Theirs to Keep

“See what?” asked Roderick.

“You’re the one who likes to play games.”

He raised both eyebrows this time. “Games?”

“Yeah,” she continued. “The sarcasm game. Or maybe fun with semantics.” Kicking up both of her long, beautiful legs, she crossed her boots on the opposite chair.

“How exactly am I playing games?”

“Well either you want me to stay here or you don’t,” Karissa went on. “The others have already decided, but not you. You like to walk the middle road. If things work out, you never really opposed them. But if shit happens to go sideways, you get to play the ‘I told you so’ game. Either way, you win.”

“Maybe I just like to win,” Roderick shrugged.

“I’ll bet,” she said, eyeing him over. “Still, when it boils down to it? The ‘I told you so’ game is your favorite game of all.”

My mouth was already open in disbelief. I didn’t know whether to laugh out loud or cheer her on. It occurred to me I should probably do both.

“Am I right?” Karissa asked. “You can say it. We’re all friends here, so it’s not like you’re gonna hurt my feelings or—”

“Lawyer.”

Roderick’s answer was more of a question, really. It came with the squint of his two brown eyes.

“That your guess for the week?” Karissa asked, amused.

“It is.”

“Well then nope,” she shook her head. “I’m not a lawyer. Never was.”

Whew, I thought happily.

“My mother always did say I should be one though,” she added. “’Testardo’, she called me. That’s thick-headed in Italian.”

“You sure it doesn’t mean pain in the ass?” smirked Roderick.

“It could,” Karissa allowed. “Wouldn’t surprise me one bit.”

She got up abruptly and crossed the room, moving like she owned the place. She grabbed the coffee pot and swished it around a bit, then frowned and put it down.

“Make another pot,” I told her. “I’ll have some too.”

The little sideways smile she shot me would’ve been worth downing ten pots of coffee, and all the visits to the bathroom that would follow. Karissa raised her empty mug my way.

“A man after my own heart.”

The room we were in would be the main galley — a sprawling, cavernous kitchen located at the very heart of the one-and-a-half century old palatial mansion. There were three other kitchenettes on the premises, including one in each wing and another in the guest house. But this, when finished, would be the beating heart of Southhold Manor.

It still didn’t seem real that we were actually doing it.

Karissa took my mug back to the coffee maker. She glanced back at me, this time with a mischievous sparkle behind her gorgeous blue eyes.

“Sugar? Cream?”

“Plenty of both, please.”

God, she was so fucking beautiful! And yet as our employee, totally untouchable as well.

Sorta.