Romance: Pummel Me: A Boxing Romance

by Courtney Clein

  “Well why didn’t you say so, Van? Get back to work, you little shithead. And you… “he turned back to Cara as Van took off for the dish pit before he changed his mind. “…what do you want for breakfast?”

  Maurice fixed her a plate of eggs, toast, sausage, bacon and French toast with strawberries and fresh maple syrup, even though Cara had told him she was fine with toast and coffee. In spite of her often times dislike of Maurice’s crass character, Cara had to admit that he was a sensational cook and she relished his meals like each one was her last. That day’s morning meal was no different. After inhaling the final bite, Cara walked her plate to the dish pit with great difficulty. She was so full she could barely breathe. Van was overwhelmed with plates as usual and while she watched him, Cara could not understand how the mountain of cookware never seemed to lessen even though Van was constantly running around like a rabid squirrel.

  “Van, you shouldn’t put up with that kind of abuse,” she whispered to him, gently, placing the dish on a dish rack near his skinny body. “I know you’d like to be a chef but there are other cooks under whom to learn.” The boy almost dropped the pot he was handwashing and stared at her like she had suddenly sprouted another head.

  “Other cooks?” he echoed as if she had just let out a string of profanity. “Cara, there is only one Maurice DeLuca. Don’t you know who he is?” The name did ring a bell but Cara couldn’t put her finger on it.

  “Maurice DeLuca cookware? Maurice DeLuca blenders? Maurice DeLuca kitchen knives? He had the biggest cooking show on the Food Network for five straight years before he quit it to come work for Mr. Lamoreaux. He is more famous than Mr. Lamoreaux!” Suddenly, it was clear why the boy idolized the vicious head chef so much. Cara did recall the show Van was referencing. It had been called “Handle the Heat” and Maurice would spend entire episodes cursing at unwitting staff and patrons alike while smashing dishes for emphasis. There was very little cooking involved, if any at all. People had gone crazy for his antics and his ratings had been phenomenal. Cara had been fairly young when the show had aired but she did remember that his yelling always seemed to grind on her nerves whenever it happened to be on television. The more things change, the more they stay the same, she thought, watching as the head chef berated another sous chef for not having his hat on properly. Cara shook her head and smiled at the awe struck teenager and made an instantaneous decision to get out of the house for the day and escape the insanity of her new surroundings.

  While the hamlet of Sag Harbor was only a few miles away, Cara was aware that she hadn’t seen much of the grounds encircling the Lamoreaux estate. She also didn’t feel comfortable straying too far from home so soon. She had caught glimpses of the various structures outside the mansion but she had yet to see them up close. She had even heard the staff speaking of a stable which she had yet to lay eyes upon. Her intense love for horses was the crowning decision and Cara decided that she would make the trip to town next time she was off while spending this particular Sunday seeing the grounds. As she wandered out the front door onto the circle drive, she cringed involuntarily at the mythical pan in the fountain. She wasn’t sure why the creature seemed to upset her good nature but she didn’t like its onyx eyes and shiny leer. She averted her eyes and walked to the left, where the five car garage took up the entire side of the laneway. She had been out there once, on her second day of work, to wash the windows. Inside there were five vehicles. They had consisted of two Aston Martins, one in red, one in black, a Mercedes 500 S- Class, a BMW M5 and a 1928 Harley Davidson Two Cam. Cara had grimaced when she had seen the mass of metal inside the stone building. What a waste of money, she thought angrily as she observed the two chauffeurs playing cards in behind the vintage motorcycle on a folding table. What does one man need this many cars for? And two drivers? Seriously? Mr. Generosity, yeah right. If he even sold one of these cars and gave the money to charity, he could send a graduating class of inner city kids to college for four years! It had taken every fiber of her being not to throw the bucket of soapy water and squeegee through the windshield of one of the expensive cars.

