Sleeping With the Help (Toyboy Lover) (5 page)

“I think it would be best if you cross my room and laundry off your little list.”

He didn't look up. “Fine. So you can do your own laundry, you just choose not to?”

I narrowed my eyes at him, placing my hands on my hips. “I can do everything, but I don't need to. I'm rich.” I could have matched him in smugness right then. I was aware how much of a douche I sounded, rubbing my wealth in his face, but I only did it to get to him. Normally I would never be so tactless. But ever since our first encounter a tacit battle of wills had begun; I was simply playing my hand.

He let his eyes do a slow roam of my body, from top to bottom, seemingly undressing me. I gulped.

“You are rich, but beneath all of this, under all those fancy clothes, you're just like every other woman...”

He held his wicked leer in place, eyes unblinking, waiting for my reaction to his spiteful words. He spoke with so much emphasis, so much feeling that I knew instantly what he was really doing. Putting me in my place, reminding me that he'd seen me in nothing, seen me at my most vulnerable. The Steel Woman; the naked woman. He'd reduced me to nothing but Eve in the Garden of Eden.

My face grew hot. I clenched my fists, preparing for a fight that would never come. He didn't have to fight – he'd already won the battle.

Raging at him wasn't an option. Not only would it have been highly unprofessional letting the fa
ç
ade slip, I didn't have a comeback; whatever I said would make me sound like a petulant child. I just wanted him out of my house, for good. Screw my promise to his mother. I hadn't been under oath, and I didn't owe them anything, no matter how much I'd convinced myself.

“This isn't working out,” I said after awhile. I held back so much for the sake of decorum. “I'll pay you for this week, and then we'll call it a day.”

Not an ounce of contrition or remorse showed on his face when I spoke. He'd just been fired but, like a psychopath, showed no emotion. It was hard to think someone who'd put so much effort into his work could be so apathetic about losing it.

He said nothing, only continued raking the mess together into a neat pile. I left him to it feeling half victorious and half cheated. Victorious because I'd had the last laugh; I'd had all the power and had exercised it. Cheated because I was getting rid of the only man who'd ever really stood up to me.

Life resumed as normal the following Monday. Although, when eight rolled by a part of me expected to hear his timely ring at the door.

Despite my efforts to the contrary I dreamed about him again after his departure. Although none of the dreams were as steamy as the first, I still awoke feeling hot and tingly all over; and for a few minutes after waking, realizing that his touch wasn't real, or the smell of his aftershave was only a product of memory, a part of me longed for his presence. In what capacity, I was afraid to know. Somehow having him around, even if only for a few hours a day, made me feel slightly less alone. Lupita had brought life to the house, but not in the same way. His presence screamed to me wherever I was in it; screamed to me even when he was no longer in it.

A week had gone by since I'd let him go. I jumped out of sleep, out of one of my lewd dreams about him. My whole body felt alive; the tingling sensation on my thigh where his phantom touch had landed spread to the rest of my body. With heavy breathing I looked at my alarm clock: 11PM. Not too late to satiate my desire. My body wouldn't allow me to return to slumber, to settle for the dream. No, there was no fun in that. It needed the real thing, or as close to the real thing as I could get. Rod would be awake. Millionaires didn't keep normal hours. Apparently their minds were always working overtime, so much so that they could go days before realizing they hadn't slept.

I felt blindly in the dark for the lamp switch. When light spilled through the room I climbed out of bed and found my cell phone on my dressing table. I punched in his name, but before I could hit call the phone started ringing. That sound of choking birds rang loudly, catching me by surprise. As I looked at the screen my breath caught in my throat when I saw the caller I.D.

Eduardo.

All of a sudden I didn't remember how buttons worked. I scrambled to hit answer. Pressing the phone to my ear I didn't get a chance to offer a greeting.

“Is this Victoria?” the female voice spoke, rushed, anxious and out of breath. She didn't wait for my reply. “Please, we need your help.”

“Who is this?” I didn't think the question unreasonable considering the time of day. Who the hell was this girl using Eduardo's cell, and why had she called me?

