Page 18 of Tempted By the Princess

To my shock Genny started sniffing, turning on tears like she flipped a switch. “Please don’t tell my boss. If I lose this job I won’t be able to buy my mama’s medicine.”

Apparently the princess should have considered a career in acting, because the other men started tossing bills on her tray, tipping her and mumbling comforting words while Bob continued to brood.

“Let me get you a towel, sir,” I said in my best customer service voice as I reached the group.

Bob shook his head. “I need to go anyway. But maybe you should give your waitresses some training on how to not spill shit on people.”

I bit my tongue to keep from responding that maybe this company should teach its executive not to pinch women’s asses. Or call them waitresses. Did this guy think this was 1962 or something?

Bob stalked off and Genny followed me into the kitchen, neither of us saying a word until we were behind closed doors.

“I’m so sorry Carrie, that guy pinched my ass hard enough that I’ll probably have a bruise. I couldn’t just let that go.”

I resisted the urge to offer to check her for bruises, focusing instead on the fact that one of my servers had been assaulted by one of our customers. It didn’t happen often, but it did happen from time to time. It was an unfortunate fact of life that certain types of men thought women they perceived to have less power were fair game.

“Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “I saw the whole thing. You handled it perfectly. But why don’t you take your fifteen while we give Bob some time to leave the premises.”

“Take my fifteen?” she asked in confusion.

“By law I have to give you a fifteen minute break every four hours,” I explained. “Grab a bottle of water and a snack and hang out for a bit.”

“A break? Huh.”

She said it like it was a completely foreign concept. Then again, it wasn’t like she had worked a fast food or housekeeping job like most of us did when we were younger. If she’d moved from college right into her cushy salaried philanthropy job it made sense she was unfamiliar with the rules for hourly workers.

Not that she technically was an hourly worker. Or a worker at all. I hadn’t put her on the books, and I wouldn’t. There were forms to fill out and background checks to do and IDs to verify before I could make that happen. I’d been intending to pay her under the table – after explaining to Genny what ‘under the table’ was – but she’d insisted that this was a favor, her paying me back for letting her stay with me. Good thing too, she’d probably be shocked at how little servers earned compared to someone like her. Don’t get me wrong, we paid well above minimum wage, but in a city like Seattle, it didn’t go far.

Genny swiped a couple of bacon wrapped scallops off a tray and settled at a chair in the corner with a bottle of water. I could feel her watching me, but I stayed focused on my work. We were wrapping up soon, so it was mostly clean-up work, nothing that took any brain power. While I worked I thought about my instinctive reaction of that guy yelling at Genny.

I’d been ready to go over there and kick that guy’s ass. I could do it too, I was a brown belt in tae kwon do, something I’d started practicing back in college. I still took lessons once a week to keep my skills up. As someone who was often out late at night after events, I’d used my martial arts training on more than one occasion when someone tried to hassle me.

The level of protectiveness I felt towards Genny took me by surprise. And as I wiped down counters and wrapped up leftovers I realized the truth: I was falling for her. A forty year old caterer falling for a twenty-eight year old princess was ridiculous. The differences between us were enormous – age, background, socioeconomic class, life experience. Plus we’d only known each other for a few days. It was too soon to be catching feelings for my little stowaway.

None of that mattered to my heart though. It knew what I wanted better than I did. Especially after that hot kiss in the hallway last night.

I’d been in love once before, years ago. We’d lived together for a while, even talked about getting married, but gradually we drifted apart and separated as friends. Yet even in the early days of that relationship when everything was new and exciting and we couldn’t get enough of each other, it hadn’t felt like this.

Genny and I had the same kind of passion, but there was something more. This sense that I’d known her all my life, or maybe that I’d been looking for her my entire life. As ridiculous as it sounded, I felt more complete with Genny in my life. But our time together had an expiration date.

Sooner or later she’d go back to her real life, either because she decided it was time or because her family found her. I already knew my house would feel empty without her. I’d have no one to make me fancy eggs or watch TV with or just talk. It sounded pathetic, especially for someone who’d been living alone since her mid-twenties, but it was going to be hard to go back to living alone.

Well, living alone wasn’t going to be the problem. Living without Genny was what would be difficult. I needed to prepare for her departure, to steel my heart against the inevitable separation. In a few days we’d both go back to our lives and this whole weekend would just be a funny story we told people to entertain them.

“You look serious,” Genny said, sidling up to me.

“Just thinking.”

“About what?” Her eyes were astute and I could swear she was able to read my mind, even though that was impossible.

“Nothing really,” I lied.

I could tell she didn’t believe me, but with the rest of the team bustling in and out, she couldn’t push me on it. I was glad, because the last thing I wanted to do was blurt out my feelings for Genny and ruin whatever time we had left.

Genevieve

Islid out of the front seat of Carrie’s van, unable to suppress the groan that came out of my mouth.

“You okay?” Carrie called from her side of the vehicle.