  That day, she decided not to venture back into the carport again, lest the urge overwhelm her again. Instead, she slipped between the garage and house and followed the west wing to the rear of the property. After an almost five-minute walk, she ended up in the orchid behind the house. She looked up and could see her bedroom window from where she stood. The scent of apples was pleasing to her nose, almost nostalgic and she inhaled happily as she continued through. It was autumn, her favorite season. The leaves had just begun their color transformation and a few had already fallen to the grass, creating a gentle crunching under her running shoes. She wove in and out of the trees and tracing her fingers along the bark like she was a small child, relishing the feel of the wood on their tips. This was the first time she had felt somewhat content since leaving the Carlyle house. She intended to enjoy the fleeting sense of freedom she was feeling. She came across a few migrant workers collecting apples for harvest and while she nodded at them, she did not stop to talk. She wanted to enjoy the serenity of the day. The idea was to make as minimal contact with others as possible. The plan was working wonderfully and she had almost lost track of time in the thick of the trees when the rows abruptly ended and Cara was staring at an English maze. She glanced behind her shoulder and the house was far in the distance, deciding whether or not she should turn back. She had no idea which way the stables might be but it was entirely possible they were inside the display of shrubs. Shrugging to herself, Cara ventured into the opening. She made several wrong turns but eventually, she wandered into the center of the incredible plant plot and was staring at an almost ancient looking building. It was all glass and dome shaped and for a moment, Cara thought it was a greenhouse. It somehow reminded her of Connor Lamoreaux’s off limits library. As she drew closer, however, she realized that it was a ballroom. A glass ballroom. As her initial awe wore off, she searched for and found a door, pushing her way inside. To her absolute disbelief, the floor was also glass and she when she looked down, she saw that it was built atop a lake. Gasping, Cara looked around, shocked at the intricacy and beauty of the enigmatic structure. Moving through the erection, she realized it was much larger than she had initially thought and beyond the magnificent glass and steel assembly were three solid rooms. One room was a state-of-the-art kitchen, a smaller scale of the one in the main house but just as well stocked with modern gadgets and its own dish pit. The second room was a large, theater style coat room. The third room was a supply closet, packed with chairs and tables. It was clear that this place was utilized despite its antique looking exterior as not a speck of dust nor spider web could be detected. Ivy climbed the walls on the outside, covering the brick walls while the plant’s tentacles teased the edges of the dome’s glass. It gave Cara the illusion of an abandoned underwater world and she couldn’t figure out if she was enthralled or horrified. Perhaps there was a bit of both emotions coursing through her as she tried to understand how such a place existed. Looking at the ballroom toyed with her sense of reality somehow and suddenly she felt the urge to get far away from it, as if it might crumble under her touch. She hurried out of the glass room, into the maze but somehow found herself on the opposite end of how she had entered. She was staring at a small parking lot adjacent to a lone road. The dirt path led back toward the direction of the house so instead of going back in around the ballroom, Cara began to walk down the single lane road. The air had cooled significantly since she had started on her exploration and she wished she had thought to bring a sweater with her. Even as the idea entered her mind, the now overcast sky began to spit out a gentle spray of water. Cara picked up her pace to a slow jog. By the time the mansion was in clear view again, the rain had come on full force and Cara was sprinting. Her running shoes were a muddy mess from the wet road and she was soaked to the core. She was surprised to find that she was still in the walls of the estate as and she hurried up the circle drive to the
entranceway. To her chagrin, the front door was locked. She tried ringing the bell but after several moments, it became apparent that no one was coming to let her inside. Shivering, she bolted back down the side of the house through the east wing and headed for the guest house by the pool. She hoped she could wait the storm out there at least. There might even be a phone so she could call Tabitha or Maurice and have them let her into the mansion. She found her way to the bungalow and was relieved to find that the guest house was unlocked, Cara spilled inside and found a towel, wrapping her raven waves in the soft terrycloth. She stripped out of her drenched clothes and threw them into the dryer and wrapped herself in an oversized, red velvet robe which was hanging from the back of the bedroom door. Now dry, Cara glanced around and frowned at the posh guest quarters. I bet no one ever stays here. Tabitha told me the first day that guests stay in the west wing. This is an entire freaking house! Why are there so many amenities? This guy is spoiled and wasteful. If I ever win the lottery, I will never spend my money on useless things. I will use it to help the less fortunate. Cara sighed, exhausted by her own anger. She knew that she wasn’t winning the lottery anytime soon. She forced herself to calm her sense of righteousness and relax. What Connor Lamoreaux does with his money is none of your business, she reminded herself. Save your energy. You’re going to need it to make it through the next two years working here. In the meantime, however, she decided to be grateful that Mr. Lamoreaux did feel the need to have someone stock up his rarely used guest house. She rummaged through the kitchen and found a box of chocolate chip cookies and a bag of ketchup chips. She made herself a hot chocolate from the electric kettle and flipped on the television. The fifty-four-inch screen lit up and Cara found a movie to wait out the storm. Oddly, there was no phone in the apartment from what Cara could see. The lack of outside communication made her unexpectedly happy. She felt hidden from the world there. No one knew she was there and no one was looking for her. She could hide out in complete, undisturbed luxury, guilt free for a few hours. Smiling to herself, she tossed a fuzzy throw blanket over her legs and curled up on the futon, warming her frozen toes under her buttocks. There are worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon.

