Victoria The Billionaires Maid

Immediately, I called her back, but it went straight to voicemail. I braced my elbow on the roof of my car and shut my eyes, hearing her pained voice on repeat in my head.

Hating every second.

“Fuck,” I muttered, stepping back and yanking open my door.

Maybe I wouldn’t have to worry about her saying no. God knows I’d bungled this situation in every possible way. And I might have screwed up more than just my slim chances of her agreeing to my plan.

I might have just lost my best friend too.

Ally’s [POV]

I stared at the ceiling and frowned at the watermark in the corner. Had that been there before? I covered my face with my arms and pulled my knees up to my chest as I stretched out my back.

I’d been on the floor for the last ten minutes. Mostly because my furniture was either packed or sold off. If the five dollar college student special counted as sold anyway.

My day had started at five in the morning to open the diner, then I’d gone right to my-no, not mine anymore. The house. Now, the only thing familiar were the ghostly shapes from my mother’s old medical equipment in the battered hardwood.

Hospice had come to collect them last month and I hadn’t had the heart to come back into her space since then.

I held my hand up to catch the speckled bits of sunlight that peeked from the trees surrounding this corner of the house. Dust motes danced through the fading rays as I dropped my arms over my knees to pull them closer.

My body ached almost as much as my head. Between the long hours at the Rusty Spoon and packing up the house, I hadn’t had time to do anything more than fall on my face in sheer exhaustion. Lather-rinse-and-repeat.

Okay, so maybe some of it was to avoid thinking about Seth’s question.

Because if I was so tired I was blind, I didn’t have to re-read the two page contract that he had tucked behind my tentative house sale contract.

I released my knees and sprawled out on the floor spread eagle. What the hell had he been thinking?

I was obviously going to say no. There was no way I could contemplate having his baby for a college education. First of all…paying me to be his broodmare was archaic. Second, I couldn’t survive it.

Simple as that.

My nipples hardened and I crossed my arms over my chest. See? I couldn’t even think the words sex and Seth and not react. The fact that my body wasn’t cooperating with my firm no was getting really annoying.

I shut my eyes as the word firm teased out a memory of Seth shifting in the booth as he explained his plans for me. When he’d stood over me, there had been little doubt he meant what he said. Oh, the dark denim masked most of his…situation, but there was a bulge behind his zipper that I had to stop thinking about.

“Where are you?” Sage’s voice rang out from the front of the tiny house. She really just had to walk in a small circle and she’d find me.

“Here,” I called out.

“Should I worry that you’re on the floor?”

I peered at the doorway, but instead of Sage’s face, there was a huge arrangement of lilacs and daisies tucked into a copper watering can.

I didn’t need to look at the card to know it was from Seth. My head thunked back onto the hardwood. “Dammit.” I slung my arm back over my face. Why the hell did he have to remember both me and my mama’s favorite flowers?

Couldn’t he be like the guys I heard my friends complain about? The clueless boyfriends or husbands who bought them a vacuum instead of a bracelet for an anniversary?

That guy was easy to ignore.

This one?

Not so much.

Add in thirteen years of being my best friend and I was friggin’ toast.

“Where do you want me to put this? And why don’t you have any furniture?”

I hauled myself off the floor. ?

? By the door is fine. In fact, put it in your car and take it home.”

Sage put down the jumbo watering can. “I will take it home, but only because it’s your home now too. Or did you forget that little fact?”

“Of course not.” I tucked a stray curl out of my face and back into my fraying French braid. Like a damn homing beacon, I couldn’t stop myself from crossing to the flowers. I brushed the back of my knuckles along the delicate lilac petals before curling my fingers back into my dirty palms. A fine later of dust caked my hands, arms, and knees from packing and hauling boxes. “And that’s why I didn’t need all this stuff.”

“We could have put it in storage,” Sage said with a flutter of hands.

I dabbed at the sweat on my forehead. I needed a shower something fierce. “None of it was worthy of storage.”

