“That bad, huh?”
She nodded.
He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t leave either.
Rosalina waited for him to add to the conversation, but there was just silence. When she looked up at him, his eyes were fixed on her books as he chewed his thumbnail.
“The bills are going to break us,” she said finally.
He gave a short grunt of acknowledgement without looking up from his fixed point, and then looked up at her and readjusted himself in his seat.
“Sucks, doesn’t it? You should’ve taken me up on my offer.”
“Offer?” she asked, confused.
When he smiled with his eyebrow raised, she realized exactly what he meant.
“You pig! I don’t care what you think of me, there’s no way I’m going to sleep with you for money.”
Reginald laughed and slumped back against the chair again.
“No, but if you had let me enjoy myself, you know, all over you, I’d be far more sympathetic to your plight.”
All of Rosalina’s grief turned to rage in a single heartbeat. Nearly shattering her phone on the table, she pushed her papers together and slammed her books closed.
“Lunch will be ready momentarily.”
“Hey hey, wait,” he said, leaning forward to grab her hands.
When she pulled back a fist to punch him, he flinched and jerked his entire body backward.
“Whoa, whoa! Calm down, would you?”
“My father is lying in the hospital, dying. My life is over, and you’re still – still! – bringing up this old crap? You’re unbelievable. Don’t ever touch me, you filthy bastard.”
“I’ll give you the money.”
Rosalina froze, refusing to believe she’d heard what she just thought she had. “What?”
“I’ll give you the money.”
“You don’t even know how much it is.”
Reginald leaned back in his chair; his hands held out indicate the house they currently sat in.
“You think I’m worried about that? When you get the bill, just hand it to me. I’ll pay it.”
He folded his hands in his lap and crossed one leg over the other as he added, “In total.”
Rosalina swallowed the lump in her throat, forcing her anger back down. This wasn’t the time to be mean or prideful.
It was a struggle to find the words, but she finally willed her voice to a calm, civil tone as she said, “Thank you. That’s really… human of you.”
Reginald smirked and held up a finger. “Wait.”
Rosalina’s body went cold, even as she felt the heat rise to her cheeks.
“I told you I wasn’t going to sleep with you for money.”
“Who said anything about sleeping with me? You know, for someone so adamant about never wanting all of this over all of you, you sure do bring it up pretty often.”
“Reggie, I swear,” she said as she put the heel of her palm against her forehead.
“Hear me out,” he said and gestured for the loveseat she’d been on just moments before.
Heaving a massive breath to calm herself, Rosalina sat down and looked at him.
“As I said, had there been an “us”, I’d be far more inclined to do this nicely. No strings, as it were. But you’ve been quite rude to me.”
“Rude? You’re the one that…”
“Rude,” he said sharply, “and argumentative.”
Rosalina closed her mouth but made sure to stare daggers at him. Daggers, she hoped, that would pierce those impertinent blue eyes of his.
“And since that’s the case, we’re going to have a little fun. I will give you the money, on that you have my word. Now, you may not like me for whatever reason, and I can’t think of what reason that might be, honestly.”
“Ask me, I think it’s pent up sexual frustration, or maybe that unspoken primal bond we almost shared just waiting to break free. Whatever the case may be, you know I’m a man of my word. I tell you now, you will not owe the hospital a single penny for any of this,” here he held up a finger,
“if…”
When he didn’t pick up the rest of the sentence, Rosalina reluctantly asked, “If?”
“If you act as my personal maid for a month.”
“A month!”
“One month. You do whatever I ask, without complaint. Agree to this, and I’ll pay your father’s hospital bill.”
“Screw you.” Rosalina stood up and stacked her books.
“All right. So you have some other way of paying the bill then? That’s good.”
She paused, and hated herself for even considering it.
They both knew he was right. There were no other options. She idly adjusted the books so that the spines were flush, her mind locked in indecision.
“One month,” he said softly, leaning forward like an animal ready to pounce on its prey.
“That’s all. It’ll go by like nothing.”
“No sex stuff,” she said.
“No sex stuff.”
“It wasn’t a question.”
“I know. No sex stuff. Promise.”
“Reggie, if you’re lying to me, or if this is another one of your jokes…”
“Oh, it’s one of my jokes. I promise you that. Don’t think you’re getting off lightly. This is going to be hilarious. But I’m also serious. Do this, and I will pay his bill.”
“No matter how high it is?”
The last thing she wanted was to go through all of this, and then find out that Reginald had a price limit suddenly. If she could get him to say it, she knew she could get him to stick with it.
No matter how much she hated him and his childish ways, it was true that he was a man of his word.
When he squirreled around an answer, it was a sure sign he had no plan to uphold his end of the bargain.
Knowing that, it was all the more surprising when he said, “No matter how high. I will pay it in its entirety. But, only if you play along.”
Rosalina drummed her fingers on her books, afraid to agree, but unable to think of any other options.
“Deal,” she said, surprising herself.
