The Little Bear Maid: A BBW Bear Shifter Billionaire Paranormal Romance Novella (Seattle's Billionaire Bears Book 4)

by Sable Sylvan

  Polly watched as Carmen left the building and did not call her niece up, but she made a note to herself to pay a visit to her sister in law...and she watched as the curvy woman left, and in walked a man who was all too familiar to Polly, who walked straight up to her office without needing to check in with the secretary.

  This was why she had hired the man. He wasn’t in a trench coat or a fedora like a standard private eye. He was the kind of man who couldn’t be identified in a crowd of three people. He blended in and was boring, the melon ball in a fruit salad. This allowed him to do his job well. She opened the door to let him in.

  “Do you have what I asked for, Xander?” asked Polly, wasting no time on pleasantries.

  “Hello to you too, Ms. Jackson,” said Xander. He pulled a folder out of his briefcase. “I’ve been on her tail since you first called me three weeks ago. You’re right. There’s definitely something going on. These are pictures of her at the last place on her Friday route. Nothing else seemed to be out of the ordinary.”

  Polly opened the folder. There were pictures of her niece getting out of the car, with her supplies, heading up to the penthouse. She rubbed her temples after putting the photographs down on her desk. “I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

  “I thought you might say that, so I had these made,” said Xander, pulling out blown up, enlarged photographs with red markers used to circle interesting details. “On most of her routes, she only carries her supplies bin. On Fridays, she carries a personal bag up to the penthouse...but no supplies.”

  “Why?” asked Polly.

  “I don’t know, she fills it while in her van, and I can’t get a discreet picture of that,” said Xander. “But I’m sure that bag has some sort of clue in it. You know everything I do is covered legally, but I can’t get into that bag myself. You’re her aunt, so I’m sure you can figure something out.”

  Polly hadn’t told Xander that detail. He’d figured it out on his own, because he was the best. Polly sighed and looked over the invoice that was in the folder. The invoice was high, reflecting that attention to detail and espionage expertise as well as rising Seattle service prices. “Fine, fine. Thanks for everything.” Polly wrote out a check to Xander for the last three week’s services. “There’s no need to keep tailing her...I think this is all the info I need...for now.”

  “You have my number,” said Xander before letting himself out.

  Polly sat down at the desk and looked at the pictures again. How could she have been so blind? Of course the clue wasn’t going to be the designer bag itself, it’d be what was inside the bag. What sort of cargo was so precious it needed to be hauled by her niece? Polly had an idea, but it wasn’t pretty...

  Chapter Five

  Although Carmen had tried rationing the journal entries before, she couldn’t help herself that next week. Instead, every day, she read through what Aiden had written until it became like watching a familiar romantic comedy, where she knew all the lines by heart. She wrote to Aiden about her thoughts about the solution to their problem. She’d decided that the best thing was going to be for her to come clean, to talk to her aunt and to quit her job with dignity, so as to avoid a scandal, and to get another job, maybe doing retail or cleaning for a different service, so there would be no conflict of interest.

  Carmen wrote it all out in the journals, and come the following Friday morning, she was ready to let Aiden know what her plan was...except, just as she was about to exit the headquarters lot with her car, at the guarded gate, she was stopped. The guards at the gate checked the vehicles and IDs of the workers against a list, because there had been cases of maids going rogue or pulling a long con to steal things, and Polly Jackson was nothing if not safe rather than sorry.

  “You’re not on the list,” said the guard.

  “There has to be a mistake,” said Carmen, looking back. There was a long line of vans that were beeping at her for holding up the line and making them late for work. Carmen pulled the van to the side as the man went back into the guard house to call the office up.

  The man came back out. “You’re Carmen Jackson, yes?”

  “Yeah,” said Carmen nervously. “What’s going on?”

  “Ms. Jackson wants to see you...and she sounds pissed,” said the guard. “You have permission to drive the car back.”

  “Alright, thanks,” said Carmen, pulling the car around. For a split second, she considered just getting out of the car and walking off the property, but she stopped herself. She knew what had happened. Somehow, Polly had figured out everything...and now, it was time for her to face the consequences.

  Carmen parked the car back in the lot and walked up through the garage-like building to the office overlooking the floor, carrying her bag of personal things with her out of the car because there was no telling whether or not she’d be returning to that van. When she reached her aunt’s secretary, she was waved in, the secretary not even looking up to meet her eyes or confirm that she had an appointment with Polly.

  Carmen knocked on the office door. “Hello?” she called.

  “Just a moment,” said Polly, getting up to let Carmen in. “Carmen. Have a seat, please.”

  Although Carmen had spent the last few Friday afternoons in the company of a billionaire, she felt underdressed in front of her aunt, who was wearing business formal clothing, a black blazer with a crimson pocket square that reminded Carmen more of a scarlet letter than a statement accessory. Carmen put her bag down by her chair as her aunt took her normal seat, a large leather office chair that was fancier than it was comfortable.

  Polly kept the chair turned out toward the lot. “Carmen. Do you remember the chat we had a few weeks ago?” asked Polly, not turning to look at her niece.

