Do you want to hear my offer, or should I call Ken Adams?”

That made her mouth close.Yes, I know your boss’s name, honey.

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