Page 6 of Fake Maid

Three

Eli

Imessed up. Again. Something about this maid makes me snappish and slow. She twists me in knots, so desperate for tiny details of her that I try to blunder my way to them by brute force.

She was right to smack me down. I would never demand details of my other employees like that, and yet with her, if I don’t find out more about her, I’ll go insane. Something about her heats my blood, makes the back of my neck prickle and my chest constrict. The second her tunic whips around the corner, I miss her.

Fuck.

Did she always affect me like this? Surely I’ve seen her before around my home. Yet I’ve never hungered for her this way before.

She’s going entirely the wrong way to reach the pool, but something tells me Coral is in no mood to clean.

Fine. Let her storm around the mansion. Hopefully she’ll burn off her anger and let me near again.

I scowl down at my cast, picking at the bandages as I stroll along the corridor to a set of French doors. This was a requirement for the architect—I wanted constant access to the outdoors. In every room, in every direction, the mansion has balconies, gardens, arched doorways. All for this: the salty breeze from the ocean tugging at my hair as I stroll down the stone steps into the grounds.

The breeze is cool, but still my face is flushed hot. Not just my face—I’m burning all over. I have been since that first glimpse of Coral in the library, tracing the feather duster over her stomach. Since I heard her husky voice, laced with amusement.

I hiss out a breath, adjusting my jeans. Two weeks of ‘bed rest’ of knowing she’s near the whole time…

I’m screwed. She’ll ruin me.

My assistant answers on the first ring. I press the phone to my ear, glancing back toward the mansion, but there’s no movement through the French doors.

“David? I need everything we know about Coral Walsh. Email it over in the next ten minutes.”

“Yes, sir. Is she a competitor?”

“What? No. She’s a maid.”

The silence is deafening. I scuff my sneaker over the patio. Then: “A maid, sir? At your residence?”

“Obviously.” I scrub a hand over my face. “Where else would I have seen her?”

“Right. Uh. Okay. Is she—is there a problem with her work?”

Lord save me from pointless questions. I screw my eyes shut, breathing in a lungful of sea air.

“There’s no problem. And David?”

“Yes?”

“Is this really how you want to spend your ten minutes?”

He apologizes and hangs up quickly, but I barely hear him at all. Not when I’ve just spotted a flash of red hair. Sure, plenty of people are redheads, but her glossy waves are something else. She looks like a mermaid.

I squint at the shadows moving in the next wing over. She found the pool.

Maybe she’s had enough time to cool off. I shove my uninjured hand in my pocket and stroll across the grounds.

* * *

“Hi there, I’m just—oh. It’s you.”

The mop dangles by her side, and she sweeps her hair off her forehead with her cast. Her cheeks are pink from the pool house heat, and her forehead is dewy.

She’s delicious.

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