The Billionaire and His Driver

CHAPTER SEVEN

He stared at her during the entire ride to his club. She thought it was just a fluke at first. She was a new driver to him, and she assumed he wanted to make sure she knew what she was doing. But every single time she glanced over at the rearview mirror, she could see that still-wearing-his-sunglasses face staring back at her. Every single time. And when she wasn’t glancing in the mirror at him, she could still feel his stares. It was so unnerving. But she kept it together. This was the only game in town for her, and she had to make certain she did nothing to cause him to terminate her from his housekeeping staff. This driving gig was for one day. She didn’t have to be perfect at it: just competent. Just get through the day. She could take anything for a day.

“How long have you been working at the Manor?” Ronny finally asked her.

Brina looked through the mirror at him. “Six months, sir. Just got off probation.”

“From prison?”

It was such an odd thing to say that even Tex turned around and looked at the boss. Brina was floored that he would even mention such a thing. How did he know she once went to prison? Did Mrs. Dash tell him? “No, sir,” she said. “For the job. I was on six-months’ probation for the job in Housekeeping.”

“Oh.” Ronny realized he had revealed too much. He also realized she didn’t remember him, or their conversation seven months ago, at all. He looked different on that day: unshaven, muddy, in well-worn clothing, but still. She had a direct effect on him. But she didn’t even remember him? It felt odd to Ronny. It was usually the women who remembered him easily and he would remember them not so much. Everything about her seemed upside down to him.

He eased up on the questions, but he couldn’t stop altogether. Her appearance in his life had thrown him. It just seemed too coincidental for him to ignore. He needed more from her. He needed to know more. “Is Housekeeping your life’s work?” he asked her.

“No, sir. I used to work at not-for-profit organizations my whole life.”

“Turn right at the light,” Ronny said to her as Tex was caught answering a text message rather than guiding the driver to the club. “Why aren’t you still in that line of work?”

Brina shrugged her shoulder. “Didn’t work out,” she said as she turned right. “I wish it would have, but it didn’t.”

Ronny stared at her. He somehow knew back then it wasn’t going to work out for her. A non-profit that relied on government grants and tax exemptions hiring an ex-convict? Unless their organizational mission was to help ex-cons, he didn’t see it even back then. Didn’t see how Elvira would have hired her into his household either.

Tex, realizing he had failed to tell her about the turn, put his phone away and gave her the remaining driving instructions until they arrived at the gated club. The guard at the booth waited for Brina to press down the window of the Mercedes. When she did, he glanced in and saw Tex. “Hey Tex, how you doing?”

“What’s up?”

“Nothing new,” said the guard as he looked in the backseat and saw Warren Bradshaw. Which seemed to surprise him. “Mr. Bradshaw, sir. Good morning!” He then quickly opened the gate. But what Brina noticed, when she looked through the rearview, was that Mr. Bradshaw didn’t even bother to tell the man hello. He was too busy still staring at her!

“Have a nice day,” the guard said, Brina said you too , and then drove through the open gate.

Tex directed her to stop in front of the main entrance where other chauffeurs were opening doors of limos and other fancy cars for their bosses too.

Brina didn’t have to be asked this time. She hopped out of the car as Tex was getting out too. His job was to look around and make sure there was nothing suspicious. Her job was to hurry around and open the back passenger door for the boss. Which she quickly did.

But Ronny remained in his seat. He dreaded meeting with Fallon or her father because he knew where the entire conversation was going to lead. Ring on finger. Standing at the altar. Marriage. It never failed.

But he’d agreed to meet. He was a man of his word. He got out of his car but stood still. “Never open my door,” he said to Brina, “unless I signal for you to do so.” Then he turned to her. But when he turned, his heart squeezed, as if just looking at her soft eyes and soft skin and inhaling her sweet scent did something to him. And that heavy feeling of concern for her overtook him again. Which angered him because he just couldn’t figure it out. He didn’t know this woman like that! “Understood?” he said to her.

Brina cleared her throat. She felt as if she couldn’t do anything right around this man. She couldn’t even tell if he was angry with her because those sunglasses covered his eyes, but his tone was harsh enough for her to know he wasn’t pleased. “Yes sir,” she said to him.

But as Ronny was buttoning his suit coat and looking beyond her at the other club members, many of whom appeared to be giving her a disapproving look, his jaw tightened. He knew why they were looking so hard. She did look ridiculous in that man’s chauffeur suit. It didn’t bother him. He didn’t give a damn what she wore. Why the hell was it bothering them?

But he still didn’t want her to be the brunt of anybody’s joke. “There are ladies’ shops over there,” he said to her, motioning toward the row of high-end clothing boutiques in the square. “Go find you an outfit to wear more befitting a young lady. This uniform will not do.”

Brina didn’t understand. She looked over at those boutiques with their fancy names at that fancy country club and then looked at him again. Even Tex found the boss’s request weird. Even Tex, who made way more money than Brina, couldn’t afford those kinds of stores.

“Did you hear me?” Ronny asked her.

“I heard you, yes sir, but I can’t afford to buy anything in stores like that.” Or in any other clothing store, she wanted to tell him. The little money he bothered to pay them was strictly reserved for food and shelter.

But Ronny took it the completely wrong way. He didn’t instinctively view her the way he viewed most money-grubbing women, but he could be wrong. To prove it, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a thick wad of cash, and then reached out to her with what appeared to be several hundred dollars. “Here. Now you have no excuse.”

But his tone made it seem as if she was some beggar looking for a handout. Even when she was hungry on the streets, didn’t have a dime to her name, she found her own way. “No thank you,” she said to him, refusing to even touch his money. “This is my uniform, and this is what I’m wearing.”

