The only thing I’d ever been that passionate about was getting drunk and getting laid...and yet I was apparently the one who came from a higher station in life.
What a load of crap. Keira was well above me, whether she knew it or not.
Without meaning to, and without even realizing that I was doing it, I’d fallen into staring. As Keira finished making the bed, she looked up and noticed my stare for the first time, and I quickly turned away. Shit. Had she thought I was perving again? Trying to see up her skirt? Leering at that admittedly fabulous body? I thought I saw a flicker pass across her face, but it was too quick to identify as a specific expression, so I figured I must’ve imagined it.
“Sorry,” I muttered, my eyes returning to my breakfast. I felt a million miles from the man I’d been yesterday morning. It was utterly bizarre, the effect her quiet humility had on me.
“Will that be all, your Highness?” she asked. If she’d been offended by my stare, then she made no sign of it, and there was no hint that she might run out like she had yesterday. Perhaps, and I wondered if it might be too much to hope, she’d recognized the difference in my gaze this morning to that of the previous morning. Who could say?
“Yes, thank you,” I said, oddly flustered and almost fumbling over my words; something else that’d never happened to me before. “In fact, go. My room is already spotless, and there’s nothing I’ll be needing from you today. Tell Rogers I said you could take the rest of the day off.”
“Oh, thank you, your Highness. That’s kind of you, but I’ve been told to attend to other duties around the residence when I’m not serving you.”
“I see. Well...er…I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” I said, somehow already missing her even though she hadn’t left yet. “Promise I won’t get mad if you vacuum again,” I added in what I thought was a lighthearted joke.
Even that excited no reaction from her, and as Keira headed out the door, I paused to wonder what I’d created.
As I’d been thinking just moments ago, the Keira I’d met in New York was a feisty and independent woman, and that was the woman who’d woken me with a vacuum cleaner yesterday morning. But the woman who’d just left my room was a very different one: deferential and so devoid of personality that I almost worried she’d been replaced with a cyborg. Of course it was possible that this change had been brought about by something else that’d happened to her yesterday, but it was hard for me to think that it was anything other than my arrogant, asshole-ish behavior. She’d clearly made the decision that in order to continue working here, alongside me, she’d have to retreat into herself and present a blank face to the world. She couldn’t be herself in the same room as me, at least not with the master and servant relationship we had as a result of her job.
That was most likely the larger problem. If it was just ‘me and Keira’ then she would have bit back at me. I was sure of it. But the fact that I was Prince Andrew, the fact that I was her boss now—that made the difference. She couldn’t bite back, so she hid. The curse of being born into royalty had struck again.
None of that particularly excused my conduct, but still…
This wasn’t what I’d planned when I assigned Keira to be my personal maid. I’d thought…oh hell, right now I wasn’t all that sure what I’d been thinking at the time. Something stupid no doubt. I suppose I thought it would be fun, and I’d certainly planned to try and get her into bed. But there was more. Thinking back to that girl who’d batted back my quips and banter in New York, I’d hoped for more of the same; someone I could have a real laugh with. Someone who didn’t take things too seriously, and someone I could have real conversations with. But our current working relationship made that difficult, and then I’d taken advantage of that relationship and acted like a total douchebag yesterday, which had made it utterly impossible. I’d used my status as her employer to put her in a compromising and uncomfortable position for my own pleasure, and that wasn’t cool. I’d acted like a total and utter prick.
It was probably to my credit that I recognized the wrongness in what I’d done; in how I’d treated someone who was my employee, but as always, I only recognized these things after the fact, when it was far too late.
My life badly needed an erase and rewind button.
I could now see that if I genuinely wanted a relationship with Keira, then I should’ve assigned her elsewhere in the house and gotten to know her in a different context. Getting to know her via my bedroom already defined the relationship in a certain way.