AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Yes. I noticed that. Not something I’m proud of. To be fair, it’s like I said . . . I do notice everything.
Gail greets me at the top of the stairs with her tablet in hand. I plucked her from a top-tier service specializing in house management for military officials.
On the plus side, she cleared rigorous background checks with flying colors, knows how to keep a secret, and gets shit done without judgment. On the flip side, she possesses the humor of a five-star general preparing for battle.
“Mr. Aldridge.”
“Do you have a report for me?”
She hands the tablet to me, watching as I scroll through the bullet-point write-up she prepared for me. “Ms. Hart spends most of her time in her room.”
“And when you assign her the house duties?”
“She does them without complaint.”
There’s no emotion to Gail’s tone. If there’s any consolation to having a militant robot as a house manager, it’s the fact that she is at no risk of befriending Payton. I think Gail would rather endure waterboarding than befriend anyone, let alone Payton Hart.
I hand the tablet back to Gail. “Does she eat?”
“I have Chef make her healthy meals and leave them in glass containers in the fridge, as you instructed.”
“She has no idea they were made specifically for her?”
For the record, I’m not feeding her good shit out of the kindness of my heart. There is no kindness inside me. I’m an asshole. There’s no prettying that up. But I’m not a dumb asshole. If this ends up going to court, preventing her from eating would be a nail in my coffin.
Her meals are well-documented, along with the fact that I ordered my chef to make fancy-ass meals specifically for her. Not my problem that he leaves them in containers, and she assumes they’re leftovers.
I’ve never accused her of being smart.
“None whatsoever,” Gail confirms. “She’s under the impression the meals are leftovers, though I suspect she tries not to get caught eating them. She’ll take a spoonful from each container so no one notices. The cameras inside the fridge and in the kitchen catch her each time.”
“Perfect.”
I dismiss Gail and head up the stairs, returning to my room. I can’t wait until Payton is done cleaning so I can tell her our plans tomorrow. That’s when I will find out the details I need to strip her of her inheritance.
Between commuting. School. Extra assignments. Cleaning.
And the next part . . .
Volunteering.
This girl will be hanging on by a thread.
The thread of that little towel she dropped.
I head straight to the bathroom and turn the shower on.
When I strip off my clothes, I see that I’m fucking hard.
Funny how that little vixen makes me hard. I’d be lying if I said she isn’t hot.
She is.
But that’s not what gets my dick like this.
Nope.
It’s her fire.
