by Amelia LeFay
“It’s fine. I dropped a glass. I really need to get back and clean it up before someone gets hurt,” the woman I knew to be Ms. Chapman said. She taped a bandage on her finger before taking the broom from the other woman. When Irene had asked me for the number of my cleaning service, I never thought she’d be here.
“Yes, because it’s so crowded they won’t see broken glass,” the other woman mocked. “All that work today for this?”
“I feel bad; she really wants this to go well—”
“No. Don’t feel bad for people like them. They’d never feel bad for you. They think the world is centered on them; it’s good when God reminds them that they are human too.”
“Get back to work!” I hollered when stepping farther into the kitchen. “Or are you all just being paid to sit around? There are guests outside who need food and drinks. Go.”
Jumping up, they ran one by one, with the exception of Jane, who face was more annoyed than I’d like to admit.
“That means you too, Ms. Chapman.”
“Of course, sorry. Irene—Ms. Monrova is in her bedroom. I brought her food, but the door is locked—”
“Okay.”
Nodding, she started to walk out, but for some reason, I reached out and grabbed her arm. She glanced up at me, and I had to admit she was pretty, beautiful even, in a strange way, but I didn’t understand why Wes was so obsessed with her. Beautiful women were a dime a dozen in our city.
“I’m sorry. Do you need anything, Mr. Emerson?” she asked, not afraid at all. In fact, it felt like she was challenging me.
“You say ‘sorry’ a lot.”
She nodded again. “It’s weakness for most people. If they’re angry or upset and you say sorry quickly, they automatically relax. Smiling does the same thing apparently, but I’m not very good at that.”
That was a lie. Only two minutes ago she had been smiling at Wes.
“Do I look relaxed?”
“Not even a little bit, Mr. Emerson. But since I haven’t done anything, and I’m currently not working for you, I’m sure you can’t be angry at me. So can I get my arm back or would you like to intimidate me some more?” She held her head up high at me.
“My apologies, Ms. Chapman. I did not mean to intimidate you,” I said overly politely, releasing her arm.
“Yes, you did. It’s all right though, because it didn’t work.” She smirked before shaking her head and walking off. I couldn’t look away. I felt like I had lost in that altercation; she had gotten the last word, and it bothered me.
Wes stepped out into the hall drinking his glass of brandy. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t even seem to realize I was there, but I knew him better than that. He was a nosy son of a bitch, and he had most likely heard all of that.
“Mr. Uhler, it’s good to see you again,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand.
“Likewise. Sadly I can’t stay long. Please give your cousin my regards. Next time she comes to Wes Hill, it’s on me,” he replied, shaking my hand before turning to Mr. Foster and leaving.
“Tell the guests to go, Foster. This has gone on long enough,” I told him. Heading up the stairs. I could see the tray Jane had left out. She had thoughtfully covered all the food with plastic wrap, even the water.
“Irene, open up. It’s me,” I said while knocking on the door.
No answer.
“Irene, if you don’t speak, I’m going to think you’re either dead or dying and I’ll have to break down the door.”
“Go away!” she screamed, throwing something against the wall.
“Irene, you are not a kid. I get it, you’re upset, but I can’t help if you don’t let me in,” I said. When she still didn’t answer, I sighed, taking a seat against her door and reaching for her tray of food.
“Fine I’ll wait. You know how I just love eating cold pasta,” I joked, peeling back the wrapper and stuffing the penne in my mouth. I hadn’t eaten all day. I didn’t really tried to taste it after a second, but the aftertaste was left in my mouth. Either I was far too used to eating Wes’ food, or this was just plain horrible; I wasn’t sure.
“One positive thing about no one showing up is that you didn’t subjugate them to this!” I reached for the water when she opened the door.
Her mascara was smeared all over her eyelids, her eyes themselves bright red from all the crying.
Still in her dress, she sat down beside me. She took the plate for herself and tried a bit.
“It’s good. What are you talking about?” she frowned.
That was what she considered good? What had she been eating in Paris? Garbage?
“Slow down or you’ll choke, and Siri no longer tells me where to dispose of bodies.” This is why I didn’t try to make jokes; I was worse than Wes.
“It’s been three years, Max. When will everyone forgive me? Not even your parents came,” she whispered while blowing her nose.
“My parents aren’t known for their forgiveness or patience. Or kindness…or anything positive really.”
She snickered. “Are they still pressuring you to get married?”
I didn’t answer.
“I’ll take that as a yes. You’re going to have to tell them you’re gay. The rumors—”
“Why label things? Gay? Straight? I’ve never thought of myself along those lines.” I’d been with both men and women and I didn’t really care which. For me, it was everyone else who had a fucking problem.
“Well, whatever you are, I suggest you figure it out fast before your mother runs for president. Opponents have a knack for digging into personal lives.”
“They already do that.”
“You know what I mean.”
Yeah, I did. My mother was going to run for president next term, and she needed the Hallmark-ready family.
“Do you want me to stay?” I changed the subject.
She shook her head. “I really just want to forget. You should head home.”
