Rachel's Accident (5 page)

“I know, but I like to do such work interviews here where you’ll be working. This way you can already inspect your prospective new place when you walk through the front doors. And now you also know how to get here, so I don’t have to go to the trouble of explaining the way to you. Two birds with one stone.” He smiled at her.

“You really thought this through, huh?”

“Ye
p, always.
I generally don’t like people around me and in effect my house, but I have to have at least one person to clean since I’m too busy with my job to do it myself. And it is a bit big. So I have to plan such things.”

“Well, then since you’re going to be my new employer it’s probably appropriate to call you by your last name, wh
ich you haven’t told me so far.”

“I really don’t want to be called by my last name. Just talk to me like you did until now.”

“This all really sounds too good to be true.”

“Don’t worry it’s
a
normal job, no surprises. There’s just one room I don’t want you to go int
o. It’s on the second floor and
I always keep it locked. I’m just telling you should I ever forget.”

“O
kay.” That was perfectly normal, right? He told her that so she wouldn’t be curious about it when she found the room locked, right? Well, that just backfired and she was now curious than ever.

I
absolutely hated when this happened.
I
was
a naturally curious person and he only made it worse. Jess knew what something like that
did to me and she avoided it at all costs. But he was my new employer and I sure as hell couldn’t go around trying to find out all his secrets. I needed to restrain myself and get some self control.

“Please, don’t look
at me
like that. It’s nothing fishy. It’s just my private office and I can’t be interrupted while I work or have my workplace disrupted in any way. I hope you respect those boundaries.”

With that I could probably live. I knew what it was like being interrupted constantly while you tried to work. It was even worse to have your work place turned upside down and couldn’t find anything anymore. I had been fired more than once because something
like
that put my working schedule on hold as I tried to put everything back into place.

I gave him a solemn nod to indicate that, yes, I could and I damn well would respect his work place
. And w
ith that
we
moved on to her studying schedule to
plan out my working schedule.

When we were finished talking it was already evening outside. He
reluctantly
offered to
buy me dinner, but I politely declined and opted for
a
ride home
.

On the way there as I directed him to my address he told me about his former house keeper, now prison inmate. She had been a migrant from Venezuela. Over years things went missing in his mansion, but there was never any evidence as to who the culprit was. Since she was the only one other than him who had access to his mansion it had to have been her. But she had still not admitted her guilt.

Then one day he had caught her red-handed and fired her on the spot
, but hadn’t called the police since the things stolen hadn’t meant anything to him and he was loaded so he could afford it. But now he was more cautious about whom he hired and that he kept his most sacred space always locked. The former house keeper had also made the mistake of interrupting his work and misplacing things in his work space, repeatedly. So the theft had just been the tip of the iceberg for him.

We arrived at my apartment building just as he was finishing his story. He wished me a good night and waited until I was safely inside before he drove off. Little did he know that inside it was just as unsafe as outside until you got into your own
apartment.
But I would never tell him that. He was too much of a gentleman and would insist on escorting her to her door and then, that I knew for sure, his car would be gone and he would have to walk back home.

When Jess got home we ate dinner together and I told her everything about what had happened since she had woken me up from my nap that day.

My first day
of work started the following Monday
.
I had called the places I had worked at before and quit right then and there. They had been shitty jobs anyway, with the lowest pay.

To school I had to take public transportation with which I was intimately familiar since before I had bought my car. The poor car I had only had for a day, even less, just a few hours really. And now as school was over I took the bus and had to switch four times before I finally arrived at his place.

With the pass code he had given me I opened the
iron gate
and made my way up the long driveway by foot. At the front doors I entered another code and walked into the mansion. Since he had only explained it to me over the phone yesterday when he realized that he’d forgotten
I had to root around a few of the cabinets behind the kitchen to find the one with the cleaning supplies.

I armed myself for the combat against the dirt and decided to start cleaning on the second floor on the south side and gradually make my way toward the other end of the huge mansion. I wondered why with this huge building he would only hire a single house keeper. I had to ask him that sometime.

I liked cleaning actually, liked to see things
tidy
and in order. Had Jess told him that about me, too? I hoped not. That was just embarrassing and really personal information about me. What else had she told him?
Ugh, if she wasn’t my best friend I would sometimes
love
wring her neck.

For hours I busied myself cleaning every room on my way until they were squeaky clean. As it neared evening I could hear Ethan rummaging around the kitchen and then going back up to his office.

Over the next few days I fell into an easy routine.
First school.
Then cleaning.
School.
Cleaning.
I discovered that he kept a very strict routine as well and only came out of his office to eat and eventually sleep. What could make a man so preoccupied that he used all his waking hours working on it? Well, I didn’t know what he did when I wasn’t there, but from the looks of it he rarely left his stuffy office.

On Saturdays he would let me in his office to clean a little, but hovered around me, watching my every move like a hawk. Everything had to be in the right place. I assumed he would shut off his laptop and put away anything that he didn’t want me to see before he let me into the room. Once when I was just walking by and he had come out for a bathroom break I could see lots and lots of papers and other things cluttering his desk.

