Earning Her Keep Read online

  The man in the shadows has disappeared again. I refocus on Ethel but my heart is still buzzing and fluttering like a hummingbird. I let out a long breath and think of her stipulations and her crow’s feet. Even though her expression is stern, her eyes are kind. There is a warmth about her now. I’m not used to warmth. It’s such a relief.

  “I agree to everything you’ve said, but I have a stipulation of my own, actually,” I say.

  This surprises her. “Do you, indeed?” Her drawn-on eyebrows arch upward.

  “I do. I’m going to be doing the cooking, is that correct?”

  “It is. Some of it, at any rate.”

  “Stipulation 6: I will cook anything except soft-boiled eggs. Will that be a problem?”

  Ethel’s no-nonsense expression wavers for one millisecond. Like she’s almost about to laugh. But she composes herself. “That will not be a problem. Mr. Philipe has no interest in soft-boiled eggs.”

  “Then you’ve got yourself a deal,” I grin, sighing with relief sticking out my hand to seal the deal.

  “Come in, then,” Ethel says, stepping back with a hint of warmth but she leaves me hanging on the handshake.

  I step inside the mansion. It is truly beautiful; such a lovely mix of old and new. Enormous, brilliantly-colored modern art canvases hang on oak-paneled walls. I know nothing of art, but I know it is all so overwhelming. Such taste, such vision. Fancy old furniture is mixed in with sleek rugs and modern sculptures. It’s like something out of a dream or a TV show.

  A movement catches my eye from the left side. There he is again. Tailored pants, muscular thighs, a tight-fitting dress shirt that shows off a sculpted waist and broad shoulders, and I suck in a sharp breath.

  Ethel guides me in through the doorway, and I watch him disappear again, like a mirage in the distance, coming and going. Flickering and fading. Teasing.

  Am I real or are your eyes playing tricks on you? You’ll have to come closer to find out.

  I take one step forward into whatever this strange new life is, with a shivering flutter of curiosity pulsing between my legs.

  CHAPTER 2

  Dane

  She’s been here a month now and I’m fucking obsessed. She’s all I think about, all day, every day, every fucking minute of every fucking hour. I have never known hunger, need, or desire the way I know it for her.

  Right now, she’s standing at the ironing board, pressing one of my shirts to my exact specifications. She’s wearing the uniform she picked out from the online catalog I created, filled with choices she didn’t know came directly from me. She choose a white long-sleeved tee-shirt, thin enough for me to see her perky nipples and the lace of her bra, and cut low enough for me to see her cleavage; a pair of black yoga pants that hug her curves and give me a nice view of her camel toe; Birkenstocks with patterned socks, because I overheard her telling Ethel she’d always wanted a pair so I included them in her footwear options; and a little black frilly apron with white lace trim.

  Granola yoga goddess meets French maid. I’ll take it.

  She’s got her earbuds in, the ones I got for her that are connected to the Bluetooth music system I had installed just for her, swaying her sweet curves to the music. She shimmies then sticks her ass out with a wiggle and I almost groan out loud. As usual, I’m watching her every goddamned move, with my cock so hard a diamond couldn’t scratch it.

  She can’t see me. It’s one of the best things about this old mansion, all the secret passageways, the hidden rooms, the peep holes that look like knots in the old wood paneling. The woman who built it was batshit crazy—paranoid as fuck, and thank God for that. Every room has a way to watch whoever is in it, if you know where to look.

  Which I most definitely do.

  She’s so fucking beautiful. Long wavy red hair, eyes the color of Robin’s eggs, creamy cheeks kissed with freckles. When she arrived here thirty-two days ago, she was thin. Way too fucking thin. So frail and gaunt that I told Ethel to tell her a medical check-up was part of her employment requirements.

  Ethel returned, her eyes dark, mouth tight, reporting to me that Emily told her she’d not seen a doctor since she was six or seven when she had pneumonia. Fucking monsters. Whoever they were that raised her, I’m going to find out.

