Maid for the Rock Star(27)

"Leon? He's not supposed to be driving," Audra began ominously.

"Nah, he got doctor's approval a fortnight ago, but he didn't have a car, so he borrowed yours." Sam grinned gleefully. "You should've seen him hit the letterbox on his first drive. One minute it's there, the next, SMASH. Bricks and dust everywhere. I never liked that letterbox."

"Leon. Our brother, Leon, who crashed his car and nearly killed himself, has been driving my uninsured and unlicensed car for a fortnight?!"

"Four weeks, actually," Sam volunteered. "He has a new girlfriend and he couldn't take her on a date on the bus, so he borrowed your car."

"BEN! I trusted you!" Audra bellowed.

A firm knock sounded at her door.

"I'm busy!" she called.

The knocking resumed.

Swearing, Audra told Sam, "I have to go. I get paid in a couple of days. I'll sort something out." She terminated the call, crossed the room in two strides and yanked open the door. "What?"

Serge folded his arms. "You all right?"

"Fine." Audra waved at the laptop. "Family problems."

"I heard. Actually, I think everyone on this side of the lagoon heard. If you need someone to talk to, you know I'm here."

Did his gaze drop to her chest, or was she imagining it? Jay couldn't be right. He couldn't be. Serge wasn't interested in her boobs or any part of her body. "Thanks, but I'm not sure there's much to say. What do you do when you want to kill your family?"

Serge grinned. "Work out. It's why I got into fitness, I guess." His smile faltered. "If you want, I have tomorrow morning free. I could give you a training session. Help you work off all that frustration."

She wished with all her being that she could take Penny's advice and take him to bed, eyeing the bulging biceps that showed at their best when he had his arms folded like that. She had frustration on all sides tonight.

Shit. Take advice from Penny, the bitch who gave blow jobs to every dick she saw and called HER a slut? The girl who was probably wrapped around Jay right now? Fuck no. Just the thought of that made her want to hit something.

"Yeah. Sure. Tomorrow," Audra said finally.

"It's a date." Serge sauntered off.

A date? Well, maybe. Tomorrow, she'd see. Right now, she just wanted to go to bed and sleep before anything else happened. Tomorrow couldn't be worse than today.





FORTY-FIVE



"So, you all set for this morning's session?" Serge greeted Audra as she set her breakfast on the table beside him.

She waved at her gym clothes. "As ready as I'll ever be. You know, you don't need to do this. I feel bad taking your time for free when you could be helping paid clients."

"Actually, you're doing me a favour. I need to get my hours up before I can take my next assessment. I'm ten hours short and if you want, they're all yours."

Ten hours? She'd never spent more than an hour in a gym and it'd been years since she'd done that. "Let's see how I go today first."

"Go for a high-protein, low-carbohydrate breakfast. Not too much fruit and sugar." He jerked his chin at Audra's bowl of mango yoghurt and muesli.

Audra opened her mouth to mutiny.

"Whew, that man has the stamina of a stud bull!" Penny stage-whispered as she plopped a plate of pancakes on the table. To Audra's horror, the girl slid into the seat beside her.

"What are you doing here?" Audra demanded.

Penny shrugged. "A girl's gotta eat. Can't live on cum alone." She winked as she rolled up a pancake and deep-throated it, much to the fascination of the IT guys at the next table.

Audra shoved her bowl away, feeling too nauseous to eat another bite. Not only had Penny seduced Jay and had sex with him in front of multiple witnesses, but the bitch hadn't even gotten fired for it. What the hell was wrong with the world?

"He fucked me all night. So big and hard and powerful...I'm going to have trouble walking all week. Not that I'll need to. As soon as I've eaten, it's back to bed for me." Penny looked gleeful. "I figure two more days of this and he won't want to let me go. He'll take me with him when he leaves the resort and I'll get to go to all his concerts free as a VIP myself." She sniffed. "Next time we're here, maybe you'll be my maid."

Over her rotting corpse. Audra jumped to her feet.

Two heavy hands landed on her shoulders. "Come on."

Audra allowed Serge to herd her out the door and in the direction of the gym. It wasn't until they reached the gym doors that she unclenched her fists, not sure whether to thank him or shout at him for interfering.

