Page 29 of The Billionaire and His Driver
Ronny looked at Brina. “May I see you for a moment, Miss Hawkins?” he said to her.
Brina just stared at him.
He realized how crazy it looked, and he left the room.
Gail and Shanilla looked at Brina. Brina put down the duster and hurried out of the room.
“I didn’t know Mr. Bradshaw was that handsome,” Shanilla said as Brina closed the door behind her. “He looks like a movie star! And did you see that frown on his face? He looked like he was mad at Brina.”
“Serves her right,” said Gail. “Probably stole something from him too.”
“Stole something? Why would you say that?”
“That’s what she went to prison for. Stealing from a charity. Un-uh. I wouldn’t put nothing past that girl,” Gail said.
Shanilla was thinking the same thing, but not about Brina. About Gail!
But out in the hall, Ronny didn’t mince words. As soon as he saw her walk out of that bedroom dressed up in that maid’s uniform, his anger flared. And now it was spilling out. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m working.”
“You’re no longer a maid. I thought I made that clear last night.”
Brina was floored. Was it happening already? “You’re firing me?”
“I fired Jockey, something Elvira should have done a long time ago. You’re my driver now. And nothing else. My driver. Understood?”
The way he saidand nothing elsesounded loaded to Brina. Like he was telling her to forget about what they did earlier because it meant nothing to him. But he didn’t have to lose his cool or worry about that. She’d already concluded that herself. But for him to throw it in her face that way kind of hurt. And he wanted her to be his driver on top of that? It was a job Brina hated, but it was better than being fired. And he was right about Jockey: he should have been terminated long ago. “Understood,” she said to him.
“So get out of that ridiculous maid’s uniform. Wear your own clothes. I’ll see you out front in about an hour.”
She hated to ask it, but she knew what the driver’s duties were. “Do you need me to . . . to run your bath, sir?”
Ronny frowned. “No I don’t need you to run my bath. You aren’t my servant.”
“But that’s the duty of your driver, sir.”
“Not today,” he said, and began walking away.
But just as Brina had exhaled and was trying to take it all in, he turned back around and came back up to her, his hand up with a point of agitation the way it was at the airport with that woman getting off his plane. As if he was about to lecture her too. And he came closer this time. Well into her personal space. And his voice was lower. “What did I tell you about thatsirnonsense?”
But when Ronny realized how close he had gotten to her, and as he looked into those sultry, hazel-like eyes he adored, and when he thought about how wonderful it felt to hold her and to be deep inside of her, his heart squeezed once again. Because it all made him realize just how hard he was falling. And just how unusual that felt.
And then his face frowned, as if he was confounded by her again, and then he left. And didn’t turn back.
Brina didn’t know what to make of that moody man! She was equally relieved that she wasn’t fired, and terrified that she was now going to spend a lot more time with him. Which meant a lot more ways for him to find displeasure with her and get rid of her. And the way he saidand nothing elseoffended her still. She turned to him in her hour of need, and he came through for her, but she wasn’t trying to be his girlfriend. She wasn’t trying to win his heart. She knew better than that. More than anybody else on his household staff, she knew her place in this world. The world and all of its harshness had already put her there.
But despite all of those warring factions within her, a small part of her was okay too. As his driver, she’d get to be with him. That she’d stay around that moody man who made her feel safer than anyone ever had. And right now, as she was still trying to get over that near-kidnapping and Lord-only-knows-what-else at her apartment, she needed that feeling like she needed air to breathe.
But when she turned around, Gail and Shanilla had already opened the bedroom door she had closed, and had been staring at her while she had been watching the big boss walk away.
Shanilla grinned.
Gail folded her arms and gave Brina that yeah I saw y’all up in herelook as if she knew exactly what was going on when she didn’t know a thing. But that was Gail. A fifty-year-old woman going on thirteen. Brina wanted to shake her head. Gail in her business? It was all she needed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Well if it ain’t the Hawk in the flesh.” Tex had been talking with the valet when he saw Brina walk out of the servants’ quarters’ exit and toward the boss’s Mercedes-Maybach. “Hello there Miss Sabrina Hawkins,” he said with a smile. “Long time, no see!”
