Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
I raised an eyebrow. “Ralph told you how much I was paying?”
“Not the exact amount. Just how much he was willing to give me. I think he's planning on keeping some sort of contract fee.”
I almost laughed at her nativity, but she suddenly cried out in pain and stumbled. Too late, I saw the blood spilling from the bottom of her foot. “I'm sorry,” she said quickly. “I'll clean that up too.”
“For Christ's sake, why aren't you wearing the heels that I set out for you?” I hissed, reaching down and picking her up. Plopping her back up on the counter, I wrapped her foot in a dishtowel to keep her from bleeding all over the place.
“I tried,” she whispered. “I don't usually wear heels and they were really tall. It was hard to walk in them. I was afraid of falling and breaking the shoes…or anything else.” She sighed, staring down at the shattered decanter.
“Or your ankle?” I muttered darkly. “Don't move.” I'd never met a woman who didn't love expensive shoes. The taller and sharper the heel, the better. Obviously Daisy was different.
I grabbed the first aid kit from the bathroom and jogged back out to the kitchen. Daisy sat on the counter, foot hiked up on her thigh, as she examined the wound. The position gave me a clear view of the black panties that I'd asked her to wear, and God help me, I was hard as a rock. The sight of her creamy inner thighs nearly did me in.
“You're going to bleed on your dress,” I growled. I didn't give a damn about the dress, but hated the fact that a single glimpse had affected me so much.
“Sorry.” Her face was ashen. “I can do it,” she said, nodding towards the first aid kit.
“Not without bleeding all over yourself.” Rolling up my sleeves, I knelt down and examined the bottom of her foot. Wiping away the blood, I pulled out the rest of the glass out and swabbed in with alcohol. She gasped, but she didn't jerk away.
She had control over her pain threshold. I liked that.
Wrapping it up, I secured the bandage and let her foot drop. “It was just a small piece of glass. It should stop bleeding soon.
She immediately hopped down. “Okay. Give me just a second.”
“Where are you going?” I demanded, but she scampered away from me. Carefully sidestepping the glass, she disappeared. When Daisy returned a few minutes later, she was wearing a pair of ridiculous black fuzzy slippers.
“I know that you don't want me to wear my own things, but I can't wear those heels, and shouldn’t be barefoot until the bleeding stops. Now I can finish cleaning up the mess.”
Not realizing how absurd she looked, she carefully swept up the rest of the broken glass and wiped up the blood. “All better.” She straightened and gave me a beautiful smile. It reached all the way to her eyes, and I realized that it was the first genuine smile that she'd given me since getting here. “I…um, don't suppose that you have another decanter? Suzie was very specific about how long the wine should sit before serving it, although she was also very specific about how long dinner should be in the oven. And now, if I keep the food warm while the wine decants, the chicken won't be as good. On the other hand, if I take the food out it might get cold.”
“It's fine,” I said quickly before she could continue to babble. “I don't need the wine decanted. Let's just eat.”
I sat down and watched as she limped a little to the oven. For a moment, I thought she was going to pull the meal out with her bare hands, but she seemed to remember herself at the last minute and grabbed the potholders. The woman apparently turned into a complete mess when she was nervous.
She managed to serve the meal and sit down without breaking anything else. The fire from the candles reflected off the diamonds around her neck, and I couldn't help but smile. I owned her for the next month.
Daisy dug into her food like a woman starving, and I watched as she practically inhaled her dinner. “In a hurry for something?” I asked in a silky voice. “If it’s for my bed, I'd be happy to spread you out on the dinner table.”
Her eyes widened in panic, and I felt a small grain of irritation. Normally women were fighting to jump into my bed. She acted like she was terrified of the prospect. “No,” she replied hastily. “Sorry. I'll slow down. I'm used to eating during short breaks at work. It's was almost a guarantee that if you ate slow, they'd call you back onto your shift before you could finish.”
“You don't get a full half an hour for your break?”