“If you need anything, call,” I said, heading back toward the stairs.
“And Max,” she called out, standing up herself. “Thank you for coming.”
“Always”
“Oh and Max?”
Sighing, I turned back to her. “Yes, Irene.”
“There is a maid downstairs, Jane. Can you tip her for me? I know we aren’t supposed to, but she really did a lot for me today.”
Maid Jane strikes again.
I had just put the last of the leftovers in the fridge when Max came into the kitchen. His blue eyes scanned the room and then fell back on me.
“Where is everyone?”
“I thought you told them to leave?”
“And you don’t count as everyone?”
I shrugged. “I couldn’t just leave the mess. Irene—Ms. Monrova, would have woken up to a dirty house the day after one of the worst nights in her life. It seemed kind of shitty to do that to her.”
I wondered what his connection to her was. Were they friends?
“So you are a saint and decided to take one for the team and clean up?”
I didn’t like the tone he was using like he was mocking me. “No, I’m not a saint. I’m still on the clock, so I get paid for every last minute, thank you.”
“You’re putting in all this effort for an extra ten dollars,” he said ignorantly.
My hands ached with the need to smack the shit out of him. “Yes. I’m working for the extra ten dollars. That extra ten dollars is bread, milk, and eggs. Food. Have you ever been starving Mr. Emerson? No? Have you ever been so hungry you feel sick and in pain? Or so poor you eat other people’s leftovers in bars? No, I wouldn’t think so. I don’t live in a penthouse suite. I didn’t grow up with silver a spoon in my mouth. I work as hard as I can to get by. An extra ten dollars is…is worth more to me than you can possibly understand. In the process of making that money, I can also help someone. Two birds, one stone, and we maids are all about those discounts.”
I was so upset. Did he think I killed myself d
ay in and day out just for the fun it? He could have his rules and his secrets—none of that was my business—but he couldn’t insult me for working hard. I wasn’t his dog to kick around whenever he was moody.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you,” he said sincerely. “I’m sorry.”
I glared at him. “You’re just saying that because I told you it helps people to calm down.”
He grinned, and in that second I saw how cute he was. “Being calm is good seeing as how you are closest to the knives.”
I sighed, rubbing my shoulders. “Goodnight, Mr. Emerson.”
“I’ll give you a ride home.”
“What?”
“For being an ass, I’ll give you a ride home. You’ll save on the bus fare, and I’ll feel like less of an ass. We silver spoons like discounts too.”
He was right, and I had used all my cash getting there.
“I live in Chelsea. Is that okay?”
“It’s fine.”
“Give me to a second to grab my stuff,” I said, walking back to the room where I had changed and stuffed my clothes into my bag before coming back out.
He just stood there waiting and we walked out into the cold air. I welcomed the fresh air after that tense party.
“You need a second?” he asked me, waiting by the open door of his midnight blue 1962 Ferrari.
I grinned. “This is your car?”
“No, I stole it off an old lady in Worcester.” He rolled his eyes.
“I need to get myself to Worcester.” I grinned, sliding in. I ran my hand on the dashboard, looking over at him when he sat down. “I saw this in a movie once, and I told myself if I ever won the lottery this would be my first—well, second purchase.”
“After the lecture you just gave me you’d blow seven million on a car?”
I nearly had a heart attack. “Did you say seven million?”
“Six point nine, but I’d leave wiggle room for any tune-ups or replacements,” he said, casually pulling onto the road.
I frowned. I didn’t know what else to do.
“You look like a kid who found out Santa Claus isn’t real,” he said, relaxing into the cream seats.
I gasped, putting my hand to my heart. “Say what? Who have I been sending letters to at the North Pole all this time?!”
He stared at me like I was insane and then just laughed. So did I.
“I may never win the lottery, and I’ll never own this car, but at least I got this chance,” I told him.
Closing my eyes, I lifted my hand up into the air as if I were on a roller coaster. “Most of us live our whole lives without having an adventure to call our own. What is any life without the pursuit of a dream?”
Inhaling deeply, I opened my eyes when the car stopped at a light. When I looked over at him, he was staring at me, not glaring, not angry, just in awe. He looked at me with so much intensity that I shifted in my seat and looked away.
“It’s a quote from the movie—”
“Vanilla Sky,” he said before I could.
“Let me guess, you hated it?”
“No.” He accelerated when the light changed. “It’s actually one of my favorites.”
“Really? So many critics tore Tom Cruise apart for that movie, but I personally think it’s better than Jerry Maguire. The girls at my old job thought I was crazy. I’m rambling. I don’t usually ramble.” What is up with me? Whenever I was around Wesley or Maxwell, I suddenly started acting like fool.
He didn’t say anything for the rest of the ride, so we mostly sat in silence. When we got to my neighborhood, I noticed his car attracted a lot of unwanted attention.
Reaching for my seatbelt, I sat up. “You can drop me off at the corner. It’s not that far to walk.”
“What was the first thing?” he asked me.
“Huh?”
“You said if you won the lottery, this car would be your second purchase. What would be your first?”