  “Yes...about how you wanted this to be my future,” said Carmen. “About how I needed to work hard and be professional to get where you’ve got.”

  “And you know that things were hard for me...and for your father,” said Polly. “Our parents, you know they were immigrants, and they worked their asses off to give your father and I a better future, but once we were old enough, we were expected to work, to help ourselves, but also, to help the family.”

  “I know. Dad was a gardener, and you...” started Carmen.

  “I was a maid,” said Polly. “But times were different. People were...crueler. Meaner. I was told by people that I was ‘just’ a maid, that I could never become anything. Well, the joke is on them, right?”

  “I’m not sure I get the point,” said Carmen.

  Polly turned in her chair. “The point is, your father and I worked our asses off so that our family, which includes you, could have a better future,” said Polly. “I hired you not as a favor to your mother, bless her heart, but as a favor to my brother...and I see a lot of him in you, but that includes the good and the bad, Carmen.”

  “I don’t get what you’re talking about,” said Carmen.

  “It means that there are various attributes that you two share that are positive and that are negative,” said Polly.

  “No, I get that, I mean, I don’t mean what those specific attributes are,” said Carmen.

  “While your father and I were both hardworking, as are you, I was very by the book, and you are much like your father...and that it is obvious that you don’t particularly care for rules,” said Polly. “Unfortunately, when you break the rules, there are consequences.”

  “And I’m here because I broke a rule and there is a consequence, right?” said Carmen, crossing her arms.

  “Don’t get sassy with me, young lady,” said Polly, frowning. Carmen was her employee but she was also her niece, and the boundary between being an employer and being an aunt was a thin boundary in Polly’s case. “I told you. You need to listen to my rules to get to where I am.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to be where you are,” said Carmen.

  “You’re too young to know what you want,” said Polly. “And frankly, you are burning a bridge for no good reason.�
��

  “I’ve done my job, have there been any recent complaints, from any of my clients? You’ve seen the work I do. You know that I’m a hard worker who is also a good worker, who gets things done,” said Carmen.

  “You still have to obey the rules,” said Polly. “Because even though you have no clue why we have certain rules, I do. I’ve been there. I’ve seen why these rules have to exist, Carmen, and I can’t have you of all people breaking these rules. If it was any other employee, I could give them a warning, but you’re my niece. Everyone knows that. And people are already going to suspect that I’m too lenient on you, so —”

  “So you have to go the other way and be overly harsh on me, and have to be totally unfair?” asked Carmen. “Just say what I did wrong. Let’s talk about it, no bullshit.”

  “Fine, you want to go there? Let’s go there,” said Polly. “I told you not to spend extra time at that place, the last residence on your route on Fridays. I told you that it was bad news. I told you that the last thing you needed to do was get involved with a client’s personal life.” Polly opened her desk drawer and took out the pictures of Carmen that Xander had taken and lay them in front of her niece.

  “So I carried my personal bag into the residence, so what?” said Carmen.

  “What’s in the bag?” asked Polly.

  “Why does it matter?” asked Carmen.

  “Because you don’t take your bag into any of the other places you clean, according to the private eye, and according to the other maids that have worked with you,” asked Polly. “So what’s going on?”

  “Wait, you hired a private eye to follow me?” asked Carmen.

  “What would you have done if you were in my position?” asked Polly. “What’s in the bags, Carmen?”

  “I have a feeling you already know,” said Carmen. She opened her bag. “I don’t legally even have to show you. But here. Because I’m sure you’ve already seen this.” She pulled out the journals that were in the bag.

  “Just books?” asked Polly.

  “No, journals, with private contents,” said Carmen. “But I’m sure if you went so far as to hire a private eye, that means you read these, didn’t you?”

  Polly didn’t answer her niece. She hadn’t expected the conversation to go this way at all.

  “You did, didn’t you?” repeated Carmen. She looked at her aunt who was quiet which revealed the answer. “Of course you did. Let me guess, you stopped by my mom’s this week so you could snoop through my things, right? Of course, you forgot that my mom tells me everything. I know you stopped by on Tuesday to chat with her and offer to help her out with the rent. And I bet my mom fell for it too, she probably thought you really wanted to help out. I know because my mom doesn’t keep that kind of secret from me. And because my mom felt ashamed because she thinks you already are helping us out too much by giving me this job. And you read the journals, right? Right?” Carmen opened them and flipped through them.

  “So I’m sure you think you know everything,” said Carmen. “But you don’t, Aunt Polly. Because if you read these when you visited on Tuesday, you didn’t see what I wrote on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday night.” She pulled out the personal journal in the bag and passed it to her aunt after opening it to the page dated Tuesday night.

  Carmen watched as Polly read the entries.

  “See? I planned on telling you, after I talked to Aiden, who by now, I am sure you know far too much about. I was going to talk to him today, about how to talk to you. And then, tomorrow, I was going to stop by your place to tell you in person, in private, away from work, because you’re not just my boss, you’re my aunt, and I know that I represent you, hence why I feel so guilty,” said Carmen. “But instead, you decided to hire a private eye, and to go through my things, and make a bunch of assumptions. So thanks a lot, Aunt Polly. I quit.”

