Fake Maid by Cassie Mint

Three

Eli

Imessed up. Again. Something about this maid makes me snappish and slow. She twists me in knots, so desperate for tiny details of her that I try to blunder my way to them by brute force.

She was right to smack me down. I would never demand details of my other employees like that, and yet with her, if I don’t find out more about her, I’ll go insane. Something about her heats my blood, makes the back of my neck prickle and my chest constrict. The second her tunic whips around the corner, I miss her.

Fuck.

Did she always affect me like this? Surely I’ve seen her before around my home. Yet I’ve never hungered for her this way before.

She’s going entirely the wrong way to reach the pool, but something tells me Coral is in no mood to clean.

Fine. Let her storm around the mansion. Hopefully she’ll burn off her anger and let me near again.

I scowl down at my cast, picking at the bandages as I stroll along the corridor to a set of French doors. This was a requirement for the architect—I wanted constant access to the outdoors. In every room, in every direction, the mansion has balconies, gardens, arched doorways. All for this: the salty breeze from the ocean tugging at my hair as I stroll down the stone steps into the grounds.

The breeze is cool, but still my face is flushed hot. Not just my face—I’m burning all over. I have been since that first glimpse of Coral in the library, tracing the feather duster over her stomach. Since I heard her husky voice, laced with amusement.

I hiss out a breath, adjusting my jeans. Two weeks of ‘bed rest’ of knowing she’s near the whole time…

I’m screwed. She’ll ruin me.

My assistant answers on the first ring. I press the phone to my ear, glancing back toward the mansion, but there’s no movement through the French doors.

“David? I need everything we know about Coral Walsh. Email it over in the next ten minutes.”

“Yes, sir. Is she a competitor?”

“What? No. She’s a maid.”

The silence is deafening. I scuff my sneaker over the patio. Then: “A maid, sir? At your residence?”

“Obviously.” I scrub a hand over my face. “Where else would I have seen her?”

“Right. Uh. Okay. Is she—is there a problem with her work?”

Lord save me from pointless questions. I screw my eyes shut, breathing in a lungful of sea air.

“There’s no problem. And David?”

“Yes?”

“Is this really how you want to spend your ten minutes?”

He apologizes and hangs up quickly, but I barely hear him at all. Not when I’ve just spotted a flash of red hair. Sure, plenty of people are redheads, but her glossy waves are something else. She looks like a mermaid.

I squint at the shadows moving in the next wing over. She found the pool.

Maybe she’s had enough time to cool off. I shove my uninjured hand in my pocket and stroll across the grounds.

* * *

“Hi there, I’m just—oh. It’s you.”

The mop dangles by her side, and she sweeps her hair off her forehead with her cast. Her cheeks are pink from the pool house heat, and her forehead is dewy.

She’s delicious.

“I missed you too, Coral.”

“It’s Miss Walsh,” she grits out. She spins on her heel, turning her back to me and swabbing awkwardly at the tiles. I can’t pretend that I’m an expert in mopping—not many tech moguls are—but I stride over and pluck the handle out of her hands.

“Hey!”

I offer it back. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you want to do this part yourself?”

Her mouth twitches, and I fight back a grin. If I can make her laugh, really laugh, I’ll die happy. And when she raises her chin, fixing those emerald green eyes on me in challenge, my cock hardens in my jeans.

“No. No, you’re right. I’d like nothing more than to watch you try to mop, Mr. Koven.”

“Have you no faith in me? I’m wounded.”

She smirks. “None at all.”

Coral hasn’t stepped away. She’s close enough that I could reach out and touch. I could rake my fingers through her red hair; I could run my thumb over her plump bottom lip. She watches me wide-eyed, breath hitching in her lungs.

Instead, I swab at the tiles, inhaling deeply through my nose, but the pool chemicals are too strong. I can’t smell her, can’t get a hint of her shampoo or perfume.

It’s another thing to add to the list. Another detail I desperately need.

“Why pay your staff if you’d rather do it all yourself?”

I grin at her. “For the company, I suppose.”

I’m joking of course, but I’m surprised to hear a ring of truth to my words. I have plenty of friends, an army’s worth of employees, but since exchanging a few words with Coral in the library, I’ve felt oddly lonely whenever she’s out of my sight.

This is a big mansion to live in alone. It never bothered me before.

Now I don’t want her to leave.

Not even to go home at the end of her shift. I want her to finish work, change out of her tunic, and stay with me. Laughing and teasing and undressing me with her eyes the way she does when she thinks I’m not looking.

Wait. Scratch that. I don’t want her to work a shift then stick around. I don’t want her to work here at all.

I want her to live here. To eat breakfast at the kitchen bar; to slip into this pool in a skimpy bikini.

I want her in my bed. On my balcony. Perched on my lap in my office.

God. What is happening to me?

“Mr. Koven?”

Coral frowns at me, concerned. Apparently I’ve been staring at her in wide-eyed horror. I clear my throat, rubbing my cast over my chest, and swab harder at the tiles.

“Call me Eli. Do you like working here, Coral?”

Is it just me, or does she shrink inside herself when I call her that? Does she honestly prefer being called Miss Walsh?

She nods, plucking at her tunic.

“Yes. Very much.”

“And did you… always… want to be a maid?”

Shit, what a weird question to ask. And I said it so awkwardly, she’ll think I’m insulting her. I’m not judging her—far from it. I fully believe that this young woman could be anything she chose. The world must offer itself up to her.

She snorts, amused, and my shoulders relax. I swab a new section, relishing the ache in my muscles. It’s been too long already since I moved my body.

“I, um.” She darts a glance at me, chewing on her lip. Deciding how much she wants to reveal.

All of it, I will her privately. I want all of it. Every thought in her head, every secret dream, every whisper-soft inch of her skin.

“I want to be a model, actually.”

“Ah.” I laugh bitterly. “You won’t be here long.”

Her frown deepens. “What do you mean?”

I wave vaguely up and down the length of her body with my cast.

“I give it a week, max, before the whole world knows your name.”

Her cheeks flush with pleasure and she ducks her head. Not out of shyness, but to keep her reaction to herself. She’s private, then. And when she looks up again, that spark from earlier is back. The tension crackles in the air between us.

Her eyes dip to my throat. Down to my chest, sliding over my broad shoulders. Coral likes what she sees when she takes in my body. She’s shameless in her perusal, her gaze greedy as she wets her lip.

I swell harder in my jeans, and her eyes drop there, too.

Fuck.

“Do you enjoy torturing me, Miss Walsh?”

Her mouth twitches. “Am I torturing you? How?”

“By looking at me like something to eat.” I drop the mop handle with a clatter, stepping close, but she doesn’t retreat an inch. She looks up at me, pupils blown wide. “Do you want a taste, darling?” Her chest shudders under her tunic as she sucks in a breath. “Shall I push you to your pretty knees?”

My heart stops when she leans forward. Coral places a palm on my chest, rocking up onto her toes to bring her face close to mine. I’m rigid with tension, practically vibrating with the effort to hold myself back. To keep from crushing her against my chest and claiming her.

She smirks, then runs the tip of her pert nose up the side of my throat. There’s a flash of white, then she’s pulling my bottom lip between her teeth.

A groan shudders through me, and she lets me go and steps back.

“Maybe you should. Do you think you could handle it, Mr. Koven?”

Holy shit. I’ve never been so hard. And judging by the smug look on her face, she knows it too. She sashays over to the fallen mop, bending at the waist to pluck it off the tiles.