“Claudia,” came the erratic voice again. In the background raucous shouts and cheers echoed, doing a great job of making her almost inaudible. “I'm Eduardo's sister. You gotta help us. I didn't know who else to call.”

Eduardo's sister. Well, that explained it. But, why had she called me?

“Is your mother all right?” It was the second time I had to repeat the question, this time with a shout over the noise in the background.

“It's, it's my brother, he's in trouble. They're gonna kill him.” Her voice was shrill and frightened, something I couldn't ignore. I wanted to, but I couldn't. Without even realizing it I'd pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater.

“Calm down, all right. Where are you? Have you called the police?”

“No, I... it's not like that. He won't let me. He doesn't even know I'm calling you. Can you come?”

“Tell me where you are.”

“The basketball court on Piedmont Avenue.”

Piedmont Avenue, just ten minutes away. I'd do it in five if I ignored the speed limits.

“I'm on my way.”

I felt the front wheel of my Mercedes mount the pavement as I pulled up. I'd probably squished a snail or something, but I had no time to worry about that. The street around me was midnight blue; only two of the street lights that lined it were working, but even those were dim, providing a faint glow over the basketball court. As I stepped out of the car I saw two figures in the middle of the court behind the mesh fence. Both were still moving – a good sign.

I darted to them. “What happened?”

I knelt beside the two figures, Eduardo's face coming into full view. The blood that covered it was so plentiful it could have been a complete stranger in front of me. His cold eyes locked on me, even now so indignant and hateful. He winced in pain, wrapping his arm around his torso, where patches of blood had stained his white T-shirt.

“I told him not to do it. I told him that he couldn't take on three at a time. He thinks he's Superman.
Idiota
!” Her frustration caused tears to stream down her face.

“Help me get him up,” I ordered.

We took a side each, draping his arms around our necks and hoisting him up, his weight threatening to tug us right back down. We steadied him on his feet, and he growled in pain as we made a slow advance to my car.

“What were you doing out here at this time?”

“This is what he does. It pays well when he wins.”

“He was street-fighting? For money?”

“All the boys from our neighborhood do it. But he took it too far, said he could do three at once. I told him the money wasn't worth it if he was dead.”

Eduardo groaned. “Claudia, stop talking!” he demanded, from bruised, bloody lips, putting all his remaining energy into that command.

“Why? You don't want her to know how stupid you are?”

“
C
á
llate
!”

“No, you
c
á
llate
!” Claudia shouted back. I expected her to release him, leaving me to hold his weight alone, but she stayed in place until we reached the car. “If Mama knew you were doing this to make money it would put her back in the hospital.”

We managed to get him into the back seat, and Claudia climbed in beside him.

“I'm taking you to A&E.” I turned the key in the ignition.

“No, you're not. No hospitals.”

I spun around to see him grimacing, whilst maintaining his steely-eyed glare, his adamant look. How did he pull it off in his condition?

“I hate to break it to you but you look like crap,” I said. “Now, I'm no doctor but I'd bet you have a couple of broken bones.”

“I said no hospitals, or I'll get out right now and walk home.”

We stared at each other, neither of us wanting to give in, each certain we'd win this new battle. But I was the first to cave.

I threw up my hands. “Fine.” I started off at full speed.

“Where are you taking us?” Claudia asked, her worried expression so clear through the rear-view mirror. With the car light illuminating the space I could see Claudia's beauty in all its glory. She couldn't have been older than seventeen – there was a childish youthfulness in her eyes and attire. An older girl would have outgrown that skater-girl look already. Her jet black hair had a couple of bright pink streaks in the front, and in both ears an assortment of different sized earrings filled numerous holes. She shared the same dark pupils as her brother, though her eyes were soft, gentle. She resembled her mother so much that I imagined Lupita had looked exactly the same at that age.

“Where are you taking us?” she asked a second time.

“To my place.”

There was no resistance.

“You live here all by yourself?” Claudia asked when we stumbled into my house, her eyes bulging as she took in my far from humble abode, probably startled by its size. Did one person need so much space? Three bedrooms and bathrooms; anyone would have thought I'd bought it in anticipation of a big family. The reality was that I had no intention of starting one.

