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Faster.
Harder.
And it feels like I’ve won.
“Listen very carefully,” I say, wetting my lips. “There are two people standing here, and in order to be yours, I would have to choose to belong to you.”
I shimmy against him, feeling him harden beneath me. Normally I would jump back but not today. “I may be young, and I may work for your family, but I’m still a woman with my own opinions and wants and needs.” My voice goes hoarse on the word “needs” and an erotic image of sex with Ethan flashes through my mind. Shit. It’s quickly replaced with Cooper. Good. Then Ethan again. Double shit.
“I haven’t chosen you back,” I continue. “But I might be persuaded under the right circumstances.”
I don’t mean it. Really, I just want him to kiss me so I can reject him like he rejected me, to hurt him. He needs to know what I’m capable of, that I’m not some toy to be thrown around in the sandbox, to be discarded.
But he doesn’t kiss me.
Instead, he pries my hands away from his body and steps back. “I have no intention of being with you. I don’t want you, Arden. You were never the one I wanted. But you are mine regardless, which means that nobody else can have you.”
He picks up his board, trudging back toward the house. I stare after him, hating the way he walks, hating how his back muscles move so effortlessly, hating that he magnetizes me to him. I’m shaking. All of me is shaking. My hands. My legs. My heart.
He turns back. “As long as you’re here, you are mine. I don’t have use for you besides what you were hired to do. So stop trying to make friends, stop trying to lose your pathetic virginity, and stop trying to be somebody you’re not.”
My mouth pops open. “What do you expect me to say to that?”
“You’re the maid, remember? You’re not supposed to say anything. You’re supposed to clean up our shit and keep your pretty mouth shut.”
And then he turns back around and strolls away, all as if he didn’t just tear me to shreds.
I don’t belong here. I never did. I’m only “his” because his daddy said so. And now he’s using it as a way to build a wall between me and everybody else. I should’ve known better. I should’ve stayed quiet. Kept my head down. But I played with fire. Of course, I got burned.
Time rolls by and before I know it, it’s August. I’m lonely, but I’m used to being lonely. It’s a familiar emotion that I know how to handle. I can even find comfort in loneliness sometimes. But people being outright rude to me? Treating me like I’m nothing––or worse than nothing? That’s something else entirely.
And that’s exactly what has happened with the twins and their friends.
Ethan and Cooper hate me, and Cooper’s never-ending parade of women is proof enough of that. Mr. and Mrs. King haven’t been here since Independence Day so at least I haven’t had to deal with them. And at least I like Camilla. She’s the one person that actually treats me with decency and her food is delicious. Camilla is my favorite thing about the job, even if I only get to see her for brief moments throughout the day.
When I arrived at the end of May, I really thought I would love it here. While the island is stunning with a wealthy well-cared-for appeal and gorgeous beaches to spend my evenings, the truth is that I hate Nantucket. I’m counting the days until I can leave.
I want to be the main character in my own life, and on this island, I’m not even a supporting cast member. I’m an extra. I’ve become the out-of-focus figure blending into the background, easy to replace and easier to forget. I don’t expect the whole world to revolve around me, but shouldn’t my own world at least center me a little bit?
“Missed a spot,” Ethan says, striding past me as I clean his bathroom.
He sure has the main character thing down. Rich. Hot. Confident. Adored. Douchebag.
I can’t believe I ever thought we could be friends.
“What spot?” I snap.
I’m currently kneeling on the bright white tiles of his bathroom floor, scrubbing them like my life depends on it. Really, I’m timing myself to make my least favorite task go a little faster. If I make a game out of it, I’ll forget how hard it is to clean the floors of this monstrous house. There’s no carpet to be found, it’s all glossy dark wood that I’ve learned the hard way costs five hundred dollars a square foot, or it’s white crisp modern tiles. I don’t bother looking for the alleged spot he’s saying I missed, because there are many. And no, I haven’t missed cleaning them, I simply haven’t gotten to them yet.
“Just do your job.”
I sit back on my haunches and glare up at him. “It’s really too bad you’re such a dick because if you were a nice person, you’d be a force to be reckoned with.”
“I’m already a force to be reckoned with,” he shoots back.
Sand clings to Ethan’s heels and he kicks a clump off. It splatters right where I’ve been scrubbing a troublesome spot, as if “doing my job” means cleaning up his messes in real-time.
Okay, maybe it does, but still . . . “Do you mind?”
