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

“I don’t remember my first kiss, I remember everything,” I say it again, getting lost in a daze as the pool rippled, running over its seamless edge.

“What did you say?”

A thick, deep voice surrounded me, making me spin. The wet glass came with me and slipped through my fingers. Before I could really look at him, my eyes followed the crash of the glass shattering on the marble between us.

It’s only broken glass between us but it feels metaphoric.

“I’m so sorry!” I gasped.

I dropped to my knees and began collecting pieces of shattered glass into my apron, apologizing on loop, my skin bright red from my blazing humiliation. I wanted to look at him, to see the man I’d been blindly fantasizing about for months. But I wouldn’t let myself look until the glass was picked up. I broke a glass! It probably cost more than everything I own! Mortification filled me as I scooped the shards off the tile, two large hands with thick knuckles suddenly in front of mine.

“I’m sorry I startled you.”

His voice sent a vibration through my body and into my thighs. Discreetly as possible, I took a quick deep breath and followed the bend of his wrist up his arm, traced his shoulder and found his face.

This is him. The man who writes about poems about life and changes his own sheets and drinks whiskey before bed. And lives in this insanely cool mansion.

I didn’t know I was holding a piece of glass so tightly that the palm of my hand was split down the center, blood swimming down my forearm.

And he didn’t notice right away, either.

3

Britta

I was speechless as I devoured every inch of him.

Neatly trimmed beard, sandy colored hair with some white peppered throughout, his eyes were a fusion of chocolate and amber, made more intense by his coffee-colored brow line glasses. Glasses, one of the scenarios I’d not considered. The way his shirt stretched across his shoulders and chest; I could tell that he took care of himself. My heart raced and I felt a hard lump in my throat as I tried to simultaneously swallow it down and apologize for the glass, again, for the fifth time. I found it hard to make my voice loud. I found it hard to breathe. My legs suddenly felt like butter on a hot pan and I’m very certain there was a stirring under those hideous khaki work shorts I was wearing.

“Oh, oh my God,” his eyes stole away from mine for the first time in what seemed like a century but must’ve been more like a few seconds.

“You’re cut,” he said, wrapping both of his hands around mine, putting his finger and thumb around my wrist, his other palm flat against the cut. We stood and he guided me back to the sink, where I flicked on the water with my other hand. He held me under the slow, stream, us both silently watching the water turn pink against the cream porcelain. I couldn’t feel the gash; I could only feel the way he delicately held me under the water, his skin warm against mine.

Finally, I looked up at him. I’d gone too long without seeing him now that I’d laid eyes on him. God, he was so freaking handsome. Tall, too, and not just compared to me because I’m only “half past five” as my grandpa used to say. No, he was actually tall, probably over six feet if I had to guess. And the way his hair had body but was so neatly combed back, maturity poking through in shades of silver and white. His smile was neat and controlled, almost like he was holding something back, looking down at me over the sink in his kitchen.

“I’m very sorry about your glass,” my voice was too quiet so I cleared my throat. His eyes swayed slowly between mine, as if he were studying me for the truth.

“I really am,” I continued, unsure what else to say. Then I realized, he’d asked me what I’d said. My eyes went wide. I tried as hard as I could to control my reaction, so he wouldn’t see that I remembered what got us here—I’d been caught.

I looked up at him again and his face had gone stoic, straight brow and even keel eyes. He held his jaw tight, mouth forced closed, chin up, shoulders back. He was so sexy but while I shifted uneasily on my feet, it occurred to me that he seemed…. angry. And that everything I’d dreamt about him in my mind was one-sided, false. I’d been the one romanticizing him, the one who’d read something I wasn’t supposed to, the one who’d broke the glass. He was just trying to figure out why’d I’d read it, nothing more. His amber and teakwood scent had made me heady, temporarily delusional.

“I’m sorry,” I said, turning off the water and reaching for the towels, where I grabbed one and immediately wrapped it tightly around my hand, tucking the free end under perfectly.

“Please don’t get me fired. If you don’t want me here anymore, I’d understand, but please, I need this job.” I was ashamed that it came out as a whisper, but I was so embarrassed that I’d allowed myself to build this fantasy then project it onto him just because he was what, extremely fucking good looking? He’d written a poem that was no business of mine? He was extremely fucking good looking? Wait, I mentioned that. I needed to get the hell out of there, before I made things worse.

“You tied that really well,” he spoke again, his tone husky and unemotional. Nodding to my hand, he crouched down, throwing his necktie over his shoulder, and scooped the last of the glass into a dust pan that I’d been using earlier.

“I’m a pro at tourniquets,” I said quietly, grabbing the other hand broom from the counter, kneeling down next to him.

“Yeah? Are you in school to be a nurse?”