His Young Maid: A Forbidden Boss Age Gap Romance Daisy Jane (love letters to the dead TXT) 📖

Britta. It’s not a big deal for him to make a simple phone call and save the two poor maids from being fired. Guys like him have clout and pull everywhere because they have money. It means a lot to us and so the gesture feels so big to you. But for him, it’s nothing. It’s merely pushing a game piece forward on a game board. Gets him closer to you but means nothing to him.”

I don’t want to think about what she was saying. I don’t want to think about it because I know she could be right. If she’s right, I am so humiliated. I told Brooks things about my mom, school, my deepest feelings of grief and guilt—my eyes close and warm tears stream down my cheeks as Melody puts the car in park.

We don’t speak again for the rest of the day.

All I can think about is the phone call I’m going to make to Brooks when I get home.

16

Britta

I’d let him sit and wonder but if I know Brooks, he’d show up my apartment. And as soon as I laid eyes on his end-of-day scruff and his lean and tight body, the silver contrasting starkly against his thick caramel hair, I’d melt into a puddle. I’d let him use and abuse me, I know it, because I want him so bad.

That’s why it hurts so much to know he’s not told me about his previous relationship. He shared the story of his wife—was that even real or just a device to get me to swoon? I was so confused.

Flopping down on the torn leather couch, I pulled the old afghan down over myself and a rush of familiar scent hit my nose. It smelled like my mom.

Not the booze, not vomit, but how my mom smelled when I was a kid. The cold cream she used before bed, the rose hips of her shampoo, clean laundry and mouthwash. It wasn’t often I allowed myself to really remember the times before the alcohol because it felt like a cruel reminder of what wasn’t. But tonight, with my heart feeling fractured, my mind a jumble, a fight with Melody under my belt… I let myself go there. And I cried. I cried long, broken sobs, over and over, until I was too exhausted to keep crying, and I drifted off. When I woke up, it was nearing eight o’clock and I knew if I didn’t call Brooks very soon that he’d be on my doorstep. I couldn’t see him.

Sitting up, wrapping the afghan around me, I quickly nuzzle into the blanket but I can’t find my mom’s reassuring scent anymore, and I’m filled with another gust of sadness as I pull my phone off the table, along with Brooks’ card.

It rings just once before he’s there, greeting me, the baritone of his voice soothing my jumpy nerves, though I know it shouldn’t. I want to get shivers of anger from his voice, but my body betrays me by relaxing as he greets me, tells me he’s not thought of anything but me since I left.

“That’s nice.”

I hate to be this person. The one that gives short, clearly disgruntled responses without saying anything. But I’m so tired. I don’t know if I have the energy to say all the things I need to say.

“Britta, what’s the matter?” he asks, and I can hear him sit down, I think on the couch, but I’m not sure. I do my best to try and not picture him, his commanding frame and chiseled jaw. Gooseflesh spreads down my arms.

“Did you really have a wife named Lucy?” it surprises me that I’ve opened with that, and I realize as my belly contorts itself into a pretzel that I can’t just let this go. I care about him, as naïve as it may be.

“What?” the shock in his tone is real. Or the man deserves an Oscar.

“Did you make that up just to make me fall for you? The poor rich guy with the broken heart who doesn’t come alive until he meets me. It’s pretty poetic. I know you’re poetic.”

It’s snarky, cool, accusatory and awful and I hate myself for saying those words to him. They feel like slime crawling off my tongue and I rise from the couch, my body full of nervous energy.

He is silent for a moment and then he exhales, his hand swiping over his face, I can hear it. The crunching of his beard under the weight of his hand.

“Lucy is a very real person and we were very much married. I did not so much as exaggerate a word of that, Britta.” He holds there, saying nothing else.

“Okay, Mr. Bennett,” I say, cold, aloof.

“Don’t call me that,” he snaps back, fast, as if I’ve found his trigger. “Call me Brooks. I am not Mr. Bennett to you.”

“Sure, you are, you’re my boss, aren’t you?” I pause as if I don’t know the answer.

“The agency employs you, and I use the agency.” He is careful with his words. “Britta, tell me what’s wrong. I called the agency as soon as I dropped you off this morning. They’re not firing you or Melody for what happened with Nolan. They’ve already got his house off your route.”

“You called them? You did that for me?”

“I said I would. Britta, that was nothing. Of course, I did.”

The line is silent. He could be waiting for his thank you’s and I-can’t-believe-you’d-do-that-for-me’s but all I can think of is Melody and what she said to me in the car; it means a lot to us and so the gesture feels so big to you. But for him, it’s nothing. It’s not even that I didn’t want her to be right, it’s more that I didn’t want to be wrong about Brooks.

“Look, thanks for the last few days but I think it’s best if I get someone else on your route. And maybe we chalk up the last few days to…