  I shook off my rage and picked the doctor myself—a female internist with the best credentials, as well as an understanding that there are people out there that don’t fit into the normal patient mold. It cost me in the five figures, but Emily got a full physical, blood work, a full body scan and I had the detailed reports sent directly to me with a consult call with the physician and no names or issues with the fucking HIPAA bullshit. Vitamin D, low. Iron, low. BMI, low.

  Un-fucking-acceptable.

  In the last few weeks, I’ve made sure Ethel gives her anything and everything she wants to eat. Plenty of spinach, organic grass-fed everything, plenty of sunshine, plenty of rest and the best vitamin concoctions, custom made especially for her by some guru of wellness I found in goddamn California of all places.

  Nine hours of sleep, minimum.

  Within a week of arriving, she came to life. Her cheeks turned pink. The deep set of her eyes lifted. She stood up straight.

  From behind the walls and two-way mirrors, I’ve watched her begin to laugh and smile. To dance and sing. Now her BMI is up, ticking nicely up into normal; her blood levels are perfect. I’ve had her re-checked twice. Again, under the guise of health standards for employment or some bullshit I made up and spouted off to Ethel.

  She’s told Ethel a bit about her background, but not much. Sheltered, she said. Homeschooled, she said. But the way she said it, it sounded to me like it was a simple way to say ten thousand awful words.

  I bought a phone for her, loaded it up with parental controls and surveillance software so I can keep an eye on what she’s doing, and had Ethel give it to her as a gift. Again, to be used for employment purposes only, but she could add things as she wished. All she does, really, is listen to music. Every day I watch her playlists grow as she discovers new stuff and it’s synced with the sound and music system I had installed at the same time. It works on voice command and she loves giving orders to it like she’s an Army Sergeant. She named the system Esme because I had Ethel pretend she couldn’t think of a name for it.

  Her musical taste seems completely random. One day it’s Bach, the next day it’s Wiz Khalifa, the next it’s Patsy Cline. Her phone is also paired with mine, so I can see every keystroke. Every click. I even have her wearing a smart watch with every fucking health tracker the company could add, so I can monitor her temperature, pulse rate, how many hours she sleeps…nearly fucking everything and still, it’s not enough.

  Still, it feeds me to watch her explore and find what she loves.

  Every day now, she’s blossoming before my eyes, blooming like a fucking lily in mid-summer.

  Even her curves are in bloom. Fuck, those curves. What I wouldn’t give to touch those curves.

  But I won’t. Because I have rules and I live by them.

  The paperwork from the doctor also confirmed what I’d always suspected—she’s a fucking virgin. Of course she is.

  So it’s just as well that I’ve got a rule in place against meeting her. That’s always been my rule with the girls who come to work here. Hands off, no contact. But I never gave a single fuck about any of them until her.

  She presses my collar meticulously. Then she picks up the can of starch, mouthing words to whatever she’s listening to through her earphones. God, she’s such a fucking free spirit. So much the opposite of me. So much the light to my dark. So much the yes to my no.

  But no has kept me on a good path. No bullshit, no distractions, no annoyances. I lead a life of rules and order. But her?

  She twirls around, kicking off her sandals, leaving her in her socks as she grabs a Swiffer out of the closet for her dance partner. I check my phone. She’s listening to “The Girl from Ipanema.” She does a little cha-cha step, spins a
gain, steps on her left sock with her right foot, trips...and almost falls flat on her face. But she catches herself on the laundry sink and instead of swearing, she does this victory move, like an Olympic gymnast nailing her last flip off the parallel bars.

  I almost forget myself. I almost laugh. I almost cheer.

  Fuck, she’s so lovely.

  She’s the opposite of my order and rules. She’s free and pure and…true. Everything I want.

  Everything I don’t deserve.

  But not being able to touch her or talk to her has made me into… honestly? A fucking psycho stalker. I jack off to photos I’ve taken of her five times a night. I watch her in the shower, groaning as she soaps up her pussy and ass. And one night, one fucking crazy night, I even stayed underneath her bed, listening to her breathing.

