by Abby Knox
Maid for the Billionaire
Abby Knox
Copyright © 2020 by Abby Knox
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Edited by Aquila Editing
Proofread by Red Pen Princess
Cover Designer: Mayhem Cover Creations
Dedicated to all my many piles of books and hoards of costume jewelry.
Go kick rocks, Marie Kondo. All of it gives me joy. All of it.
Maid for the Billionaire
By Abby Knox
High-powered Stella is coping with a messy little secret. So, when the ridiculously hot Luke shows up on her doorstep, his temporary housekeeping assignment quickly turns into a permanent solution that Stella never knew she needed. He may have fudged his credentials to get the job, but on the flipside, Stella might possibly be able to help this clean freak explore the good kind of dirty.
This is the angst-free billionaire love story you’ve been waiting for, with a sweep-you-off-your feet hero and a badass heroine that’s anything but squeaky clean!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Abby Knox
An excerpt from Bake Sale Queen
Chapter One
Luke
The number calling me for the third time this morning is not one I recognize, but I know exactly who it is.
“Assholes,” I mutter.
My big sausage finger hits “decline call,” and I toss my phone on the passenger seat of my Ford Fairlane. My sweet ride. My baby.
As if in response to my cussing, the GPS lady on the phone says we’re at my destination. I look around, and I’m surprised I haven’t come across a security gate yet for the house I’m supposed to clean today. It’s my first day on a new job.
It’s a moderately nice, older neighborhood. Tall palm trees. A Spanish-style home is nestled into the hillside, set back from the road but not hidden.
The phone rings again as I steer into the driveway. I glance over at it. Could be an agent calling me back, could be the number-spoofing assholes again. Could be someone from my other job, waiting tables, asking if I want to pick up a shift tonight.
Pretty sure I know who it is not. Talent agents I’ve cold-called do not call back on this early in the morning, if they call back at all.
I relax when I recognize the number and answer right away. “Lucille, everything OK?”
The older woman’s voice on the other end is hesitant. “The doctor said I don’t need to come in to have my prescription refilled so I won’t need a ride to the doctor after all. He’s called it in for me; do you think you would have time to pick it up? I don’t want to bother you.”
I chuckle, both relieved and touched that this lovely woman thinks she’s bothering me at all. “Will do, Lucille. The usual pharmacy?”
She gives me the details, then we say goodbye in the usual way. “Take care of yourself, Buster.”
“See you soon, Toots,” I answer.
Lucille, my elderly widowed neighbor, says goodbye to me this way in memory of her late husband Burt, whom she called Buster. So to humor her, I call her Toots. Whatever it takes to make that lady happy, I’ll do it.
She asks for very little except an occasional ride to medical appointments, since the state took her license away due to her deteriorating eyesight. Plus, she can’t afford the fees to use the special transportation for senior citizens, and I really wouldn’t want her to anyway. I’ve become quite protective of her, and I enjoy listening to her stories when I drive her around town.
It might seem weird to people that I let this little old lady use her husband’s pet names on me, but it also serves a greater purpose. The one time she didn’t call me Buster, something sounded very wrong with her breathing. Luckily I picked up on it and called an ambulance; turned out she was having cardiac arrhythmia.
Grinning, I shove my phone back in my pocket. It makes me happy to look out for Lucille. She’s a sweet lady and she has nobody else to take care of her.
I have to be careful how quick I am to answer the phone, though. The assholes who keep calling represent the sketchiest of sketchy storefront lending companies, to whom I fell prey one day in a moment of weakness. I needed money for headshots, so I did what I thought I had to do. I walked in and put my car title up for collateral and got the money for headshots.
But in recent days, that company has started hounding me over the phone day and night. If I could go back in time and not put my Ford Fairlane up as collateral, I would.
I step out and lock up my beautifully restored car, the one that took me across the country to try to make it in Hollywood, and I feel like I should apologize to her. This car represents my one and only happy childhood memory. And what did I do to her? Betrayed her. I shake my head.
Even with decent headshots, I still have zero juice in this town. Not a single call back from auditions. Not so much as a hemorrhoid cream commercial.
And now here I am, having plumped up my résumé to get a second job with a housekeeping company, just to earn enough money to make the phone calls stop.
The phone rings again as I walk up the steps to the rounded front door. I glare at the screen, see the likely-spoofed number, decline the call and silence the phone.
At moments like these, I realize I’m too young to have ever angrily slammed down an old-fashioned telephone receiver. Hanging up and declining calls on smartphones has got to be the most physically unsatisfying response to dickheads ever.