Her huge green eyes were about a blink away from tears. “There has to be something you want to keep.”

“Would that be the cracked Walmart lamp, or the sagging wicker round chair circa 1994?”

“Stop. You can’t throw everything away, dammit.”

Sage actually stomped her foot. It was sort of cute in a fluffy half unicorn, half pixie kind of way. The unicorn half was the one that had a little mettle behind her words. She wasn’t a pushover, even if she was the sweetest, most fanciful woman I knew.

“Some kids from the university came and took me up on my bargain basement deals.”

“You didn’t use Craigslist.”

When I didn’t disabuse her of that little statement, her eyebrows shot up.

“Are you insane? And why didn’t you wait until I got here?”

I shrugged. “Not like I couldn’t handle myself.”

“You are on a semi-secluded road a quarter mile away from the road and the lake. Anything could have happened.”

“Okay, Ann Rule.”

“Don’t joke. We watch those shows together, woman. Anything could have happened. They could have kidnapped you and put you in the back of their van-”

“Before you get all bent, there was no van, Scooby Doo Magical Mystery van or otherwise. They had an old rusted truck with a flatbed that wouldn’t even close properly. The most exciting part of the whole endeavor was us wrestling with bungee cords to get them safely back onto the highway.”

Sage tipped back her head. “You’re incredible.”

“Thank you.”

She shoved me. “Not funny.”

“A little funny.”

Her lips twitched, but she managed to keep a straight face.

“Aww, come on, Sage.” I hooked an arm around her hips before wrinkling my nose and pulling away. “Sorry, I’m too dirty to be touching you.”

She hauled me in for a hug. “Dusty is part of moving. At least you smell like sunshine. How you doin’, girl?”Original from NôvelDrama.Org.

“God, I doubt it.” But I hooked an arm around her and hugged her back. When the lump I’d been jamming down my throat and belly started to rise up, I eased away from her. “I’m okay.” At least I would be as long as she didn’t look at me with those big leafy green eyes puddled with tears.

“My mom sent over some food for us.”

“Not diner food?”

She laughed. “Not diner food.”

“God bless her. Though it’s Mother’s Day, she shouldn’t be cooking. And God, I’m sorry. You shouldn’t be here helping me on her day.”

Sage waved me off. “We all made her a big French Toast breakfast.”

As Sage spoke, I wandered over to the box half-full of the crocheted blankets my mom used to wear when she out here. No matter how warm or cold it was, she was forever bundled under the rainbow patchwork blanket.

That I would keep.

And a few others.

Okay, all of them. I could get rid of most of the junk we’d collected over the last six years, but not those.

Sage pulled the blanket out and buried her nose in the ancient yarn. I had to turn away again and suck in a long, slow breath.

I was not going to cry.

I’d already done that when I’d folded them up the first time. The lavender essential oils she’d been using at the very end had become her scent. As soothing and soft as her tissue paper skin.

My phone buzzed again, distracting me from thoughts better left in the past.

I’d been in denial mode for days. Three of his messages were still on my notifications. Every time I caught a glimpse of them, I flipped my phone over and ignored.

Even swiping them awa, y I’d have to read something.

Nope and nope.

“Still ignoring him?”

“Hmm?”

“Well, if you don’t want to talk about the house or your mom, then jackass is the next best thing.”

I rolled my eyes as I lifted onto my toes to reach the clock on the wall. Though Sage was all about finding Mr. Right, she thought Seth was an entitled pain in the ass with a cocky attitude. Some of that probably had to do with her even worse opinion of Seth’s brother.

And, yes, Seth was most of those things, but even when he was being a complete jackass, he was still better than most men I knew. There were some rose-colored glasses involved. I could admit that much, but then he went and did things like the flowers.

I fought the urge to touch them again. No. I wasn’t going to dwell.

Instead I brought the clock with me as I crossed the room. Carefully, I tucked the old starburst cabinet between two of the blankets. It might be hideous, but she’d loved the rose-gold clock. We’d moved a few times over the years and it always went with us.