  Having her in the house is pushing me places I never thought I’d go. And I don’t give a fuck.

  So how did I turn into this hyper-controlling motherfucker who needs to know her precise height and weight, who obsesses over her protein intake? Who wakes up every day at 4:55a.m, works out, showers, and drinks a fucking kale-whey smoothie even though it legitimately makes me want to puke? Who works from 7:20 to 11:40, no matter what? Who thinks spreadsheets are a religion? I grew up in the Panhandle of Florida. Dad sold insurance; mom took care of Dad. Things were fine enough. But, I always felt on the outside like I didn’t fit and I slipped into a different sort of life.

  How did my life become all about control?

  Simple. The lack of it. Because crime brings chaos. And chaos will fuck everything up.

  When it all started, I was in the import/export business, which is just a fancy way of saying I moved illegal shit. And I was good at it, damned good at it. Guns, drugs, stolen cars, laundered money. You name it; I didn’t give a fuck.

  That’s not completely true. I drew the line at importing and exporting people. Women, to be more precise, not that it wasn’t possible. Not that it wasn’t lucrative, either, but even I had a line I wouldn’t cross and that was it for me.

  Other than that, what product got moved wasn’t my business. I was about logistics. About getting whatever it was from point A to point B.

  And logistics, after all, depends on a schedule. Exacting. Precise.

  So controlling the chaos became about timing the chaos. And as long as the timing was right, I stayed out of jail. Kept my clients safe.

  But controlling the timing didn’t control the danger. I’ve got four bullet holes in me to prove it. My hip, my chest, my shoulder and my inner thigh, this fucking close to my balls.

  To say I was part of a mafia family is too kind to the mafia and too unkind to families. I was part of an organization. A business. Pure and simple.

  I was in Miami back then, when the feds weren’t paying attention and the coke was coming in hot. But soon enough, business turned into Scarface. I landed in the hospital when a delivery went bad. And that was when I decided I was out.

  I relocated myself and my dad to Chicago. We lost mom ten years before that to cancer so it was just us. Witness protection, without government help. I made new lives for us, new identities. New bank accounts, new histories. New habits and pasts, with clean rap sheets and ordinary backgrounds. I helped us fade into middle America like we had never existed at all.

  But never existing is complicated. Sometimes, now, I feel like a shell of myself. Who was I then? Who am I now? I don’t fucking know.

  But one thing I know for sure. I want her.

  When I’m watching her, I feel like I know who I am.

  Or who I could be. If only I had the courage to let her see me in return.

  Just as she’s smoothing the cuffs on another of my dress shirts, my watch buzzes with a reminder. An appointment downtown with an art dealer in 27 minutes, just like every Tuesday at 11:30a.m. And I do mean every fucking Tuesday, without fail. Even on the fourth of July. Even on Christmas. Normally, the predictability and order would be soothing, reassuring.

  But today, it annoys the shit out of me. Because all I want is to be here, watching her, taking her in. Consuming her inch by inch.

  Yet the rules exist for a reason. The rules keep me calm. The rules keep shit from spinning out of control. The rules keep me from making a mistake and unraveling the deception of my identity that keeps me—and my father—safe. The spreadsheets and details of my former life make people nervous. The kind of people that don’t like loose ends.

  So I drag myself away from the secret room, get my wallet and keys, and go down the hidden back stairway to the garage. I triple-check the deadbolt behind me and get in my SUV.

  My Yukon looks like it belongs to a SWAT commander. I didn’t buy it for that reason, but I’m not fucking complaining. I like to be left alone. I like to be feared. And even better than that, I like when people pull over on the shoulder to let me pass on the highway.

  Move aside, motherfuckers.

  The engine roars to life with Akira The Don’s “Discipline Equals Freedom” blaring.

  But even as I back out of the garage, even as I’m about to get started on my Tuesday routine—never vary, never change—I’m feeling unsettled. My anxiety is a nasty bastard. It’s not some little bullshit thing that deep breathing and positive thoughts can cure—fuck no. It’s a beast. A brute.

