“Fine. Come in and put them in the bathroom,” the guest says.
“I’m not allowed to enter occupied rooms, sir.”
“I just told you to come in and put them in the bathroom.”
“Thank you for your generous invitation, sir, but rules are rules, and I can’t afford to get fired.”
He reaches out and grabs her elbow. “I’ll tell them not to fire you.”
Fuck.
Much as I want to watch her lay him out flat—and given what she did to me Friday night, I have zero doubt she could—I have a job to do as well.
So I stroll around the corner and clear my throat loudly. “Johnson, stop fraternizing with the guests. Sir, is this woman bothering you?”
I look pointedly at his hand, then back up to his face.
He’s a couple decades older than me, more gray than black in his beard, carrying himself with the arrogance that comes with a lifetime of not having his place in the world ever questioned, and he’s in a white retreat center robe and possibly nothing else.
It’s high-end here. They have a spa and a wine tasting room featuring wines from all over the state, both at the top of the mountain, accessible by either trails or a gondola.
“She won’t bring my towels into my room like I told her to,” he says to me.
“Because she’ll be fired.” I climb the two steps and take the towels from her, getting a whiff of lavender and lemon and sunshine as I do. “Where do you want them?” I ask him.
“He requested the bathroom, sir,” Margot—Margie—says to me.
I look at the guest. “Where’s the bathroom?”
“I—she—fine. I’ll do the damn work myself.” He grabs the towels and slams the door in my face.
Margot’s face twitches in annoyance.
It’s not a large sign that she’s not who she’s claiming to be, but it’s one of the very, very few times I’ve seen her irritated to any degree since she got here.
Why the actual fuck is she pretending to be a housekeeper?
What’s she up to?
Are the triplets a convenient cover story for her to scope out retreat center competition to her hotel chains?
Is she really related to them?
“Thank you,” she says to me.
“You didn’t have your skillet. Someone had to do something.”
She purses her lips together, but a small laugh still slips out. “That wouldn’t end well for my job either.”
I slide another look at her.
She doesn’t need this job.
But I’ll give her credit. These past three days since we both started, she’s efficiently cleaned every room or chalet she’s worked on spotlessly, without complaint, though I did hear that she’s taking too long sometimes and had an incident with a spray bottle.
At home, I haven’t seen her much in the cabin. She’s frequently out later than I am after work, and when she’s there, she keeps to herself aside from the occasional meal we share, where I’ve been pushing limits to see if she’ll crack with her cover story.
But while she’s been there, I’ve heard her moving around in the bedroom, and she’s not making the noises I’d expect of apampered heiress who doesn’t generally do manual labor every day like she’s doing now.
