The Love Language of an Assassin

6

“Get in, find the list on the table like Mya said it would be and then get out,” Jesse mumbled to herself as she pulled her car to a stop outside the house. Mya had met her at the front gate and closed the gate behind her when she’d left. She said a security agent would be on the premises to let her out when she was done. Torben was in the house and was preparing for work. He usually left by seven-thirty on Mondays.

She entered the house, punched in the code Mya had given to her the Friday previously and found the list. She shoved it into her pocket. Kitchen, powder room, exercise room, salon. Top floor was bedroom and master bath along with a guest bedroom and a guest bath which needed to be done.

“f**k,” she mumbled to herself, “three toilets.”

She made her way to the kitchen and swept through it easily. Evidently, he knew how to load his own dishwasher because the dishes in it were clean, and she put them away. His kitchen was highly organized and based on what she’d read on the internet, he was a brilliant Norwegian scientist currently running his family’s worldwide pharmaceutical company. Allegedly there had been issues in the New York lab and for the last year or more, he’d been in the States trying to clean it up.

Thankfully today, the Italian tenors were not making an appearance to her ears. She hummed under her breath as she finished scrubbing the sink and wiping down the counters before moving to sweep the floors. As she moved along her humming turned into low singing and she squatted down to collect the minute amount of dust on the floors.

“You have a lovely voice,” a deep voice behind her spoke.

“Holy f**k!” she yelped, spilling the dustpan of dirt on the floor again. She spun on her heel and glared at him and instantly wished she hadn’t. “God, put a shirt on. Do you always walk around half-naked?”

“It’s my house, I just left the gym and I’m on my way to the shower,” his voice was mocking. “Just wanted to give you the heads up. I’m done in the gym and moving upstairs.”

Jesse tried to keep her gaze focused on his face, but her eyes kept getting pulled down to his wide shoulders, tapered waist and eight pack of abs. He was wearing a pair of grey sweatpants and she had to admit, while she had never understood the fascination her female friends had with them, suddenly she was a fan. She tore her eyes away from his amused gaze and moved to sweep up the dirt she’d spilled.

She was mumbling under her breath as he moved away, and she could hear him taking the stairs two at a time. “Stick to hot dog vendors, Chavez,” she warned herself. “Far less trouble and that man is trouble with a capital T.”

She fanned her face as she dumped the dust into the bin and then quickly ran a wet cleaning pad over the floor. She made her way to the gym and nodded her approval of the workout space. The notes had said she simply needed to wipe down the equipment and sweep through. It took no time to do what the list had suggested, and she made her way to the salon.

She tidied it up, swept through and then dusted the room. A dark droplet of crimson was on the area rug beside the oversized wingback chair, and she got on her hands and knees with a cloth and her mother’s infamous stain remover and easily got it off. She blotted it dry and then noticed another dot on the suede of the chair. Someone spilled their wine, she thought with a shake of her head. She found herself wondering whether it was a woman.

Had he brought a woman back here Saturday night, shared a glass of wine and had things get wildly out of control. Had caution been thrown to the wind? Had they spilled the wine before falling to the floor and making love? She stood up abruptly from the floor and grimaced, wondering what a blue light in the room would reveal if she had one.

The thought of him taking a lover passionately on the area rug made her stomach flip and she quickly dabbed the spot on the chair and blotted it, keeping her focus on removing the stains on both the chair and her filthy mind.

“The chair is suede,” he called as he passed by the salon

“My mother’s cleaner works on everything,” the devil in her decided to tease him, “hydrogen peroxide can remove anything, even wine stains.”

He backed up then, his icy eyes wide at her comment. “You did not just put hydrogen peroxide on my chocolate brown suede chair?”

“There was wine on the chair,” she shrugged as she moved to finish dusting the room. “Mom’s stain remover works wonders.”

“It will bleach it if it has hydrogen peroxi – “he trailed off as he caught her smirk. “Ah, you think you are funny.” He shook a long finger in his direction clearly not amused she’d toyed with him

She grinned, “well, we kids like to play pranks and all.”