  He walked into the pool side house, menacingly, his magnetic blue eyes ablaze. Cara went to lift her head but she couldn’t. She was paralyzed.

  “What are you doing here?” Lamoreaux hissed. Cara tried to get up from the futon but she was physically unable to move. She opened her mouth to answer but her lips were glued together. He drew closer and panic overwhelmed her. She was screaming in her head and he pulled out a long knife from behind his back. He rushed toward her, plunging it into her stomach –

  She bolted up, drenched in sweat. The movie had ended and the blank blue screen from the television illuminated the otherwise dark house. The storm had stopped and the first thing she noticed was the incredible silence. It was too quiet but for the blood rushing in her ears from her hammering heart rate. Cara waited for the pounding to stop and then swung her legs over the side of the sofa. She rose to her bare feet and slid open the sliding glass doors to look outside. The night had an autumn bite but Cara relished the cleansing air and welcomed the coolness against her sweating brow. She tentatively walked outside and wandered over to the poolside, straining her ears for any sign of life. She heard an owl hoot in the distance and immediately felt grounded again, grateful for the woodland creature’s cry. The pool was scheduled to be closed the following weekend so there was still water glistening light blue under the stars but its lights were off. Cara leaned forward and splashed some on her face to clear the nightmare from her head. Her pulse was still slightly erratic. She couldn’t shake the horrible feeling the dream had been some sort of urgent omen, like someone was trying to warn her of something. Warn me about Connor Lamoreaux? Or are you just looking for an out again? Sometimes a bad dream is just a bad dream, she reasoned but even as she thought it, Cara felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle and she rubbed the goosebumps off her arms almost angrily. What is wrong with me? You need to stop with this foolishness. But no matter how much she tried to be logical, she could not rid herself of the feeling that something was amiss. As if she were possessed, Cara slowly turned to face the moon at her back. It was a shining half-moon and the stars were all brightly vivid, unfettered by clouds as if the earlier storm had been an illusion. The mansion seemed three times as big against the night and it loomed creepy and uninviting. Cara didn’t notice anything about the cosmos because as she turned to face the forbidding house, a set of steel blue-grey eyes were boring down on her from a window on the second floor. Cara’s emerald irises widened as the familiar glowing orbs retreated into the blackness but even without seeing the face, she knew that Connor Lamoreaux had been watching her.

  Chapter Four

  Cara didn’t immediately recognize where she was when the vehicle pulled up to the building. Wedged between Andrew and Van in the rear of the car, she craned her neck to stare at the bewitching structure before her, trying to ignore Andrew’s hand resting suggestively on her knee. She was feeling exactly like the first day she had arrived at the Lamoreaux house in a cab, simultaneously uneasy and excited. The pink glow of autumn twilight was rippling through the trees in the paved parking lot, casting a surreal glow on the glass dome before them. Suddenly, however, she recognized the ballroom but it looked like a mythical lost underwater kingdom instead of an ancient, crumbling ruin from Aztec times. There were soft white decorative lights twined somehow through the slender beams of the building and solar lanterns led the pathway leading up an actual red carpet to the wide double doors which were open and welcoming.