"I have the wraps, gloves and punching bag ready to go," Serge said, opening the door. He gave an extravagant bow. "After last night, I figured you'd want to hit things pretty hard."

He helped her wrap the bindings around her knuckles, then pull on the boxing gloves. Audra almost laughed. She felt like one of the boxing kangaroos they sold in the gift shop, a souvenir they'd started stocking after tourists talked about the fights between the young bucks that often happened on the road just outside of town. "You going to get me a strap-on tail like the gift shop toys, too?" she grumbled.

Serge stared at her in shock. "A...what?"

Audra sighed. "Never mind. Can I hit something yet?"

"Sure." He lined her up and gestured for her to punch the bag.

Audra swung her arm, imagining her fist colliding with Penny's chin. First one side, then the other, smacking into the...leather? PVC? Audra shrugged, not caring as long as the sound was satisfying. And it was.

"Wait. You want to make the blows unexpected, signalling as little as you can to your opponent, while making them as powerful as possible. Here, start by guarding your chest and your face. The power comes from your shoulder, flowing right through your arm, not from your wrist." Serge demonstrated, then helped her shift her arms to more of a boxer's stance. "Now, jab." He shadowboxed beside her, matching her blows, though only hers landed on the bag. "Good. Now let's see some repetitions. Try thirty and keep pace with me. One, two, three, four..."

Audra drove her fists into the bag on his count, feeling it sway slightly as she hit it harder. If it were Penny, she'd be breaking her ribs through her flat chest. She deserved it for making Audra's heart ache for Jay when she shouldn't have any feelings for him at all. Wouldn't, if Penny hadn't deliberately tried to make her jealous.

Goddamn it! Why did Penny get to have her way with Jay and still keep her job? If Audra knew she could've gotten away with it, maybe she'd have given in to Jay. Let him do all the things he'd said he would. That the tabloids – and the fangirls who said they'd slept with him – claimed he was brilliant at. Instead, the fickle bastard was with that conniving bitch and she wanted to pound her fist through the wall in frustration at the very thought of them together.

"Hey, hey! I said thirty! Stop for a break!" Serge grabbed her wrists and Audra relaxed. "Wow, you must be more pissed at your brother than I thought."

"My brother?" No, her brother wasn't banging Penny, and she didn't much care if he did.

"It was your brother who wrecked your car, right? I admit I was trying not to eavesdrop, but you were shouting so loud..."

Ben and Leon. Right. "One of them's been driving my car without a licence and he wrecked it, while the other took my money for registration and insurance and didn't pay them, so now I have to pay a huge fine as well as pay for repairs." Audra slammed both fists into the bag. "That's all my savings!"

"Make them pay for it. Their mess, after all."

"My car and they don't have the money. So I have to pay for it or lose my car."

Serge shrugged again. "So lose it. Is it worth less than you'll have to pay?"

Audra nodded.

"So stuff it. You don't use your car up here, and when you get your amazing job at some weather station in paradise, you'll have a work car. Keep your savings and tell them to fix your car by the time you get back. Not like you're in any hurry. They're your older brothers, aren't they? Grown men, anyway. They don't need you to take care of them. Let them sort it out."

"Not Leon. He's younger than me. And Ben...he got a girl pregnant in high school and all his money goes to child support. I can't, Serge. You don't understand."

"No, I don't. You've got the right to live your own life. You don't owe them. They owe you. If you don't leave them to themselves, they'll drag you down, Audra. Don't let them drag you under. You're so much better than that. You work so hard. You deserve to rise above...all that." Serge turned his head away and swiped a hand across his face, as if he was wiping away tell-tale moisture from his eyes. "I'll go get the sparring pads from the storeroom. You're going to pretend I'm your brother – both of them, if you want – and you're going to beat some sense into them." He nodded at the punching bag. "You do another thirty on that one while you're waiting."

Audra lined herself up and raised her gloved fists.

Wham.

That's for crashing your car and going missing.

Wham.

That's for drinking yourself into a stupor and not telling anyone about the accident.

Wham.

That's for not telling me and scaring the shit out of me when you almost died.

Wham.

That's for my taillights, Leon, and this –

Wham.

– is for the letterbox.