He said nothing as he turned on his heel and walked away, the sound of his office door closing making her grin.

By the time she had finished cleaning the rest of the house, she was exhausted. Her mother earned every damn penny she made, and Jesse admitted, this house was nothing compared to other places she had cleaned with her mother. The man was a neat freak and really other than the fact the house was huge, there was no real challenge to cleaning the house.

The only time she’d had a struggle was in his personal bathroom, where the smell of his soap mixed with the burning image of his naked torso played with her mind while she scrubbed down his shower walls. The issue of course hadn’t been the cleaning tasks but her overactive libido and imagination.

She remembered Mya saying a security person would let her go but as she looked at her watch it was just coming on seven-thirty. She looked around outside for anyone to let her out the gate at the bottom of the driveway and she grimaced when she didn’t hear anyone in the house at all.

“Hello?” she called out in annoyance. “Damn it.” She sighed and picked up the bin of cleaning supplies and slipped out of the house. She slammed the items into the trunk of her car and then leaned on it, wondering when the security person would be there. She knew her mother usually worked until eight in the morning, but she was younger, faster and could take the stairs with much more ease than her mother could. She was done thirty minutes quicker than her mother would have.

She sighed and rubbed her fingers across her forehead. She was going to have sit here for thirty minutes until security came to let her out.

“Done already?” the sound of Torben’s voice called from the front door.

“Doc! You’re still here,” she tried to ignore the way her stomach fluttered at the way he casually jogged down his front steps or how fine his long legs looked in the suit he was wearing. “Mya said you’d be gone by now and your security would be here at eight to let me out. I’m finished. Thought I was going to have to wait half an hour for them.”

“I’ll let you out,” he got close to her as he flicked a key fob and his garage door opened. “Nice car,” he nodded at her Audi.

“Thanks, got it for myself when I got my masters.” She almost slapped her face at the revelation. Two seconds ago, she wanted to get out of here and now she was telling her life story.

“You have a masters?”

“In forensic linguistics,” she nodded awkwardly. “I do a lot of freelance work for a couple of the bigger law firms in the city and occasionally for the DA and then a couple other firms in the city use my translation skills as well.” She mentally chastised herself for the verbal diarrhea. She was just spilling it all.

“And you speak seventeen languages,” he smiled as if impressed. “It must have taken a lot of study to get there.”

“Yes and no,” she shrugged, “my brain is wired weird, and I can pick up languages easily. My mother says it’s a gift. Didn’t feel like a gift when I was twelve and I understood what the boys on the corner were saying in Spanish even though I only spoke English, Italian and Korean. Broke both of their noses and got arrested.”

“Three-part question,” he held up three fingers, “what they said to make you break their noses and how is Korean one of the first languages you speak. Finally, your last name is Chavez, how did you not know Spanish?”

She held up one finger, “they commented on my ass in a very inappropriate manner, and I was a feisty twelve-year-old,” she added a finger, “I started taking Taekwondo at the age of three and my sensei was Korean and he refused to speak to me in English, the crazy old bastard,” she held up a third finger, “and my last name was changed to Chavez in honor of my stepfather. He came into our lives right around then and he is a great man. My brother on his eighteenth birthday legally changed his name to Dad’s. I did the same on my eighteenth birthday. He did teach me Spanish when he moved in with us when I was thirteen. I asked him not to speak any English to me for a year. It worked.”

He couldn’t help but smile at the pride in her voice before he looked at his watch in panic, “damn, I need to be in Manhattan in an hour.”

“You better get a move on,” she waved at him grinning. Her phone rang suddenly, and she dug it out watching the retreating man’s back, “Clara Draxton! What are you doing blowing up my phone at seven thirty-five on a Monday morning?” She saw Torben stop in his steps and turn back to face her. She waved and got into her car.

“You alone?”

“I am now, just got into my car. What’s up?”