Ever since I stopped answering the lender’s calls, they’ve started spoofing numbers, trying to get me to answer. It’s not lost on me that if I’m spooked away from answering the phone, it really puts a damper on me waiting for acting audition callbacks or prospective agents.
So yeah, it’s a fun little pickle I’ve gotten myself into. Fun as in, the kind of fun I imagine it would be to have my balls waxed.
Honestly, I’m not above extreme manscaping at this point, if it’ll get me a paying acting gig.
Huh. I wonder if I could do porn? Do I want to do porn? I’m not terrible in bed, I don’t think.
Focus, Luke. Focus.
On the clipboard in my hand is the paper they gave me at Maid for You with all the information about today’s client. Stella Monroe. By the look of the house and the name, I’m imagining another sweet little old lady, just like my neighbor Lucille.
Rich or not, I’d better do a great job here today. This is my last chance at eking out some way to make ends meet before I give up and head back to Indiana with my tail between my legs. If this fails, hopefully I’ll make it out of the State of California with my sweet baby Fairlane just ahead of the debt collectors.
/> I don’t want it to come to that. The lender, Golden State Finance, will get their money. Just have to stop harassing me long enough to let me lock down this job.
When the administrator at Maid for You peered at me over the top of her wire-rimmed glasses and asked me if everything on my application was accurate including my experience, I nodded my head and said yes with a clear conscience.
Have I cleaned houses before? Yes. My own apartment. And Lucille’s, when she went into the hospital after she fell ill.
Did she pay me? Only in banana bread. But it was very good banana bread, which I consider enough to make me a professional housekeeper.
Not enough to pay the rent—which, by the way, I’m also behind on—but it sure filled me up when I was out of grocery money.
Hopefully the little old lady on the other side of this door will like me enough that I can earn more than some homemade banana bread.
As the door opens, I pull myself up to my full height and turn on my most disarming smile, ready to charm the pants off the little old lady.
What an expression.
The woman answering the door is wearing a high-end suit, sexy high heels, and a handbag that looks like it costs more than I’ve made in the past year. Pearls, Rolex watch, the whole nine yards. She is not little, or old, but is very much, in every sense of the word, a lady.
How do I know? Beyond the high-end clothes and jewelry, I see the polished poise and posture of someone who’s either been to finishing school, modeling school, or both. And, surpassing all of that, the kindness and humor in her huge, beautiful eyes make me want to burst into song. She’s the most breathtaking human I’ve ever seen. And I’ve spent a lot of time at auditions, surrounded by models and aspiring actors. Many times I thought about asking for their phone numbers, and some of them have asked me for mine after striking up a friendly conversation.
But none of them ever made me catch my breath at first sight. I might not be able to focus on cleaning all day if I’m thinking about losing myself in those eyes, tugging loose that high ponytail, and unbuttoning the top button of her silk blouse to take a taste of that swan-like neck.
When the client opens her mouth to speak, her fire-engine red tinted lips have me ready to fall to my knees right here, right now.
The universe is playing some kind of sick joke on me.
I haven’t dated anyone since I moved to LA. I decided early on that I shouldn’t try to brave the dating scene until I achieved some kind of success. Or at least met some of my goals. I’ve stayed true to that because I’m not a casual dater. I want a wife, kids, dogs, cats, maybe even a pair of guinea pigs.
And, now, here I am, standing in front of the woman I’m going to marry. At the most unstable, desperate phase of my life.
Not a good look, Luke Jeffries. Not a good look at all.
Chapter Two
Stella
The hulk of a man tromping up my front steps—whom I’m watching through my bathroom window—cannot be real.
By that I don’t mean he must be an actor. I mean, is he a figment of my imagination or did I somehow summon a personal trainer with a few simple keystrokes?
I blot my red lipstick one last time and hurry to the door as he rings the bell.
Slow down, girl. I know it’s been a while since any man this good-looking has graced your front door, but that’s no reason to forget what’s happening here. Someone took a look at your internet search data and figured out you were in the market for a trainer, and crossed a major boundary by sending one right to your house!
Time to update my firewall.
And while I’m thjnking of this, my mind wanders off to thoughts about putting up a security gate at this place.
My company’s vice president has been begging me for years to hire a personal bodyguard and a driver, even. But that’s just not who I am. Sure, I spend money on myself, indulge in clothes and shoes, even share a private jet with a few other titans of the tech world. But I just can’t stand the idea of a security detail watching my every move. Besides, aren’t we all under surveillance enough in this crazy world?
My hands smooth down the front of my already-pressed suit, as I pull myself together so I don’t rage at the poor guy. It’s not his fault. He’s not the spy, but his boss might be.