“Why do you care?”
He didn’t answer.
“Fine, I’d pay off my debt and rejoice at never getting one of those statements in the mail ever again.” It was another dream out of reach though.
“I’ll pay it,” he said out the blue like it was nothing.
“Come again?”
He spun the car around, not answering.
“Hey Mr. Warbucks, my apartment is that way.” I pointed in the other direction.
“I’m taking you to my place.”
Had he lost his mind? “Yeah. Without my permission, this would be considered kidnapping.”
He pulled to a stop on the side of the road. Turning to me, his eyes were shadowy in the dark interior of his car. I wasn’t sure whether to run or call an ambulance for him. He sighed.
“My mother is running for president next year.” Another random statement where I had no clue where it had come from. “She wants her Hallmark-perfect family beside her, and it would be great if her son wasn’t bisexual.”
“Did you tell her she’d actually win the presidency if she embraced the rainbow?”
He snickered and leaned back. “It’s more than that. My family is old, white, and conservative, and so are my viewers, actually. There’s nothing wrong with that; my political views also line up that way. Time magazine called me ‘the young blood and soul of the New Republican Party’. I want to run for office one day, but my party isn’t ready to follow a man who enjoys fucking another man.”
“You want me to be your beard and pretend to be in a relationship with you,” I whispered, finally catching on. But how long would that last? It seemed better to just tell the truth.
“Not just a relationship. I want you to marry me.”
Chapter Three
“You asked her to marry you?” Wes said as I laid back on the bed trying to figure out how the hell I had fallen down this hole.
“I honestly don’t know what happened,” I said, resting my arm on my face. “I was just going to take her home. Thank her for her effort at Irene’s. Then we started to talk about how much she loved my car. She threw her hands up in the air, and the wind blew her hair back. She had this beautiful genuine smile across her lips, and she was so damn happy just to have the chance to ride in it. Then she quoted Vanilla Sky and in that second I thought…”
I felt him hovering him above me. Letting my arm drop to the side, I stared up at him. “You thought what?” He didn’t look away from me.
“I thought if you wanted her and she wanted you I wouldn’t mind. That we could all win in this. I’d get my mother off my back. You’d get rid of this fasciation you have with her, and she’d get enough money to stop working herself so hard,” I said softly, reaching up to brush back a strand of his sandy brown hair.
“You want her, too,” he said again with his arms on either side of my head. “That’s why you asked her. Even if was just once, you…”
I kissed him just to make him shut the fuck up. And even as he moaned into my mouth, I couldn’t stop thinking of her: how she arched her back against the seat of my car and how soft her pink lips looked. I remembered the first time we both heard her moan. Everything was clouding my mind and having him this close to me wasn’t helping.
So I just needed to stop thinking.
Reaching up, I pushed him back, flipping him over and pinning him below me. Gripping his neck, I glared down at him. “Stop thinking about her and start thinking more about me.”
Pushing me back, fighting in my arms, we rolled over and over on top of the bed, me on top, him on top, until Wes grabbed a fistful of my hair and tugged my head back when we were both on our knees.
“I’m always thinking about you!” Wes sneered while I kissed his jaw and tugged harder. “Every fucking day you are on my mind. I can never get a damn break from you. I revolve around you! You are an addiction I can never shake so don’t make me keep repeating it!”
Fuck.
“Wes—”
“Strip. Apparently you need a physical reminder,�
� he commanded, releasing his grip on my hair, his eyes hard, completely serious…turning me on with every breath. “Now.”
My heart pounded against my chest as I did what he asked. Getting off the bed, I stood up and started to pull off my tie—
“Slower.” He leaned back against the pillows.
He knew I hated being put on the spot like this, but he also knew I wouldn’t disobey him when he got like this. I unbuttoned my shirt slowly for him.
He called me an addiction.
Then, who was he to me? An obsession? A sweltering passion?
When I stood in front of him naked, I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. With each second, my cock got harder and harder, twitching anxiously. He got up and walked past me, grabbing something from the drawer.
“You know what I was just thinking about?” he asked me. When he came back to stand in front of me, he answered his own question. “How good you’d look with balls in your mouth.”
Before I could speak, he lifted a ball gag to my lips. Glaring at him, I opened my mouth, both turned on as fuck and deeply frustrated.
I took a shower, hoping to relax enough to go to bed, but it only made me more aware of everything: the fact that I was naked in a million-dollar penthouse, and also the fact that I was spending the night at said penthouse and that the owner of the penthouse had asked me to marry him. I wasn’t sure where I had taken the wrong turn, but it no longer felt like my usual mundane life.
I debated the options.
“No debt,” I muttered to myself as I dried my hair. “On the other hand, marriage. A fake marriage.”
There was no way this could work.
“Ugh, I can’t.” Dropping the brush and hair dryer, I wrapped the towel around myself and stepped into the same room I’d cleaned over and over again in the last month. The king size bed with eight damn pillows was just for decoration. Another window to hand clean. The plush white carpet I vacuumed…it was now supposed to be my room. Even for just a night it was—