The Billionaire and His Driver

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Mrs. D says it’s faster this way,” Shanilla, the youngest maid, said to Gail, one of the oldest. She and Shanilla were making up the bed.

“I don’t care what that old biddy says,” Gail retorted, although she and Elvira were right around the same age. “This don’t make no kind of sense. Three maids in one room. Nobody but that hussy would think of something so lame.”

Brina, who was in the room dusting the furniture, didn’t join the conversation. She was going through the motions of working and not even hearing what the other two maids were going on about. Her mind was still caught in last night, at her apartment, and early this morning when the boss made love to her. She consented fully. It was what she wanted too. But the reality of what they’d done was just sinking in. And terrifying her.

Would others find out and look at her as if she was some whore with no morals? Would Mrs. D no longer respect her? Would he fire her if she didn’t keep giving it to him? And that man that tried to kidnap her was still out there too? What on earth was she going to do if she lost this job? If she couldn’t keep a roof over her head anymore?

She stopped dusting the dresser and rubbed her forehead.

“Brina?Brina!”

“Roof over my head.” Brina realized she had spoken her thoughts out loud at the very moment Gail was calling her name. “I mean, what did you say?”

Gail looked at her strangely. “What did you say? What’s wrong with you?”

“I was just . . . nothing. What did you say again?”

“I said we should take our time, slow our roll, so Mrs. D will conclude that this three maids to one room experiment is a bad idea.”

“And I say we should work like we normally do and see where it goes,” said Shanilla. “What you think, Brina?”

Brina couldn’t even begin to think about something so ordinary. She’d give anything to have normal, simple thoughts on her mind right in that moment. But if lazy Gail was for it, she knew it wasn’t good. “I agree with Shanilla,” she said, and Shanilla grinned.

“See I told you . . .”

When Shanilla stopped midsentence, Brina and Gail looked at her. Then they looked where she was staring and there he was. The boss. In a bathrobe. Standing there. Brina’s heart dropped.

“Good morning, ladies.”

“Good morning, Mr. Bradshaw,” Gail said.

Shanilla had never seen him before, and was shocked when Gail said who he was. She couldn’t fix her mouth to say anything. She just stared at him.

Ronny looked at Brina. “May I see you for a moment, Miss Hawkins?” he said to her.

Brina just stared at him.

He realized how crazy it looked, and he left the room.

Gail and Shanilla looked at Brina. Brina put down the duster and hurried out of the room.

“I didn’t know Mr. Bradshaw was that handsome,” Shanilla said as Brina closed the door behind her. “He looks like a movie star! And did you see that frown on his face? He looked like he was mad at Brina.”

“Serves her right,” said Gail. “Probably stole something from him too.”

“Stole something? Why would you say that?”

“That’s what she went to prison for. Stealing from a charity. Un-uh. I wouldn’t put nothing past that girl,” Gail said.

Shanilla was thinking the same thing, but not about Brina. About Gail!

But out in the hall, Ronny didn’t mince words. As soon as he saw her walk out of that bedroom dressed up in that maid’s uniform, his anger flared. And now it was spilling out. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m working.”

“You’re no longer a maid. I thought I made that clear last night.”

Brina was floored. Was it happening already? “You’re firing me?”

“I fired Jockey, something Elvira should have done a long time ago. You’re my driver now. And nothing else. My driver. Understood?”

The way he said and nothing else sounded loaded to Brina. Like he was telling her to forget about what they did earlier because it meant nothing to him. But he didn’t have to lose his cool or worry about that. She’d already concluded that herself. But for him to throw it in her face that way kind of hurt. And he wanted her to be his driver on top of that? It was a job Brina hated, but it was better than being fired. And he was right about Jockey: he should have been terminated long ago. “Understood,” she said to him.

“So get out of that ridiculous maid’s uniform. Wear your own clothes. I’ll see you out front in about an hour.”

She hated to ask it, but she knew what the driver’s duties were. “Do you need me to . . . to run your bath, sir?”

Ronny frowned. “No I don’t need you to run my bath. You aren’t my servant.”

“But that’s the duty of your driver, sir.”

“Not today,” he said, and began walking away.

But just as Brina had exhaled and was trying to take it all in, he turned back around and came back up to her, his hand up with a point of agitation the way it was at the airport with that woman getting off his plane. As if he was about to lecture her too. And he came closer this time. Well into her personal space. And his voice was lower. “What did I tell you about that sir nonsense?”

But when Ronny realized how close he had gotten to her, and as he looked into those sultry, hazel-like eyes he adored, and when he thought about how wonderful it felt to hold her and to be deep inside of her, his heart squeezed once again. Because it all made him realize just how hard he was falling. And just how unusual that felt.

And then his face frowned, as if he was confounded by her again, and then he left. And didn’t turn back.

Brina didn’t know what to make of that moody man! She was equally relieved that she wasn’t fired, and terrified that she was now going to spend a lot more time with him. Which meant a lot more ways for him to find displeasure with her and get rid of her. And the way he said and nothing else offended her still. She turned to him in her hour of need, and he came through for her, but she wasn’t trying to be his girlfriend. She wasn’t trying to win his heart. She knew better than that. More than anybody else on his household staff, she knew her place in this world. The world and all of its harshness had already put her there.

But despite all of those warring factions within her, a small part of her was okay too. As his driver, she’d get to be with him. That she’d stay around that moody man who made her feel safer than anyone ever had. And right now, as she was still trying to get over that near-kidnapping and Lord-only-knows-what-else at her apartment, she needed that feeling like she needed air to breathe.

But when she turned around, Gail and Shanilla had already opened the bedroom door she had closed, and had been staring at her while she had been watching the big boss walk away.

Shanilla grinned.

Gail folded her arms and gave Brina that y eah I saw y’all up in here look as if she knew exactly what was going on when she didn’t know a thing. But that was Gail. A fifty-year-old woman going on thirteen. Brina wanted to shake her head. Gail in her business? It was all she needed.