Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
But she had on long, shapeless jeans, the ends half-covering her scuffed white Converse, and a simple, light, pink sweater with a hole in the cuff of the sleeve, like one she’d stick her thumb through.
Crouched down, inspecting her papers, her blonde hair, kind of in need of a brushing, had fallen like a curtain, blocking her entire face from view as the bubbly brunette gasped.
“I’m so sorry!” she squeaked.
“No, no, it’s okay,” the blonde said, grabbing the coffee cup the brunette was trying to pick up. “Don’t worry about that,” she added, sniffling hard. “I’ve probably already fucked this whole thing up, so there’s no use trying to save any of this now.”
It made no sense what-so-fucking-ever that her harried, messy, unkempt introduction would endear her to me as my fucking housekeeper.
But that was how I felt as she stabbed wet, stained papers into her folder, not even attempting to straighten them in the process. Endeared.
If nothing else, at least she felt real.
All the other women had come polished and presentable, putting their best face forward.
There was a term for meeting someone for the first time and knowing you aren’t meeting the real them, but the representative that they want to sell to you.
I’d met fifteen representatives already.
This woman, the mess she was, was at least showing me something real.
“I think I will be the judge of that,” I said, watching as her head whipped over, eyes wide, prompting a smile to tug at my lips at the complete deer-in-the-headlights look she was giving me.
But, fuck, what a pretty doe.
That face that had been hidden before was on the round side with kind of full cheeks, a generous mouth, a straight nose, and pretty blue-gray eyes.
But they were red.
Like she’d been crying.
No.
That made no sense.
Allergies, maybe.
“Fuck,” she hissed, closing her eyes for a minute, trying to pull herself together.
The brunette seemed to sense it was finally time to head out, so she slipped wordlessly past the blonde whose momentarily closed eyes gave me another couple of seconds to look at her.
A little too much eyeliner. Maybe trying to distract from the redness. There was no polish on her nails, but it looked like she chewed the hell out of them, leaving them in little ragged nubs.
On a sigh, she reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear, revealing an ear that was just a bit big. Another thing I found oddly endearing about her.
Gorgeous.
But not too perfect.
“Okay. Well. This was a shitshow,” she said, getting to her feet, cradling her now-empty coffee cup on top of her folder of messy papers. “I think I will just… go die of humiliation now.”
“How about you come in, I give you another cup of coffee, and we have the interview?” I suggested instead. “What?” I asked when her brows pinched, watching me like I’d grown another head.
“You’re serious?” she asked.
“Not usually,” I said, feeling something I hadn’t experienced in a long time, something that used to be such a defining characteristic of mine. Before life had changed me. A lightness. An ease. “I’m Emilio Costa,” I said, going back up a step to open the door once again, this time inviting someone in rather than kicking them out.
“Oh, ah, right. Um. I’m Avery,” she said, giving me a nod, then moving past me and into the house.
I had a feeling I’d just found my new housekeeper.
CHAPTER TWO
Avery
It was one of those days.
You know, those days.
The one where you oversleep your alarm, wake up disoriented for a moment before the panic sets in, making you jolt up in bed with your heart pounding as you throw off the blankets and stumble bleary-eyed to the bathroom.
The one where you realize you have absolutely no time to wash your hair, let alone style it.
The one where you are halfway out the door before the stomach cramps make you have to rush back inside, wasting time you already didn’t have, because you got your period out of nowhere and not only have to deal with that, but change your entire outfit because, well, you know.
Only to realize that you have nothing else presentable in your wardrobe that says “I am a professional and capable woman you should hire to oversee your multi-million-dollar home.”
In fact, all you have that isn’t wrinkled is jeans and a sweater.
And because of the unwelcome visitor and the mad dash of an outfit change, you don’t have time to eat anything, so you are feeling kind of crabby about that.
Then you rush in for a coffee to feel more human, remembering as you get up to the counter that you have all of, I don’t know, ten dollars left to your name, and that blowing seven of it on a fun, sugar-filled, caramel concoction that might actually lift your mood a little was probably a bad idea, so you drop four on a plain drip coffee that tastes like nothing but disappointment instead.