Tex looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. Ronny looked at her the same. But he was stunned, not because she was disobeying a direct order from him, but because she didn’t accept his money. He’d never met a woman in his life that didn’t jump at the chance to take from him. That was the very reason they wanted to be with him. He continued to stare at Brina.

But Brina held her ground. She knew it could mean the end of her employment and put her at risk, once again, of being homeless. But it was a risk she had to take. She was poor, alright, but nobody was going to treat her like some beggar who didn’t want to work or stand on her own two feet. Not even a rich prick like her boss.

When Ronny realized the money was still outstretched in his hand, he put it away. She had managed to do something nobody else had ever done before: She stumped him. She was nothing like anybody he’d ever met, and he didn’t know what to make of it!

“Ronny Bradshaw? I thought you was still in New York.” It was the voice of one of his friends standing on the steps that led into the club’s entrance.

Ronny looked at Brina again. “I’ll probably be a couple hours at least,” he said, she said yes sir because she didn’t know what else to say, and he left the car.

“I haven’t seen you in a month of Sundays either,” Ronny said as he made his way up the steps and shook the hand of the man waiting. “Where the hell have you been?”

Brina was still reeling over the fact that she had to sit out there waiting for him for two long hours. At least , he said. And the fact that she had defied him. As Tex walked the boss, and the member he was conversing with, to the club’s entrance, Brina closed the door, walked back around to the driver’s side, and got in under the steering wheel. She hated this job. Absolutely despised it. Go buy new clothes, he told her, forcing her to admit she couldn’t. Forcing her to admit she was the statistic she said she’d never become: a poor black woman with a criminal record and no prospects of ever getting out of this hole she got herself into. It was one thing to inwardly know your situation was dire. It was a whole other thing to have to admit it out loud. She’d rather be a maid, making beds and scrubbing toilets and tucked away from all these uppity-mucks, any day of the week!

Tex got back in the car on the front passenger seat and looked at Brina. “Can I be honest with you?”

Brina looked at him. Bring it on, she thought. Why not? Everybody else seemed to be more than happy to dump on her. “Yes.”

“I’m amazed he didn’t fire you. And I mean on the spot. I’ve seen him do it countless times. But the day is still young,” he added with a grin as he pulled back out his phone and lost himself in his Facebook friends and his tweets and his Instagram posts.

Brina sunk down in her seat and folded her small arms. Because she knew Tex was right: It was just a matter of time.

But twenty minutes later, something remarkable happened. Brina was nearly dozing off, Tex was completely embedded in his phone, when a knock was heard on the front driver’s side window. Tex didn’t jump - he saw the guy coming, but Brina jumped. When she realized a waiter with a tray was standing at the door, she pressed down the window.

“Yes?”

“Here you are,” the waiter said as he handed the tray to her and a glass of orange juice in a covered cup.

Brina was confused. “For me?”

“Are you Mr. Bradshaw’s driver?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s for you. He ordered me to give it specifically to you.” Then the waiter smiled. “ Bon Appetit ,” he said, and walked back up the steps and into the club.

Brina sat the juice in the cupholder and then opened the silver tray. She was astounded to find bacon, sausage, eggs, English muffins. Everything she loved for breakfast. She looked at Tex. Tex was staring at the food, and then he looked at her. “He does this?” she asked him.

Tex shook his head. “Hell nall! Never did it for Jockey. Never did it for me. And I mean ever.”

Here they were thinking she was about to be fired, and Mr. Bradshaw ordered the waiter to bring her food? “Maybe it’s my last supper,” she said.

Tex smiled, and then laughed. And in that moment, she knew she had an ally. Somehow she just knew it. “Wanna go half and half?” she asked him.

Tex didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast either. He smiled his biggest smile to date. “Hell yeah,” he said.

Brina placed a little over half of the food in the tray top and gave it to Tex. She had a fancy fork, spoon, and knife combination, but Tex said he didn’t need any utensils. His hand would do just fine. And they both ate heartily. They were laughing and talking now.

“Let me tell you something about Warren Bradshaw.”

“Warren?” Brina looked at Tex. “That man called him Ronny.”

“His full name is Warren Ronald Bradshaw. People call him by his middle name because he allegedly hates the name Warren. I’m Tex, by the way. Tex Graylin.”

“Is Tex your birth name?”

“I’m originally from Dallas. What do you think? You aren’t a Texan if you don’t have one kid named Tex,” he added, and they both laughed.

“I’m Sabrina. Sabrina Hawkins.”

“But they call you?”

“Brina. Which is okay. Or Breen, which I hate.”

“I’m not crazy about Tex either. But what can you do, right? But let me tell you something about Warren Bradshaw. That man there is no joke. I’ve seen him fire people for little of nothing. And when I say little of nothing, Brina, I mean nothing. And a man like that didn’t fire you on the spot for your insubordination?” He nodded his head. “You got it going on with that man, little lady. You got it going on.”

Brina was already shaking her head. “I’m certain that’s not true.”

“I’m telling you what I know. Warren Bradshaw don’t give a damn about anybody but his brothers. In my opinion? He’s added you to that tiny list.”

Brina couldn’t believe he was saying that. Based on what? Breakfast ? “Are you on dope? Don’t put me in that category. That’s insane. He doesn’t know me from Adam. There’s no way.”

“Okay. Don’t believe it. But I know what I’m talking about. I’ve worked for Mr. B for over ten years. I know what I know. But you’ll see,” added Tex, as he continued to eat.

Brina stared at the food. It would be remarkable if it were true, she knew, but remarkable things like that just didn’t happen to somebody like her. Bad remarkable, all the time. But good remarkable? Tex believed it was true, but Brina knew better. She started eating again, but she wasn’t joking. It could very well be her last supper as an employee, in any capacity, at Bradshaw Manor.