Now and then I would meet him in the kitchen and it came to the point where I started waiting for him to come out of the office at exactly 7
p.m.
If I had any questions I would ask him then when he was making his dinner. And every single time that dinner was made of a frozen meal he just stuffed into the microwave for a few minutes.

After three weeks I had had enough of his unhealthy diet. I came
in early the next time I had a school free day with hands full of grocery bags. I threw out all of his frozen foods and stuffed the fridge and pantry with fresh ingredients from the local supermarket.

Then I searched the kitchen cabinets for pots and pans and other cooking ware and started making him a real meal. I had to learn very early to cook for myself
since it was so much cheaper than readily
prepared meals from the frozen foods section. Where did he even get those from if he never even left his office long enough to take a real shower? Everything he did was done in record time until he could get back to his sanctuary.

The smell of the pasta sauce wafted through the kitchen and my mouth watered. I had opted for an easy meal that he would like since it just replaced one of the frozen varieties he liked so damn much.

Ten minutes into the cooking I could hear footsteps pounding down the grand staircase. He stormed into the kitchen with a confused look on his face.

“What are you doing?”
He
demanded.

I shot back good-naturedly, “What does it look like?”

He came over to the stove and peered over my shoulder. “You’re cooking?” It was still more of
a
question than a statement since it was pretty obvious that I was cooking, indeed.

“I am,” I agreed.

“But you don’t have to do that. I can make my own food.” He still sounded confused with
my
actions.

His stomach growled loudly as if in
dis
approval
of his words and
I
just
couldn’t hold back my chuckle.

“Do you want some?”
I asked with a smile.

“Yes, please
,” he answered like a good little school boy. “
Did you already eat?”

“No, I thought maybe we could eat together?”

Without a word he got out plates and silverware and set the kitchen table. He sat down with a boyishly eager look on his face as I strained the noodles and brought them over to the table. Then I quickly went back and got the sauce. I heaved a bunch of noodles onto his plate and poured sauce over it, then repeated the process with mine.

He sat and waited patiently for me to sit down as well
before
he started to eat. The whole time he waited he was practically bouncing in his seat like a little boy on Christmas.
As he took the first bite he closed his eyes and moaned his appreciation. His face had such a look of orgasmic bliss on it I couldn’t for t
he life of me tear my eyes away from it as I watched him with astonishment.

I blushed and looked away as he caught me looking at him eating. He quickly went back to his plate, though, too enraptured by the food to care about much else. I could feel my heart speed up and my stomach coil tightly. My ears still burned and wouldn’t stop. As he moaned again I could feel my core pulse in response.

God, what was this man doing to me? He was just eating pasta, for god sake. I was going insane. That was the only possible explanation, wasn’t it? I mean, look at the man. He was the embodiment of a Greek god and was moaning all through his meal.

“Aren’t you eating?”

His words jerked me out of my trance. While he had been enraptured with the food my attention had solely been on him, which meant I had forgotten all about my own plate of pasta.

“
Oh ,yeah
sorry. I was just daydreaming a little.” I gave him a faint smile. My gaze drifted to his plate. It was completely empty, not even a speck o
f
sauce left. Did he lick that clean?

I looked back up at him. “Do you want seconds?”

He gave me a hopeful look. “Can I?”

“Yes, of course.” It perplexed me that he asked that. What had happened to him to make him act like this just because someone cooked a
fresh meal for him? I imagined it
hadn’t been pretty.

I tried to ignore the knot forming in my throat and loaded his plate with a second helping. I ate my own food slowly as I again watched him devour the food.

“This was delicious. Thank you,” he breathed
a few minutes later
and all I could do was nod my head and smile.

He cleared his throat and asked, “Why did you decide to cook?” He had some of his manly demeanor back and looked now less like a little boy and more like very satisfied man. “I said before you didn’t have to. I only hired you for housekeeping.”

“I know that, but I couldn’t keep watching you stuff yourself with that gross, unhealthy frozen food. It’s not good for you. Would you mind if I cooked for you whenever I can?”

“That would be very nice, yes.”

“Great,” I beamed at him. “You can make a list of things you like and things you don’t like and
I’ll
think of good recipes for you. Oh, and I threw out all the frozen stuff
. Is it okay for you to eat the leftovers when I can’t cook for you?”

“That’s perfectly fine.” Now it was his turn to beam at me. The smile was so blinding it made my breath hitch and my heart skip a beat. This man could very well be dangerous to my own health.

“
I’ll
go back to work now,” he announced, but like a good boy he our dishes to the sink first and rinsed them before he walked out of the kitchen, thanking her again, and bounded u
p the stairs back to his office.

I packed the leftover food into plastic containers and stuffed them into the fridge
. Then I cleaned up the rest of the pots and started with my usual cleaning routine. Since I had gone through all the rooms I started again at the beginning.

When I finished for the day I stashed away the cleaning stuff into the kitchen closet and headed out. As I went out through the front doors there was a shiny new Ford Mustang standing in the driveway. A
n envelope
was attached to the windshield that read my name.
In it was a piece of paper and the car’s keys.