  It’s a whiskey hangover meets two days without sleep. It’s an IRS audit meets an emergency landing. Fucker is as big as a rabid grizzly bear and exactly as easy to ignore. That shit started for me back in elementary school. The teachers didn’t know what to do with me. I fucking corrected them about everything. Worried about everything.

  Back then, they just called it defiance. Back-talk.

  They tried to beat it out of me with a wooden paddle. Didn’t work and as soon as my father found out, they were lucky it was only the paddle he broke.

  From there, I made peace with the disorder of order as best I could, but I’ve always known I vibrate at a different frequency than most. I’m a dial turned up to ten, then jump started until sparks fly and you smell things starting to burn.

  So I do what I know works. I lean hard into my rules. I put all my faith in my system. I cross-check everything in my head. The locks are secure, the security system is set to record everything, I’ve logged out of all my accounts, triple-checked the bank safe in my bedroom suite. But still, still, I feel it.

  I ignore it and put the pedal down hard, and try to speed my way through it, tires spinning.

  Doesn’t work. I slam on the brakes, about ten feet from the entry to the road up ahead. My mind is consumed with thoughts of her.

  That laugh and pose she took as she almost tripped on her sock. The way she brushes her hair. Ten strokes on the right side first. Then twelve on the left, then two more on the right, then she starts on the back. I memorize it all.

  The shape of her toenails. The way she bites her lip when she’s thinking. The way her blue eyes glisten when she tells Ethel a knock-knock joke. The way she runs her fingers over her nipples when she’s in the shower.

  A tap at the window snaps me out of my lusty delirium. It’s Morty, Ethel’s husband. The two of them take care of this estate—and me.

  Morty is in top form. He’s got on his gardening hat and his old-guy sunglasses. Morty is afraid of only two things: overreliance on foreign manufacturing and cataracts. “Blue Blockers,” he’s always telling me. “Ordered them from the TV. Made right here in the US of A!”

  I admire a guy who is consistent in his obsessions.

  “Are you alright, sir?” he asks.

  “Yeah, fine, just…” Thinking about her flesh, her lips, that fucking raspberry-shaped birthmark on her left ass cheek. “…just thinking.”

  Morty takes off his Blue Blockers. “But it’s 11:18 in the a.m. on Tuesday. Aren’t you supposed to be downtown in twelve…”

  Like I said, I never vary, never change. Until she showed up. “Yeah, I know, Morty. I know. Had a little deviation from the schedule.”

&nbsp
; He blinks in shock. Understandable. In ten years of Tuesdays, this has never happened. “Am I having a stroke? Are you having a stroke?”

  Something about him, man. I’d never say this out loud, but I love the old bastard. I do. “Don’t look so surprised.”

  “Son, you might as well tell me the sun has started rising in the West. It’s 11:18! On Tuesday!”

  My obsession with order and routine has rubbed off on Morty and Ethel. And now it’s not just me that knows there’s a disturbance in the force.

  “Morty. Seriously. I know.”

  He slowly scratches his white stubble with one finger. He looks down at his watch and gives a little jump. “11:19 now!”

  I can’t deal with this. Never apologize, never explain. Yeah, I hate deviating from my routine. But I hate something else even more: I hate to be away from her. And that right there? That’s the fucking sun rising in the West, for sure.

  “Later, Morty.”

  I crank the wheel, put the pedal down, and spin the monster of a SUV one-hundred and eighty degres. And then I gun it back to the house and to her. Where I belong.

  But by the time I get back to the house, I’m more conflicted than ever. Because that girl, with her pretty face and her luscious ass and the way she laughs and smiles. She’s sweetly, gently, but surely fucking everything up.

  I slam the door to my SUV, then hit the heavy bag hanging in the corner of the garage with a powerful one-two combination. Hard enough to knock out a grown man. It makes my knuckles ache and my shoulder scream.

  Not even that takes away the wanting.

  Not even pain can blunt my need.

  CHAPTER 3

  Dane