  As the staff slipped out of the car single file, another van drew up beside them and Tabitha and Maurice filtered out, barking orders at one another. Cara noted with some amusement that neither seemed to be either hearing or heeding the instructions of the other.

  “Cara, take this,” Tabitha commanded as she saw her standing there, thrusting a huge platter into her arms. Cara almost buckled under its weight.

  “If you drop that, you’ll owe Mr. Lamoreaux forty thousand dollars! Even your vagina won’t pay your way out of that debt, Clara!” Maurice yelled at her but Cara ignored him and started up the path to catch up with her co-workers. As she drew nearer to the ballroom, she could see that only candle-lit lanterns illuminated the stunning crystal room, casting impish shadows on the reflections. Everywhere she looked, Cara felt like it was an optical illusion, as if she were in some surreal magic show. She paused in the doorway and looked around, trying to orient herself. Ten tables of sixteen had been set up to the side as to not deter attention from the glass bottom floor. The lake below had also been light with soft, underwater lighting and if Cara stared long enough, she would see a small minnow slip by in the murky green water under her feet. A bartender was stocking up a stationary bar against one of the solid walls and a live band was doing a sound check on a makeshift platform near where she had first entered the ballroom, over two weeks before. Since the day of that wild storm, Cara had kept a very low profile, trying her best not to be seen by Connor Lamoreaux. She had stayed in her room reading and watching television after hours and when she was working, she hid in the shadows and begged Tabitha for obscure chores away from the main areas of the house. On her days off, she took off for Sag Harbor and did not return until well after the sun had set. She had not seen Lamoreaux again but she wanted to ensure that contact with him was minimal at best. There was really no cause for having to see him, she reasoned. Tabitha was technically her boss. This was only a job. She just needed to save some money for a couple of years and then she could go to college and become a veterinarian, just as she had always dreamed. She wasn’t sure what to make of the night he had watched her in the guest house by the pool. A part of her wanted to be disgusted, think of the act as perversion but secretly, she was turned on by his voyeurism.

  “Are you going to finish with your wet day dream soon? Some of us need to get to work.�
� Cara turned and scowled at Maurice, blushing as if he had read her thoughts.

  “I was just trying to figure out where to put this,” she snapped defensively. Maurice pointed toward the bar and gave her a playful push in its direction. To the backside of the structure, there was a glistening ice sculpture of a polar bear beside a champagne fountain which had not yet been started. Dozens of champagne glasses were engineered into a huge pyramid at its side.

  “Hors d’ouerve table,” he said dismissively, brushing past her. Cara gently placed the dish down as to not disturb the expensive crystal goblets and turned to hurry after Maurice.

  “No!” Tabitha said sharply. “You stay with me. You don’t go near the kitchen staff tonight. I need you and they are going to be ready to kill anything in their wake so stay close to me. Trust me, it’s as much for your sake as it is theirs.” Cara nodded and slowed to stand with Tabitha. She had no idea what to do at an event like this. In the Carlyle home, she was generally given the night off when they had parties and left to contend with the aftermath of the destruction the following day. Aside from Damien and Yvette’s wedding, she had never actually worked a party of this magnitude.

  “What would you like me to do?” Slowly, the amazon grinned at Cara and for the first time, she noticed the woman actually had incredibly kind eyes which lightened to a clear, fluid brown. She idly wished Tabitha would smile more. The older woman almost looked beautiful in the soft light at that moment.

  “Believe it or not, Mr. Lamoreaux’s parties are a huge break for us. Our job, as senior staff, is to keep an eye on the hired assistance brought in for these occasions. Lucky for us, this serving company has been with us for years so I know the staff they send quite well and they don’t require a lot of supervision. Just ensure that no one is drinking or frolicking or getting too comfortable with Mr. Lamoreaux’s guests but really, this is just as much for your enjoyment as the party guests.” Cara blinked, surprised at Tabitha’s words but not entirely believing that to be the entire truth.