1
Camila
The fingers of my left hand strangle a bottle of Lemon Pledge while my right-hand puts a death grip on my cleaning rag. It’s the first time I’ve seen my new boss, Carter Cross, since the day I was hired a month ago, although technically my first thirty days are a probationary period to determine whether or not I’ll actually get a full-time position as part of the housecleaning crew that cleans his gigantic estate.
The stepladder beneath my feet trembles and I feel my calves tighten. I hold my breath and count backward from ten, willing myself to stay calm, cool, and collected. But how in the world is that going to happen with an absolute hunk of a billionaire as my boss, the same man who Forbes Magazine says has literally written the book on power negotiating and how to get what you want in the business world, although the article, which I’ve read at least fifty times now, mentioned nothing about Carter’s success in the boardroom extending over into the bedroom.
He’s known as an extremely private man, which deftly explains why the background check and interviews just leading up to this job made me feel more like I was applying for the F.B.I. then I was just trying to make ends meet cleaning up after one of the world’s .00001%.
Despite being told about a thousand times by Sandy, the head housekeeper, not to make direct eye contact with Carter, or really even look in his direction more than a passing glance, I can’t hold back as my eyes lock onto his wide frame, easily pushing six and a half feet in height with a wingspan just as wide, and shoulders to match.
His white dress shirt stretches across his chest as he breathes in deep, exhaling hard into his phone before barking out orders to whoever on the other end has seemed to draw his ire.
The sound of his leather-heeled Italian shoes echoes out across the marble flooring we just finished polishing as his phone stays glued to his ear, the diamond-encrusted Rolex on his wrist and tattoos underneath it, peeking out from underneath the cuff of his bespoke shirt.
I swear he’s better built than the statue I’m polishing in his foyer right now, and from the look of the bulge in those thin wool slacks, certainly more well endowed. Despite being a world-class businessman, where you’d think he’d be chained to a desk all day, he looks like a world-class athlete and moves like one too…his glutes firing, making his movements look effortless, as he glides through the entryway to his mansion.
Despite the smell of about half a bottle of Lemon Pledge having been sprayed in the last fifteen minutes, I inhale the scent of something that resembles a campfire, or a rugged man in a barn stamping out horseshoes. It’s rugged, masculine, and suits the five o’clock shadow that he’s sporting despite the oversized IWC wall clock, with a diameter that’s wider than I am tall, displaying the time to be exactly nine in the morning. I close my eyes as the scent engulfs me, abruptly jerking them back open, when a deep voice with notes that sound like leather tipped it steel, call out. “It’s been thirty days. Time for your probationary period review, and determination of your future,” he says.
Every muscle in my body tenses as he continues walking toward his office door, the room where I’ve never been allowed to enter…until apparently now. I was specifically told to stay out of that room, that he only uses that room for brief meetings for guests he doesn’t allow into the main part of his home. Not only that, but Sandy’s the only one allowed in there to clean, and it took her twenty years on-site to gain enough trust before even she was allowed to see what’s behind that door on a daily basis.
“Go,” Sandy, says under her breath. “You do not want to keep Mr. Cross waiting.” I look down at her and she motions with her head for me to go to his office.
I purse my lips, wondering what the outcome inside that secretive room is about to be…wondering if I’ll have a job, and the money that goes along with it, to pay my rent another week.
Just as I’m about to turn my head to trail Carter’s final steps to the room where my fate will be determined, I hear the loud closing of a door and my entire body cringes, my shoulders shooting up, which causes me to lose my balance.
My equilibrium off, my arms flail to try and steady me atop the ladder, the bottle of Pledge flying in one direction and my cleaning rag flying in another.
Two legs of the ladder come off the ground and I reach for something, anything, to try and break my fall.
“I got you,” Sandy says, racing toward me as my hands shoot out to the statue I was just cleaning, clawing at it to hold on just long enough for the head housekeeper to get one step closer to break my fall.
I feel my hands wrap around something and I grip hard, giving Sandy just enough time to slide in under me as the stepladder gives out. Her hands grab my waist as gravity takes hold, and I hear a snapping sound as I descend.
“Are you okay?” she asks, patting my body down frantically after she makes sure my feet are firmly planted back on the ground. “I heard something snap,” she adds.
“I did too,” I say, wondering what bone I broke, but somehow knowing nothing broke as Sandy clearly saved me from a visit to the hospital. I’ve escaped without a scratch.
But apparently the statue that’s reminiscent of Michelangelo’s David wasn’t so lucky.
Slowly my palm unfolds to reveal the source of the snapping noise.
“You didn’t?” Sandy says, her hands coming up to her cheeks, cupping her face.
I feel every inch of my skin from head to toe catch fire, knowing I’ve already turned bright red without needing a mirror to confirm it.
In my last-ditch effort not to fall on my face, when I was grasping at straws trying to find anything to grab ahold of, apparently I grabbed ahold of the statues…male appendage.
Which now rests squarely in my hand.
“Now,” I hear, the deep baritone cutting through the thick solid-oak door letting me know Carter isn’t about to wait on his housekeeper to start all the tasks he has lined up for the day.
“Coming,” I call out not much louder than a scared mouse.