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Hannah was on the other side of the table, grinning from ear to ear.
“Tell her about the catch,” she said excitedly.
“What’s the catch?” Evelyn asked, looking concerned.
“The catch is that you let me replace your textbooks. Hannah told me they were all but destroyed by the water in your apartment, and I can’t have you failing out of your classes for such a mundane reason.”
Evelyn’s mouth twisted.
“I’ll be able to replace them after one month ofthis—” she waved her hands over the contract to demonstrate what ‘this’ was.
I shook my head.
“Take it or leave it, that’s the offer.”
I was firmer this time, knowing that I had to stand my ground on this. She gritted her teeth, but looked at the contract, back up to me, and finally, at her phone.
“I’ve missed my flight,” she sighed, “So I guess I have to accept.”
She said it with a smile, so I knew she wasn’t seriously annoyed. Hannah beamed at me, and Evelyn smiled as she signed her name. My daughter then dragged her friend up the stairs, squealing with happiness all the while.
I was only making Evelyn work three days a week.
It would fit around her university workload, and gave her time to relax as well. I had maybe put a little more effort into her rota than I knew the housekeeper put into the maids’, but no one needed to know that. She wasn’t an ordinary maid after all.
It only made my feelings for her all the more illicit, however. She was now officially under my employ, and any move I made could be construed as both a power play and sexual harassment. I had to avoid that at all costs, primarily for my employees’ own sense of safety, but also to maintain my reputation as an honorable businessman that I spent several years cultivating. Once I was alone again, I took the papers back to my office for filing, and let my head rest on the desk.
I was living with Evelyn Stearns. That might be an issue for productivity.
Every time she was in the house, it was like I was drawn to her. The way she spoke, the way she walked, it made me want to listen, it made me want to follow.
I lifted my head off the desk and stared at the designs I was supposed to have finished by the end of next week. I saw the individual elements, the shapes making pieces that were all supposed to fit together somehow, but I couldn’t see the whole picture—the grand design that meant it was all going to come together somehow.
Everything was fine. Hannah and Evelyn disappeared off to different areas of the house, and when I finally gave up trying to work, I went down to the kitchen to chat to Andrew. The man wasn’t just a chef to the household, he was also the long-suffering ear that we all spilled our secrets into. In his mid-forties, Andrew had a calming presence and made comfort food like no one else. Sure, I’d had to go for an extra run every day for a week after kissing Evelyn because of his comfort food, but it was still very,verygood. When I needed it in evening, he’d prepare me a cup of tea with spices and honey. It warmed me to the bone and gave us a good opportunity to talk. Or rather, for me to talk to him.
I was regaling him with tales of irritating clients when the elevator door opened, and Evelyn walked out. My heart stopped in my throat, and I had to look away. Her hair was pinned up with tendrils escaping at the nape of her neck, sticking to her skin with a thin sheen of sweat. I could feel the heat radiating off her body, and knew she and Hannah must have been spending time in the sauna. She was wearing a strapless, deep blue bikini with gold accents, and the sizing was perfect. I could see all too much of her chest, of the perfect cleavage she was sporting. There was also the flat plane of her stomach, touchably tan and smooth skin which led down to what I could only describe as the most delectable backside I had seen in a long while.
It wasn’t that Ihadn’tthought of Evelyn as a sexual creature before that, but more that I hadn’t let my thoughts stray as far as they were going now. Evelyn leaned over the counter towards Andrew, and downed a large glass of water he handed to her upon request. The way her body looked, bent over like that—
I cleared my throat and stood, making an excuse to leave. I knew Andrew wasn’t convinced, but I couldn’t stay there when she was looking like that. Aside from it being embarrassing and improper, it was rude to fantasize about someone while they were in the room with you and had no intention of being a sexual object. I turned my mind to something decidedly un-sexy, like mergers, and sitting in meetings next to Pete, who always forgot to put on deodorant or trim his nose hair. It helped greatly.
I strode up the stairs quickly, not wanting to have any second thoughts that could make me turn around and head back to the kitchen. When I reached my floor, I locked myself in the office and lay on one of the sofas. Maybe living with Evelyn Stearns would be bad for my health. I had, of course, seen all my other staff members in swimsuits, from Andrew to the head housekeeper. It was a side effect of living together and allowing them free use of the facilities weweren’tusing. It had never affected me though. Evelyn was something else entirely, and the puerile reaction my body was having towards her only proved that to me.
If seeing her in her swimsuit had been torture, sleeping in the same house as her was something else. I lay in my bed, quietly wondering what she was doing. Her bedroom was directly above mine, so I heard every time she moved. I felt like some pervert, listening in on her private affairs, but I couldn’t help but listen to the movement above me. I heard her get up, and then the running of the taps in her en suite. She was thirsty. The footsteps gently padded across the hardwood floors and back to her bed. She got up a couple more times, and then there was silence. Did she know how much I was wishing I was up there next to her? Or that she was down here with me? I was aching, actually aching to the point I could feel the pull in my fingertips reaching to hold her. I knew how her eyes would look as well, soft and melting, not quite trusting but wanting to, oh so much. I rolled over and hugged the pillows on the other side of my bed as if they could be a substitute for her.
There was a gentle knocking noise above me, and I couldn’t figure it out for a moment, bemused by what could possibly be making the sound in her room, before an errant thought reminded me that the headboard in that room was loose. We’d replaced it earlier in the year and had never gotten around to nailing it to the wall. Now it was knocking ever so slightly because of whatever rhythmic activity she was doing.
The juvenile part of my brain piped back up and said it knewexactlywhat her rhythmic activity was. I told that part of my brain to shut up or get out. Nevertheless, I was on high alert, listening until the rocking stopped, wondering if I could possibly survive many more nights knowing she was so close to me, only physical feet away, and yet she was more out of reach than ever.
I rolled over and groaned into my pillow.
Chapter Ten
Evelyn
Icouldn’t sleep knowing his room was right under mine.
To help myself drift off, I got up a couple of times, for a drink of water, to go to the bathroom, nothing special. I tried to be quiet each time I crept to and from my bed because I knew he’d probably hear every movement through the hardwood floorboards.