“Wondering if you can swing by my offices this morning. I have a meeting at eight-thirty, but I have a new hire coming in around the same time. She’s going to be working in our IT dept and she speaks truly little English. She’s smart and she’ll pick it up, but I need a translator for her to review her contract with her.” Clara was quiet, “she’s a Bellona asset we’re relocating to New York. We’ll be using her for office use only but her family back in Italy were putting pressure on her to marry a local boy. By pressure I mean they threatened to kill her if she refused.”

“Wonder if we’re related. Sounds like s**t my dad’s family would have pulled.” She waved as Torben drove past her and signalled for her to follow him down the driveway.

“We’ve given her a new identity and she’ll be staying at one of Isabella’s properties. There’s no way they will ever find her but she’s amazing with the computer. Her English is less than basic. We need you to go through her docs with her.” Clara chuckled. “Can you come give her a warm welcome?”

“I can.” She honked as she drove past the Volkswagen and sped off. “Just leaving the estate of Doctor Torben Haugen. I could be there in about forty-five minutes.”

“Uh, that’s weird. Why are you there?”

“Why is it weird? Mom cleans his house. She had her appendix out early Friday morning and has relegated me to cleaning crew.”

“It’s weird, cause he’s my eight-thirty.”

“Huh, he’s going to think I really am following him like a stalker. Have I got a story for you?” She chuckled as she relayed the story from Friday morning to Clara.

“I think I would have let my mother lose her business before I cleaned some man’s toilets. I have a man and a boy in my house, and I can tell you, neither of them has good aim.” Clara muttered disgustedly.

“Well, one down, five more visits to go and I’ll be free. With luck, Paloma will be back soon. I’m going to let you go and I’ll see you in a bit.” She hung up the phone and grinned as the topic of their conversation overtook her. Obviously, he was concerned he was going to be late to his appointment

Because of her affiliation with Bellona, she had access to a parking garage not far from Draxton Enterprises. She walked the short distance and she saw him approaching the reception desk, just ahead of her.

“Hey Ben!” She called out to Clara’s head of security who had obviously come down to collect Torben

“Hey Jesse,” Ben grinned, “Clara said she called you in to translate for the new girl?”

“Yup,” the receptionist dug into a drawer and pulled a special VIP badge out for her. “Thanks Denise. Have a good day.”

Torben stared at her incredulously and she chuckled. When she had left his house, she had no make-up, hair in a ponytail, raggedy jeans, and her beloved Doc Martens. She’d changed in the parking garage into her pencil skirt, wrap around silk blouse, a pair of thigh-high boots with a decent heel on them and she’d quickly pulled a straightener through her hair. She had put on minimal make-up and looked every bit the professional Manhattan businesswoman. She knew he was trying to figure out how she had transformed so quickly. The life of a spy and an assassin trained her to be fast.

“Clara mentioned IT. I assume I’m heading there or am I going to HR?”

“Go to IT and if she’s not there, she could still be with Lisa in HR. Lisa was going to give her the full packet for you to go over with her. Poor girl doesn’t speak a word of English.” Ben waved to the man at his side, “Jesse have you ever met Doctor Torben Haugen? He’s here to meet with Clara.” He nodded to Torben, “Jesse is a staple around here. If your meeting with Clara is successful, you’ll likely see her around.”

“We’ve met. We’re old friends. I’ve been in his house a couple times and even saw him out clubbing Saturday night,” she grinned at he continued to stare at her wordlessly. She stood next to the men in the elevator rocking on her heels

“Nice to see you got out of the Doc Martens,” Ben commented with a grin. “Your legs look good in those boots.”

“Ben. Are you flirting with me?” she batted her lashes at him.

“I wouldn’t dare,” he grinned, “my boss would have my balls.”

The elevator opened on her floor, and she stepped out backwards winking at him, “she has no use for them, Ben. I might.” She grinned at his loud laugh and walked away with the knowledge if Torben Haugen had thought she was a little girl on Friday, he damn well knew she was a woman today.