Runaway Lawyer Falls in Love with Billionaire

Chapter 11

I’m hot all over. This tray is bloody heavy. I can’t stand outside their room with a cup of tea all morning. Shall I just … retreat?

I’m about to turn round and creep away. Then determination comes over me. No. Don’t be so feeble. I’ve made the tea. They can always tell me to leave.

I grip the tray tightly and bang the corner hard against the door. They have to have heard that.

After a moment, Tanya’s voice rises up. “Come in!”

I feel a swell of relief. They’re expecting me. I knew they would be. Somehow I turn the doorknob while balancing the tray against the door. I push the door open and walk into the room.

Tanya looks up from the canopied mahogany bed, where she’s sprawled on a pile of lace pillows, alone. She’s wearing a silky nightie, her hair is disheveled, and makeup is smudged about her eyes. For a moment she looks startled to see me.

“Olivia,” she says sharply. “What do you want? Is everything all right?”

I have an immediate, horrible feeling I’ve done the wrong thing. My gaze doesn’t move from hers, but my peripheral vision starts to register a few details in the room. I can see a book called Sensual Enjoyment on the floor. And a bottle of musk-scented massage oil. And …

A well-worn copy of The Joy of s*x. Right by the bed. Open at “Turkish Style.”

OK. So they weren’t expecting tea.

I swallow, trying to keep my composure, desperately pretending I haven’t seen anything.

“I … brought you a cup of tea,” I say, my voice cracking with nerves. “I thought you might … like one.”

Do not look at The Joy of s*x. Keep your eyes up.

Tanya’s face relaxes. “Olivia! You treasure! Put it down!” She waves an arm vaguely at a bedside table.

I’m just starting to move toward it when the bathroom door opens and Eddie emerges, naked except for a pair of too-tight boxer shorts, displaying a quite staggeringly hairy chest.

Somehow I manage not to drop the entire tray on the floor.

“I’m … I’m sorry,” I stammer, backing away. “I didn’t realize …”

“Don’t be silly! Come in!” exclaims Tanya gaily. She now seems completely reconciled to me being in her bedroom. “We’re not prudish.”

OK, I’m really wishing they were. Cautiously I edge further toward the bed, stepping over a mauve lace bra. I find a place for the tray on Tanya’s bedside cabinet by pushing aside a photo of her and Eddie sitting in a Jacuzzi, holding up glasses of champagne.

I pour out the tea as fast as I can and hand a cup to each of them. I cannot look Eddie in the eye. In what other job do you see your boss naked?

Only one other occupation springs immediately to mind. Which isn’t that encouraging.

“Well … I’ll go now,” I mumble, head down.

“Don’t rush off!” Tanya sips her tea with relish. “Mmm. Now you’re here, I wanted to have a little chat! See where we are with things.”

“Er … right.” Her nightie is gaping and I can see the edge of her n****e. I hastily look away and find myself catching the eye of the bearded guy in The Joy of s*x as he contorts himself.

I can feel my face flaming with embarrassment. What kind of surreal weirdness is this, that I am standing in the bedroom of two people, pretty much strangers to me, being practically shown how they have s*x? And they don’t seem remotely bothered.…

And then it comes to me. Of course. I’m staff. I don’t count.

“So, is everything all right, Olivia?” Tanya puts her cup down and gives me a beady look. “You’ve got your routine sorted? All under control?”

“Absolutely.” I grope for a competent-sounding phrase. “I’m pretty much … on top of everything.” Aaargh. “I mean … getting to grips with it all.”

Aaaargh.

She takes a sip of tea. “I expect you’ll be tackling the laundry today.”

The laundry. I hadn’t even thought about the laundry.

“Only I’d like you to change the sheets when you make the beds,” she adds.

Make the beds?

I feel a slight twinge of panic.

“Obviously I have my own … er … established routine,” I say, trying to sound casual. “But it might be an idea if you give me a list of duties.”

“Oh.” Tanya looks a little irritated. “Well … if you really think you need it …”

“And I, Olivia, must go through your terms and conditions later on,” says Eddie. He’s standing in front of the mirror, holding a dumbbell. “Let you know what you’ve got yourself into.” He guffaws, then with a slight grunt lifts the weight above his head. His stomach is rippling with the effort. And not in a good way.

“So … I’ll get on with … things.” I start backing toward the door.

“See you later, then, at breakfast.” Tanya gives me a cheery little wave from the bed. “Ciao ciao!”

I cannot keep up with Tanya’s mood shifts. We seemed to have lurched straight from employer-employee to people-enjoying-a-luxury-cruise-together.

“Er … bye then!” I say, matching her chirpy tone. I bob a curtsy, step over her bra again, and exit the room as quickly as I can.

Breakfast is a bit of a nightmare. It takes me three failed attempts before I realize how you’re supposed to cut a grapefruit in half. You’d think they’d make it clearer. They could draw guidelines round them, or have perforations, or something. Meanwhile the milk for the coffee boils over—and when I plunge down the cafetière, the coffee explodes everywhere. Luckily Tanya and Eddie are so busy arguing about where to go on their next holiday, they don’t seem to notice what’s going on in the kitchen.