Reginald laughed and slapped his hands together.
“When do we start?”
His eyes darted around the room wildly, his face split into a grin.
“After lunch? Yeah, let’s start after lunch.” Leaping to his feet, he dashed out of the room.
“One month,” she called after him.
“Whatever,” he yelled back.
It did not instill confidence.
Chapter 3
After making lunch, during which Reginald giggled the entire way through, she cleared the dishes and straightened up the kitchen.
Reginald came into the kitchen like a cat with a kill in its mouth.
“All right slave, ready for your first command?”
Rosalina bunched up the dish towel in her hands and tossed it to the counter.
“Slave?”
“You heard me. Go clean my room.”
“I’m nobody’s slave, pencil-dick.”
She flicked her finger at his nose as she walked by, but he jerked away.
When she reached his room, she had to stop and take a breath. His room was bigger than her house, and it had been turned into a cosmic anomaly.
“Really?” she asked no one.
“Yep,” he said from behind her, giggling.
Every piece of clothing he owned had been pulled from his closet, dressers, and storage, and had been tossed all over.
The contents of his desk had been spilled all over the floor. And the smell!
Rosalina covered her nose after catching a whiff of it.
“Is that dog poop?”
“Yep!”
“You realize you put dog poop in your room. Your room. Where you sleep.”
“Not put. Hid. And you better find it and get rid of this smell by the time I’m ready for bed, otherwise our deal is off.”
Rosalina’s head
whipped around so fast it made him jump back.
“You can’t do that. We had a deal!”
“Yeah, and the deal was you do whatever I say with no complaints. If you don’t do what I’m telling you to, you fail to hold up your end of the bargain. Don’t hold up your end, and I won’t hold up mine.”
Rosalina looked back at the room and shook her head.
“You’re sick, you know that? You have serious mental problems.”
He leaned in close and whispered, “You shouldn’t have been such a bitch for all these years. I’m gonna enjoy this.”
Rosalina’s lip curled in disgust.
“Well, at least I’ve got time. We all know you’re a night owl.”
“Oh, not tonight. I have an early day tomorrow, see, so I’m gonna need a good night of sleep. I was thinking of turning in around ten. Maybe even nine, depending on how tired I am.”
“What!” She spun on him again, and he danced back a few steps, laughing.
“Have fun.”
It took hours to clean what must’ve only taken him minutes to do. She eventually found the poop smeared in his bed.
Changing the sheets didn’t get rid of the smell. Instead, she’d had to wash his entire mattress by hand as well as disinfect almost everything in the room. On top of that, she still had to make dinner for the family.
By the end of the night, it was only through sheer force of will that she put in an hour of studying before crashing at home.
Chapter 4
The days stretched on. The few chores Reginald’s parents insisted he needed to do, he had his new slave take care of.
They were the usual childhood chores, but ones he still managed to slack on.
Easy stuff like taking out the garbage. Mowing the lawn – despite the fact that they had an entire landscaping army manage it.
Whenever he demanded she do a task, he made her start wearing a ridiculous shiny French maid outfit made out of pleather, or latex or something. Rosalina had no idea what material it was, but it squeaked when she moved.
All the while Reginald watched and laughed. He called her names as she did his work, talking down to her as though she were an idiot for agreeing to do this.
“Aren’t you sad you didn’t take me up all those years ago?” he’d ask.
Still, as long as she held up her end of the deal, she knew he would hold up his. As impetuous as he was, he’d do as he promised.
For a man so devoid of any respect or manners, it was surprising how honest he was. In her time helping her father at the mansion, she’d seen him come and go with dozens of girls. All of them had to know of his reputation, but they followed him home anyway like sick puppies.
He never treated them any better than he was treating her now. They all knew what they were getting into. He never promised them the moon to get into their pants. He didn’t need to.
The man could be charming when he wanted to be, and it didn’t hurt that he was filthy rich. And after he’d had his way with them, he sent them packing without so much as a goodbye.
The difference between her and Reginald, however, was their upbringing. Where he’d had everything handed to him growing up, never earning a thing, Rosalina and her father scraped by together.
They fought and worked hard just to eat. Christmas, birthdays, and every other special holiday was a chance for them to get creative about how to express their love for one another because they just didn’t have the money for presents.
She didn’t even get an allowance to save up to buy her father a tie for Father’s day. Things, opportunities, money, these were all put onto a list labeled “Things Everyone Else Has.”
Rosalina was never resentful of it. People led different lives. She knew that just as well as her father did.
He’d done the best he could for her, and together he raised her up, putting her on his shoulders so that she could reach a better life. There was nothing her father wouldn’t do for her.
That was the thought that kept her going through Reginald’s heckling and his ridiculous chores and tortures. No matter what he did to wound her pride or to make her feel stupid or pathetic for doing whatever he asked, Rosalina just had to think back to her entire childhood.
No new clothes in school. Packed lunches containing hardly any food when all the other kids bought the cafeteria lunches. Rosalina knew what it was to be ridiculed. And she’d fought her way free of that.
