Maid To The Billionaire(10)

“I won’t. Thanks Liz.”



“Thank you. Your night at the mansion is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in months.” I laughed, hugged her and headed for the shower. I got really lucky in the roommate department. When I couldn’t stand living with my mother and her endless string of “dates” any longer, I answered an ad in the Orange County Register for a female roommate. That was three years ago and Liz has grown to be my best friend. She’s a little older than me. She just turned twenty-nine. She’s a beautiful woman with shoulder length dark hair and really intense green eyes. She models for some local catalogs and she does character work as a Princess at the major theme park in Anaheim. She broke up with her boyfriend of two years a few months ago because she found out he’d been cheating on her for almost an entire year. The first two months, she swore off men completely. I could tell now that she was coming back around.



After talking with her and taking my shower, I felt slightly better. Then she did leave to go to work and I was left with my own swirling thoughts in my head. By the end of the day I had myself not only fired, but tarred, feathered and strung up in the town square with a giant “A” on my chest. After all… even if none of the other sins were great enough to punish myself for, he was still legally married.





CHAPTER FIVE





VICTORIA





I woke up Monday morning with the largest butterflies in my stomach in history. I was due at work at seven. I had no idea if I still had a job. I had no idea if any of the other staff knew about what Alex and I had done, and I had no idea what he was thinking of me. How was I going to face him? I’d never had to face anyone after an afternoon tryst that was going nowhere before. I didn’t have a choice however. I had to go into work and face the music one way or the other. I was a big girl who had made a stupid decision. Everyone does it at least once in their lives, right? I needed to suck it up and if necessary, suffer the consequences.



I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. I stepped in and stood under the showerhead, letting the water beat down over me in steamy rivulets. I closed my eyes and leaned my head into the cool tiles as the heat soaked into my skin. I tried to visualize the stress being washed off me and sucked down into the drain… disappearing into the ocean somewhere and leaving me renewed. It didn’t quite work that way, but by the time I was finished showering and I had dressed in my crisp uniform and put my hair into a neat bun, I at least felt strong enough to face whatever came. I’d been through a lot in my life. I could handle this.



When I got to work, I parked in the lot next to the cook, Gregory’s Mercedes. He was a retired Wall Street millionaire who had gone to culinary school because he was bored. I only knew that because Manny told me. He said that Gregory wouldn’t take any money for working for the Reigns. All he asked was that he be allowed to take what was left over in the kitchen with him each day to share with the homeless shelter he sponsored. Manny also told me that Alex not only agreed; he also gave the shelter a monthly stipend of his own. That was another point in his favor, not that I was looking for them. I knew rationally that our tryst was just that and even if Alex had wanted to make more of it, I’m sure it would be completely unheard of and unacceptable in his position.



I walked into the service entrance, put my purse and sweater in the locker there and then went through the kitchen on my way to pick up my housekeeping cart. I was stopped in my tracks at the sight of Alex, sitting at the table doing some kind of drawing of a landscape on his laptop. Alex’s landscaping designs were brilliant, and although his parents had been wealthy I read somewhere that the only money he took from them was what he’d used to start his business. Since then, he’d amassed his own fortune thanks to his hard work and talent.



He must have felt me looking at him because he turned all at once and smiled. “Good morning, Vicki.” He was smiling. He was still calling me Vicki. My stomach stilled a little bit and against my better judgment, my heart gave a little flutter.



“Good morning Mr. Reigns.” I wasn’t naked in his bed. I knew enough about professionalism to know that during the day with the cook standing not three feet away now, he was no longer Alex.



“Good morning!” Gregory’s voice boomed as he stepped out of the walk-in freezer. “Are you hungry Victoria? I was about to make Mr. Reigns some of my magic waffles before he leaves for his trip.” His trip? He was leaving? Why did I care? Oh Vicki! Pull it together!



“No thank you, Gregory. I should get to work.”