When they’ve finished, I stack the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and am desperately trying to remember how I made it work yesterday, when Tanya comes into the kitchen.

“Olivia, Mr. Geiger would like to see you in his study,” she says. “To discuss your pay and conditions. Don’t keep him waiting!”

“Er … very good, madam.” I curtsy, then smooth down my uniform and head out into the hall. I approach the door of Eddie’s study and knock twice.

“Come in!” replies a jovial voice. I walk in to find Eddie sitting behind his desk—a huge affair of mahogany and tooled leather—with an expensive-looking laptop in front of him. He’s fully clothed by now, thank God, in tan trousers and a sports shirt.

“Ah, Olivia. Ready for our little meeting?” Eddie gestures to an upright wooden chair, and I sit down. “Here we are! The document you’ve been waiting for!”

With a self-important air he hands me a folder marked housekeeper’s contract. I open it up to find a title sheet on cream vellum paper.

CONTRACT OF AGREEMENT

Between Olivia Sweeting and Mr. and Mrs. Edward Geiger, this first day of July in the year of our Lord two thousand and four.

“Wow,” I say in surprise. “Did a lawyer draw this up?”

“I didn’t need a lawyer.” Eddie chuckles knowingly. “Downloaded it from the Internet. And obviously amended it slightly. All you need is a bit of common sense.”

I turn over the title sheet and run my eyes down the printed clauses. I have to bite my lip as I take in phrases here and there, presumably Eddie’s “amendments.”

“Now, I know it looks frightening!” says Eddie, misinterpreting my silence. “But don’t be intimidated by all these long words. Did you have a chance to look at the pay?”

My eye flicks to the figure quoted in bold under Weekly Salary. It’s slightly less than I charged per hour as a lawyer.

“It seems extremely generous,” I say after a pause. “Thank you very much, sir.”

“Is there anything you don’t understand?” He beams jovially. “Just say!”

“Um … this bit.” I point to Clause 7: Hours. “Does this mean I have the whole weekend off? Every weekend?”

“Unless we’re entertaining.” Eddie nods. “In which case you’ll have two days off in lieu … You’ll see in clause nine …”

I’m not listening. Every weekend free. I can’t get my head around this idea. I don’t think I’ve had a totally free weekend since I was about twelve.

“That’s great.” I look up, unable to stop myself smiling. “Thanks very much!”

“Didn’t your previous employers give you weekends off?” Eddie looks taken aback.

“Well, no,” I say truthfully. “Not really.”

“They sound like slave drivers!” He beams. “Now, I’ll leave you alone for a while to study the agreement before you sign.”

“I’ve pretty much read it—” I halt as Eddie raises a hand in reproof.

“Olivia, Olivia, Olivia,” he says in avuncular tones, shaking his head. “I’m going to give you a little tip that will stand you in good stead in life. Always read legal documents very carefully.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, my nose twitching with the effort of staying deadpan. “I’ll try to remember that.”

As Eddie disappears from the room, I look down at the contract again, rolling my eyes. I pick up a pencil and automatically start correcting the text, rephrasing, scoring out, and adding queries in the margin.

What am I doing?

I grab an eraser and hastily erase all my amendments. I reach for a Biro and turn to the bottom of the page.

Name: Olivia Sweeting.

Occupation:

I hesitate for a moment … then put Domestic Help.

I’m really doing this. I’m really committing to this job, miles away from my former life in every sense. And no one knows what I’m doing.

I have a sudden flash on my mother’s face, on the expression she’d have if she knew where I was right now … if she could see me in my uniform … her reaction.… It would be as though some seismic world catastrophe had occurred. I’m almost tempted to call her up and tell her what I’m doing.

But I’m not going to. And I haven’t got time to think about her. I have laundry to do.

It takes me two trips to bring down all the washing to the laundry room, just off the kitchen. I dump the overflowing baskets on the tiled floor and look at the hi-tech washing machine. This should be simple enough. Experimentally, I open the door of the machine and at once an electronic display starts flashing at me. WASH? WASH?

Immediately I feel flustered. Obviously I want you to wash, I feel like snapping back. Just give me a chance to get the bloody clothes in.

Stay calm. One thing at a time. First step: sort the clothes. Feeling pleased with myself for having thought of this, I start sorting out the dirty clothes into piles on the floor, consulting the labels as I go. As I’m peering at one marked Wash with GREAT CARE, I hear Tanya coming into the kitchen, clearly on the phone.

“You’re right,” she’s saying, her voice trembling. “You’re right! But he doesn’t see it like that! And let me tell you, I’ve tried!”

I freeze in embarrassment. Does Tanya know I’m in here? Should I cough?

“I don’t want to play golf! Is there nothing else we can do together?” I glance out of the laundry door into the kitchen and to my horror see Tanya at the table, dabbing at her eyes with a pink tissue. “It’s all right for him! He has no idea what it’s like for me!”

Hastily I duck back into the laundry and start busily shoving clothes into the drum at random. If Tanya comes in, she’ll see me dutifully at work, impervious to her conversation. I shake some washing powder into the little tray at the top and close the door firmly. Now what?

WASH? the machine is still flashing at me. WASH?