He blinks, everything from his expression to stance unchanging. “I might have gotten upset last night,” he says casually.
“I thought you got vandalized!” I let out.
“Are you kidding? I run a security company for a living. Who would be stupid enough to break into my house? Ortryto break into my house?”
My head shakes slowly. “I was actually afraid for a moment.”
“Well, you don’t need to be. But I would appreciate it if you could clean it up. I have to hop on a work call,” he says as he pivots to walk back to his office. Then he stops, looking into the kitchen.
“Is the coffee ready?” he asks and I swear I am seeing red.
“Two minutes,” I answer. Dominic looks at his watch and I know what he’s thinking– two minutes past. I could give him something else in two minutes, but it might not be as pleasant.
Suddenly, I find myself tucking that mental Polaroid further back into the archives of my admiration because right now, I need to focus my energy on not throwing this cup of coffee straight into his beat-up face.
Obviously, I don’t do that. He could have me arrested for third degree burns. I’m about to give him a different kind of third degree.
Despite the fact his door is all the way closed, I barge in. His eyes dart up to mine and I can almost hear the warning signals he’s shooting at me. But I ignore every one of them and slam his mug down on his desk, sending a geyser of hot black coffee into the air and all over the desk.
“I’m going to have to call you back, Preston. A more pressing just landed on my desk,” he says with his eyes hard on me. “Yes, Andrew will take it from here.”
Dominic hangs up the phone and his eyes narrow in on me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Going on strike,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he growls. But I’m not backing down, not this time.
“Exactly what it sounds like it means! I might work for you but you can’t order me around, throwing tantrums and expecting me to pick up after you,” I snap.
“I hired you as a maid. I’m pretty sure that’s exactly your job description,” he combats.
“My job is to clean and help you with your laundry and meal prep and sometimes even errands. Not to follow you around with a mop and broom every time you get your shorts in a knot all because you lost a fi–” I stop myself.
Fuck.
Luckily, Dominic doesn’t seem to catch what I almost said. “What I’m losing is money. Because I should be on a work call right now with a very important client in Manhattan who happens to be the head of security for the Superbowl. As in the NFL. Not arguing with mymaidabout whether or not cleaning up a broken mirror is part of her job!”
“You broke the mirror!” I shout.
“Even if I did, I hired you to clean!” he booms.
“Well I didn’t know that when I took the job that my boss was going to be a hot-headed jerk!”
With that, Dominic bolts to his feet, knocking his chair over backwards in the process. Before I can even unfold my arms, he is around the desk and standing over me like an angry statue, a Greek god ready to unleash his divine wrath.
“Say that again,” he breathes over me. “I dare you.”
I should be scared. My nerves feel like a million pinpricks all over my body. But some of those nerves are only growing warmer and I find myself aroused by the possibility of the danger I could be in.
“You are impatient, ungrateful and impersonal,” I tell him.
“You working for me in my own home doesn’t require me to be personable, Miss Rojas,” he says slowly.
“Mila,” I tell him. “My name is Mila. I cook your meals for you. Not based on recipe cards that you have provided, because you didn’t. Based on research I did based on knowing nothing more than your food preferences, something I had to figure out on the job. I use specific cleaners in specific rooms, wash your whites on cold and your colors on warm and I’ve even switched your detergent to an environmentally friendly one after noticing that your skin looked a little irritated around the collar. Not only that but I set the temperature in the house and I’ve cleaned the patio window daily since noticing that sometimes before you go into your office, you stop there to drink your coffee and you like to overlook the beach. Today I will have to scrub whiskey off the glass and yet you are judging me based on whether or not your nasty ass coffee is ready on time.”
By the time I am finished talking, my chest is rising and falling jaggedly with each breath. But I have no regrets. Dominic stares down at me, his dark gray eyes locked on mine like storm clouds hovering over an unprotected city just before a tornado.
“You are walking on very thin ice,Mila.Thin enough that if you looked down, you could see the sharks swarming under your feet,” he says in a low voice.