Just about an hour ago I was surfing online for an in-home personal trainer, and now this.
My life’s work in computers has been to combat exactly this type of spying and data mining. Some companies may pay a lot of money to spy on our every keystroke, text, conversation and passing thought in this day and age, but this is ridiculous. Oh the irony that despite all my firewalls, they’re now collecting data on me.
I open the door to a massive, athletic-looking hunk with the most innocent smile I’ve ever seen. Not the kind of cocky grin I’ve gotten from a lot of guys I meet. This is the face of someone with no ulterior motives whatsoever. I can just tell by looking at him, with his bright, curious eyes, he’s a decent human. I relax a little.
Even though I’m about to call his boss on the carpet, I feel a little bad about it. Someone as sweet-looking as this oversized dude should never lose that quality. What is it? And how can I tell that just by a smile?
Girl, you’ve been alone too long.
Glancing down at my suit and pumps, I remind myself that yeah, there’s a good reason I’m still alone and projecting certain attractive attributes on a total stranger showing up at my door. Because you’re a workaholic.
No, a self-made woman who oversees a vast internet security company does not have time to swim in her own pool, let alone time for coach-led exercise. Or time to date anyone, for that matter.
“The internet has gone too far this time, even you should agree.”
The confused expression on the muscle-bound, made-for-TV fitness coach filling up my door frame charms me with some strange magic, because he manages to smile and be confused at the same time. It might be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
Mental note: give yourself an orgasm later and get these urges under control.
My eyes don’t listen to my mental notes, however, and neither does my libido. My gaze takes note instead, that this incredibly striking human in front of me is wearing a fitted tee-shirt that strains over the muscles of his chest, and gray sweatpants, which—well, surely I’m not alone in my appreciation of gray sweatpants.
“I…guess so?” he says, still looking confused, but with an air of concern also. Not even the ballcap can hide those Colin Farrell eyebrows. And why shouldn’t he be concerned? He probably thinks I’m certifiable, the way I’m staring at him.
Don’t look down at his sweatpants, Stella.
I force myself to examine the not-sexy parts of him and notice he’s carrying a clipboard in his hand. A soft brown curl has escaped from under the cap, wrapping itself around the No. 2 pencil that’s tucked behind his ear. Deep brown eyes peer down at me from under the cap’s visor.
He might be good-looking enough to convince me to skip work and commence resistance training right now, even though I’m about to go to work and give the most important speech of my life.
I’m meeting with the heads of a group of other companies, to convince them to invest in a joint venture. This speech is going to be a hard sell, but to help protect our elections, and to take down fake news sites on social media, we competitors have to band together for the greater good. I just hope they buy it.
“Well,” I reply. “The internet is getting spooky, don’t you think? Full of spies trying to sell you things based on your search history.”
The man leans back slightly, as if trying to assess me, and to try to figure out where I’m going with this line of questioning.
“But…you did fill out the questionnaire…”
I laugh. “Oh, so you saw the quiz that I took about my body type and everything? Already? Wow. Who did your boss hire for website cookies, because they’re really good. Foley, right? It must be Foley. Dammit, I knew I should have
bought and folded that asshole’s company when I had the chance.”
“Cookies? I don’t know anything about cookies, but Lucille did pay me in banana bread.”
“What?” I ask.
“What?” He answers with a question and I have to work extra hard to feel annoyed about it.
I sigh. “Well, be that as it may, it’s no secret I do need a fitness coach, so I guess I’m not even that mad.” Lie. You’re not mad because he’s as cute as hell…and he smells good. A fresh, green scent like cut grass but better. “But I’m sorry to say my gym equipment hasn’t even arrived yet so there’s not much you can do for me at this point. And anyway, I’m about to leave for work, so…”
“Uhm,” he says, looking puzzled but amused, thrusting out one hand, his even-wider grin seemingly sending beams of light through my open front door. “Luke Jeffries, the agency sent me.” I accept his offer of a handshake, and the heat both awakens and settles me. Why are men’s hands so much warmer? And why is this man’s hand in particular warming me from the inside out?
Standing aside, I gesture him into the foyer with my chin.
“I suppose if you want to come in for a minute and get the lay of the land, that’s OK. The pool is straight through the kitchen and out the back sliding glass door; it’s open. You can go check it out and see if it’s suitable for what you have planned for me.”
Luke’s quizzical gaze goes through the kitchen and out toward the pool, then he swings back toward me.
“Sorry,” he says, “I think you have me confused with someone else. I’m Maid for You.”