Through hard work, she earned her scholarship to the culinary academy and the pride of her father. That had been twelve years.
There was nothing Reginald could come up with in a single month that could faze her.
Oh how he tried, though.
It was in the middle of week three when she realized that, though the insane chores were still ongoing, his constant demeaning of her had waned.
She figured he’d probably gotten bored of it when she didn’t respond the way he wanted to. That was how one handled bullies. They did it to get a rise. Deny them a reaction, and you’re labeled as “no fun” and they go find someone else to torture.
At least, that was mostly the case.
Chapter 5
Rosalina sweated in the hot afternoon sun as she tried for the fourth time to clip a shrub into the shape of a Minotaur. So far she’d completely ruined three shrubs, their branches and leaves misshapen in an almost macabre scene of mutilation and death.
Ice rattling in a glass caught her attention and she saw Reginald walking toward her holding two glasses filled with what looked like iced-tea, complete with a lemon wedge on the rim.
Knowing she was hot, he’d come to drink both in front of her, no doubt. He’d do it slowly, commenting on how refreshing they were on such a hot day.
“I’m not complaining,” she called out as he came closer, “but I’m telling you, I’m not good at this. I get it, you think it’s funny, but I’m never going to be able to get one of these bushes even close.”
“Shrubs,” he corrected her. “They are shrubs you mindless simpleton. Here.”
He held out one of the glasses to her.
“What? Not sweet enough?”
“No, I’m giving it to you. It’s hot out.”
“What’s the catch?”
Reginald sighed with exasperation, set the glass down on the grass, and then walked to the folding chair he’d setup nearby to watch her work.
Rosalina bent down and picked up the glass, taking a tentative sip.
Sweet tea.
She’d expected liquid dish soap, or salt, or something, but no. It was delicious, refreshing, and cold sweet iced-tea. “Thank you,” she said.
He held up his glass to her in a salute and took a sip.
“I don’t know,” he said, “I think it’s coming along swimmingly. Is that a penis, or did you miss a spot?”
Rosalina stepped back from the shrub to try and see what he was seeing. There it was, a branch that stuck out right from where she’d made two legs.
Laughing, she said, “Yes?”
Reginald laughed and nearly spit out his tea. “Very nice. I say leave it.”
“Won’t your mother be pleased.”
“Tell you the truth,” he said, leaning in conspiratorially, “I think she just may be.”
This time it was Rosalina’s turn to nearly spit out a mouthful of tea. Her distress caused him no small amount of joy, and they both laughed together as she struggled to keep the tea from going out her nose.
Their laughter grew worse with every second, feeding back into itself. Her cheeks filled with tea, she waited until she could get herself back under control before trying to swallow, but every time she thought it was under control, another fit would rise up and she’d be laughing far too hard to risk it.
“Come on,” he said, “swallow. You can do it. Swallow like a good girl.”
The way he coached her was somehow funny and not his usual crude humor. She waved at him frantically, unable to tell him to stop without risking the tea exploding from her mout
h.
“You can do it,” he said, laughing along with her.
“Show me you love me.”
Somehow that line struck a chord and she spat the tea into the grass, laughing so hard her side hurt.
Reginald dove in and grabbed the glass of tea from her before she dropped it.
“You ass,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes.
“I cannot believe you would say that!”
Now he was laughing, far too pleased with himself.
“You just looked so cute with your cheeks all puffed out like that. I couldn’t help myself.”
Rosalina’s laughter dulled a little to a giggling fit, and she looked at him.
Did he just call her cute?
The humor was fading as she waited for him to follow it up with a scathing comment about something horrible, like only dogs being interested in her now.
That would kill the mood for sure, and her anticipation of such a comment was doing a damn fine job itself. No follow-up came, however.
Oblivious to her suspicions, he just grinned and handed her back her glass.
“Thank you,” she said.
He smiled and nodded, then went back to his chair. She waited still, not wanting to call attention to it, but unable to believe it.
They’d just shared a nice moment together and Rosalina had no idea what to make of it.
Her father was finally starting to actually recover from his surgeries, instead of teetering on the razor’s edge of life-or-death. After spending weeks busting her ass for Reginald, all while cooking and studying, it came as a shock when Reginald didn’t just allow her to visit her father, but demanded it of her.
Said it was his order for the day, and the only one. She didn’t even have to wear the maid outfit when she went to see him.
For the first time in almost four weeks, her father was awake. The drugs made him groggy, and the tubes going in and out of his mouth and nose kept him from being able to talk too well. It didn’t matter. She was just happy to see him alive and awake.
Of course the first thing he asked was if she’d been keeping up on her studies. Despite her reassurance that she was, he could tell she wasn’t getting much sleep.
Romance: Bearilicious: BBW Paranormal Bear Shifter Romance Collection (Werebear, Bear Shifter, BBW Paranormal Romance) Page 23