  Carmen took off her badge and put it and her hat on her aunt’s desk, with the photos, after taking the journal back and putting it in her bag.

  “Carmen, wait —” started Polly.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” said Carmen, not turning back. “I’m done. I’ll turn my uniform and keys and supplies in, because believe it or not, I do pay attention, and I’m probably the person who knows the most about how this operation works, after you. Maybe next time you decide to get a protégée, you won’t make a bunch of assumptions.”

  Carmen went down the stairs, aware that eyes were all on her. She had no clue how public this all had been, but she managed to keep it together. When people asked where she was going, she said she was taking a sick day. She knew the procedures for quitting. She knew exactly where to turn in her stuff and who to talk to at human resources and what paperwork to fill out, because she had taken the job seriously. She just hadn’t expected to find true love while on duty.

  Within an hour, she was out of the headquarters, after having turned in her various badges to human resources and security, and was back in jeans, a plain shirt, and a hoodie, with her worn used bag of journals over her shoulder, and her cell phone, a used smartphone that she’d got for a bargain online, which had limited minutes and texting with no data services.

  Carmen looked at her phone for the time. It was still early. All this junk had only taken up a few hours of her day, and by now, she should be at the Poe household, finishing up, on the way to the Robinson mansion, but instead, she was unemployed and at a bus stop, unsure of where to go. If she went home, her mom would wonder what had happened, and if she went to Aiden’s penthouse, she’d have to wait hours until he got there. Her wallet had a five-dollar bill in it for emergency bus fare, and she hadn’t grabbed a complimentary bagged lunch as she exited her now ex-workplace.

  She sat down on one of the cold metal benches and looked through the journals for guidance, and realized that the answer had been there the whole time. Aiden had included his number and email in the journals, but she had never used it because she didn’t want there to be any trace of their communications electronically in case her siblings had seen a text from him when they were borrowing her phone to use for games. Well, the time to use the number had come. She’d rationed her texts and minutes well (always going under the limit each month because overage charges were a bitch) and programmed in Aiden’s number and texted him, “Hey, this is Carmen. Call me if you are free.”

  Within a few minutes, she, a mere unemployed former maid, was on the phone with one of the most powerful men in the world...and they were about to do something totally crazy.

  Chapter Six

  Aiden Dixon was between meetings, in the office that saw as little usage as his penthouse, because he was dashing in and out of it all day to make meetings and calls. His phone was always on him, though, and while in his office looking for a file, his phone buzzed three times.

  Only one number was programmed to do that, a number that had never contacted him. Carmen’s. He had programmed in the number that she had given him in the journal in case he needed it for an emergency, as Carmen had explained not to use it unless there was a dire situation because of her living situation.

  He looked at the text for a second and then walked out to his secretary’s desk. The older woman looked back at him. “Yes, Aiden?” The secretary had been with the company for a long time and Asher-Dixon Lumber didn’t fire people or replace them for no reason, and she’d seen Aiden since he was a wee tot, so she wasn’t about to call him ‘Mister’ anything unless she had to.

  “Deirdre, can you clear or move my schedule for the afternoon?” said Aiden.

  “Ooh, I see from the sparkle in your eye it must be a girl,” said Deirdre, smiling wide before turning back to use the computer. “I’ll clear the schedule. You do what you’ve gotta do, and get the girl.”

  “Who said anything about a girl?” asked Aiden.

  “Honey. I’ve known you your whole life, and I have three boys of my own, and eleven grandsons, you don’t think I know what a boy in love looks like?” asked Deirdre. “Go. Shoo. Save the
girl.”

  “Thanks,” said Aiden. He closed the door to his office and sat down in the plush leather chair and hit call.

  The phone rang once and someone picked up. “Hello?” said a familiar voice.

  “Carmen?” asked Aiden.

  “Yeah, Aiden?” asked Carmen.

  “Yeah. I got your text. What’s going on?” asked Aiden.

  “Long story short, I’m unemployed and have nothing to do today, but also nothing stopping me from seeing you. Are you able to meet up with me for a few minutes today, so I can explain what’s going on?” asked Carmen.

  “Make it a weekend, how’s that sound?” asked Aiden.

  “Seriously?” asked Carmen.

  “Seriously,” said Aiden. “Send me your cross streets, I can send a car to pick you up. It’ll have my company logo in the window, a bear and an axe against a green field, flanked by trees. It’ll take you to a place where we can talk in private.”

  “Got it,” said Carmen. “See you soon.”

  Aiden hung up the phone and headed out the door. “Deirdre,” said Aiden. “I need you to keep clearing that schedule...but clear everything from now until Monday.”

  “You got it, boss,” said Deirdre, typing away.

  ***

  A large black car pulled up to Carmen within a few minutes. The car had the Asher-Dixon Lumber logo in the window. “Carmen Jackson?” said a man after the window rolled down.

  “That’s me,” said Carmen, getting in the car. “I’m supposed to be meeting...”

  “Mr. Aiden, right?” asked the man, who had a slightly British accent. “My name’s Niles, and I’m one of the Asher-Dixon Clan’s personal drivers.”