She felt slightly lightheaded; it was an effect of not eating for hours, she knew, but there was not much that she thought she could do about that particular problem for the moment. Maybe later, once she had established her bona fides, she could duck into the galley and snag something to fill her stomach. Add that to the list of things I need to figure out, including a place to sleep, she thought.
Aurora went back into the stateroom and Khaleel barely glanced up from his computer as she went back into the bathroom to finish off that part of her list of chores. She followed the instructions on the bottle of marble floor cleaner and made a batch of the mixed solvent, leaving it for a few moments as she began to sweep.
There was next to no dust or dirt on the floor. Aurora could picture two—maybe even three—maids hard at work in the quarters that very morning, before she had ever even thought of stowing away on the yacht. It wasn’t fair of the Sheikh to expect her to do all of the work herself, especially when she could tell that the work had already been done.
Despite her aching back and knee, she managed to finish the floors, and Aurora gathered up the bottles and brushes to carry them back to the supply closet. She knew she was supposed to organize Khaleel’s closet next, and the idea of that—and the long list of other items that would come after it—sent a flush of anger through her. He probably has an assigned wardrobe person, or at least someone whose special task it is to organize his laundry. He probably has someone whose sole job is to do the floors in all the rooms on the boat.
Aurora emerged from the bathroom and turned away from Khaleel to put all of the supplies back into the closet next to the room. She tried to regain her sense of composure and calm, but as the enormity of the “test” Khaleel had assigned her began to assume a larger and larger proportion in her mind, Aurora’s sense of how unfair it was, how demanding a test and how ridiculous the pretext—when the room was already pristine—intensified.
“You’ll be working on my closet next, right?”
Aurora turned and closed the closet door behind her. “You know,” she said quickly, keeping her voice carefully level as she looked Khaleel in the eye. “This seems a little extreme for an initial evaluation of my skills. You have an entire staff of people; I can’t believe that you ever just leave it to one person to clean your entire stateroom.” Aurora’s cheeks burned and she took a deep breath, realizing that her tone was bordering on insolence.
To her amazement, Khaleel smiled slowly. “That is an excellent point,” he said, inclining his head towards her. “In fact, you’re right—I don’t ever have just one employee cleaning these quarters on their own.” Aurora exhaled, unaware of the fact that she had been holding her breath until she let go of it. “However,” he continued, “I’m sure you’ll excuse the enormity of what I’m asking of you when I explain that you’re the first fake maid I’ve ever hired. I thought I should—accordingly—give you some fake chores.”
Aurora’s heart skipped a beat as the import of the Sheikh’s words filtered through her shocked mind. He knew that she was a fake! How did he know? Quick on the heels of her shock, Aurora felt a rush of relief. Whatever fate awaited her now, she wouldn’t have to resort to sneaking around, finding make-work to do and scrounging food and a place to sleep.
“Oh, my God,” she said, stepping away from the closet and across the floor. She sank down onto a chair, shaking her head and looking earnestly at Khaleel. “I’m so, so sorry I stowed away on your ship.”
“Well I would love to hear about your reasons for doing so,” he said, folding his hands in front of him.
Aurora’s smiled in spite of herself as she picked at imaginary lint on one of the folds of her skirt. “It’s kind of a complicated situation,” she said slowly. “But I was wandering along the docks at the port, and thinking about running away. I came across your yacht, just getting ready to go. I figured that if I could stow away, maybe I could hide out long enough to get somewhere.” She looked up and met Khaleel’s interested gaze. “I sort of needed to get out of town as quickly as possible, and I didn’t really care where I ended up going—as long as it was far away from Miami.”
Khaleel watched her for a moment longer before nodding. “We all have something we’re running away from,” he said, shrugging. “In any case, it’s understandable that if you’re in some kind of bad situation, you’d take the first opportunity to change it—even if that move wasn’t exactly legal.” His lips twitched with amusement and his hazel eyes glowed. “The question then becomes: what should I do about you?”
“I’d like to ask if you could take me back to shore,” Aurora said quickly. “I mean—I assume you maybe have some kind of side boat, or something like that. Something small and fast that could take me back to the docks. I’d really appreciate that, and I would be out of your hair and off your boat that way.” Once more Khaleel pinned her down with his appraising, intent gaze and Aurora felt the silence between them weighing on her.
Before the Sheikh could reply, Aurora heard the clock on the table start to chime, announcing that it was noon. At the same moment, the watch in her pocket—which she had all but forgotten about—began to chirp as well.
Aurora’s stomach lurched as she saw that Khaleel noticed the sound coming from her pocket as well, and her cheeks burned with self-conscious awareness, as well as her sudden apprehension of what he would think.
“That sounds a lot like one of my watches,” Khaleel said knowingly. “That’s rather odd—you stow away aboard my ship and within less than two hours you’re already stealing from me.”
“I—it was in the pocket of the suit you asked me to take to be ironed,” Aurora started to say, reaching into her pocket.
“Change of plan; I won’t be taking you back to shore,” Khaleel said, shaking his head slowly. “It’s not a very good recommendation even for a fake maid to steal from her fake employer.”
“No! No—it fell out when I was putting the suit with the other stuff to be ironed, and I just kind of grabbed it,” Aurora explained, panicking. “I meant to bring it back to you, but then…” she shrugged. She had been so nervous about being found out that the thought of stealing the watch and selling it to cover her debts had completely escaped her mind.
Aurora took the watch out of her pocket and stood, quickly taking the few steps to the coffee table. She put the watch down carefully, closer to Khaleel than to herself, and stepped backward towards her seat, her cheeks burning.