“Yes.”

We settled Eduardo gently onto the leather couch in the living room, then I rushed into the master bathroom and fumbled around in the cabinet for antiseptics and dressings. Certainly not the way I'd envisioned the night progressing when I'd woken up.

While Claudia saw to her brother I disappeared into the hall and made a surreptitious call to a doctor who owed me a favor. Waking him at close to midnight naturally put him in a bad mood, but he agreed to come.

“I couldn't take you back to your house. It wouldn't do your mother any good to see you like this,” I said on my return to the room.

Claudia had managed to clean the blood from his face. Surprisingly his eyes were not badly bruised, though a couple of cuts above the brow gave cause for concern, as the blood looked as if it would run into his eyes. His nose bled intermittently and his bottom lip was bloated and red. He pressed a napkin with ice to the swollen areas of his face, lying back on my couch, his blood-stained and mud-stained clothes making a mess of my expensive furniture. A purple bruise sat on his temple. Once again he looked like the boy I knew, not like a victim; though each time his sister applied antiseptic cream to his wounds, he winced.

“She's in Puerto Rico,” Claudia said. “We sent her there last week to recuperate.”

“Well that's something at least. She doesn't need any more stress in her condition.”

“Who did you call?” Eduardo fixed his eyes on me, so suspicious, as though I'd stolen from his bank account! “I heard you on the phone. Who did you call?”

“You wouldn't let me take you to the hospital, so I called a doctor friend of mine. He'll be here shortly.”

“You people. I don't need a fucking doctor!” he grumbled. He tried to get up, tried to shove his sister's hand away, but his face contorted with pain and he fell back down, gripping his sides.

“Your ribs would beg to differ,” I said, holding back a smirk. Now wasn't the time for it.

“I've given him Oxycontin for the pain,” the doctor explained as I walked him to the door. The bags under his eyes and the puffy redness surrounding them were indication enough that he needed to rest. It had probably been weeks since he'd had a good night's sleep. I felt bad for having disturbed him.

“There doesn't seem to be any broken bones, they're just bruised. I've bandaged him up, but I strongly advise he gets to the hospital first thing in the morning for a thorough check-up.”

“And in the meantime?”

“Let him rest. He's sleeping now. He'll feel better when he wakes up.” He handed me a pill bottle. “He should take two of these with breakfast.”

I thanked him for coming at such short notice. He grunted and exited the house. I probably wouldn't be on the Christmas card list this year...

I set up the guest room for Claudia, insisting that she stay the night.

“Why did you call me?” I asked, just before I left her.

“Because you were there for my mom. She says you're a good person.” I searched for the deception in her words, the manipulation, but I found none. Just honesty.

“Your mother said that? About me?” Emotion suddenly overtook me. I'd been called many things, but a good person wasn't one of them.

“Sure she did.”

“Well, your brother doesn't seem to think so.”

Claudia sat on the edge of the bed. “It's nothing personal. He doesn't trust people who have more money than him. Thinks they're evil.” She shrugged, offering me a light smile. “That means virtually the whole world is evil.”

I left her to sleep, in disbelief that she could be related to Eduardo, such a recalcitrant boy. She got her gregarious nature from her mother, clearly. Either way, I took heed of her words. I wouldn't take his attacks personally. His issues existed long before I'd entered their lives.

I slept restlessly, tossing and turning into the early hours, until finally, when I'd tossed myself to the edge of the bed and almost fallen out, I gave up trying to get any more sleep.

5AM. I threw back the covers and stepped onto the cold floor, the chill causing me to shiver. Slippers had been on my To-Buy list for months; I'd been putting it off. Choosing the right slippers wasn't a task to be taken lightly. Much harder than choosing my next pair of killer heels.

My throat felt scratchy; dry. I reached for a satin dressing gown and wrapped it snugly around my shivering body. Heading downstairs I tiptoed through the darkness so as not to wake my sleeping guests. The house hadn't felt this full, this lived-in, since my parents had stayed for two months while their house was being renovated.