Training the Help [Hedon Falls 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More)
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Hedon Falls 3
Training the Help
Unemployed and running out of resources, Sophie LaPlante is desperate for a job when the perfect one appears before her. A wealthy couple from Hedon Falls requires a live-in housekeeper, and Sophie is just what they’re looking for.
Jack Sullivan, a powerful CEO and Dom, is married to actress Kendra Hughes. He immediately senses submissive tendencies in his new housekeeper. His wife can never be the sub he needs, so while Kendra is away on a film shoot, he begins to train Sophie. When Kendra returns, she joins the training to explore her own Dominant desires. While their sessions were not intended to involve sex, they find themselves fighting a losing battle against their mutual attraction.
The three of them are caught up in a web of lust, guilt, and infidelity, all complicated by an ex-boyfriend who can’t leave Sophie alone.
Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 55,589 words
TRAINING THE HELP
Hedon Falls 3
Michelle Graham
MENAGE AND MORE
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage and More
TRAINING THE HELP
Copyright © 2013 by Michelle Graham
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-864-9
First E-book Publication: April 2013
Cover design by Harris Channing
All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
Dear Readers,
If you have purchased this copy of Training the Help by Michelle Graham from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.
Regarding E-book Piracy
This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.
The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.
This is Michelle Graham’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Graham’s right to earn a living from her work.
Amanda Hilton, Publisher
www.SirenPublishing.com
www.BookStrand.com
DEDICATION
For my husband. We’ve been together for many years, and though we’ve had our share of rough patches, I feel closer to you now than I ever have. Thank you for your love, support, and patience. I love you.
Thank you to Stacey, (the best beta reader ever) for your helpful suggestions and willingness to work with me to make this story so much better than when it began!
TRAINING THE HELP
Hedon Falls 3
MICHELLE GRAHAM
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One
Unemployment sucked.
Sophie flipped through the pile of mail—all bills, all overdue. She had been out of work for two months now, having been laid off from a local hotel that went under. Her unemployment cheques were small and she was getting further behind on everything. She looked at the envelopes. Hydro—past due. Gas—past due. Water—past due. The list went on. She was on the verge of losing her apartment. If she didn’t find work soon, she would find herself out on the streets.
Maybe I should just become a hooker, she thought. I could make my own hours, work from home and have a damn good time doing it. Shaking her head she opened the paper to the classified section and started looking again. It seemed the ads didn’t change very much. Fry cooks, secretaries, technicians. She wasn’t qualified for any of those. She had been calling the local fast food restaurants and coffee shops and no one even called her back. She had even tried a two-day stint in telemarketing, but she just wasn’t pushy enough to make any sales and had been told not to return for day three. The ads for massage parlour attendants were starting to look pretty good.
As she neared the end of the column, an ad caught her eye. Housekeeper, she read. Live-in housekeeper required for large estate home. Some cooking required. Must have driver’s license and previous experience. Salary plus room and board. Sophie excitedly circled the ad. Five years of housekeeping at the hotel gave her plenty of experience. She could follow a recipe as well as the next girl. And having room and board, too? That solved the problem of the apartment and all the bills.
Sophie picked up the phone and pressed the talk button. Nothing happened. She pressed it again with the same results. She glanced at the bill pile again. Spotting the phone company logo she pulled out the envelope and ripped it open. It was a Notice of Disconnection. Perfect.
With a sigh, she stood and grabbed her coat, a pencil, and the paper. She checked her pockets for change and came up with a dime, two pennies, a mint, and a gum wrapper. She took her wallet out of her purse and found a nickel. After rummaging around her purse for a moment, she upended the entire thing onto the kitchen table. Her search yielded another nickel and a few more pennies. Sophie groaned in frustration. The perfect job was just a phone call away and she couldn’t find enough damn change to use the pay phone!
Twenty minutes later, the sofa cushions littered the floor, the contents of the kitchen drawers lay scattered across the counter, clothes were tossed across the bed with pockets turned out, and Sophie finally had the fifty cents needed to use the phone. She headed out the door and to the variety store on the corner, one of the few places that still had a pay phone.
Sophie double-checked the number. She didn’t have enough for more than one call and if she got a wrong number she was screwed. After carefully dialing, she listened to the ringing. Three times. Four. Five. Sophie was about to hang up, in case a machine answered, when she heard a voice say, “Mr. Sullivan’s office. May I help you?”
“I’m calling about the ad in the paper for a housekeeper,” Sophie said.
“All right,” said the voice. “If you leave me your name and number, someone will call you back.”
Sophie stared up at the roof of the phone booth. “Actually,” she began. “I’m having some issues with my phone right now and I’m calling from a pay phone. Is there any way I can talk to someone now?”
“Mr. Sullivan is not available at the moment,” the voice replied icily. “I suggest you call back. Good—”
“Wait!” Sophie cried.
A beat of silence. “Yes?” the voice snapped.
“Could you just put me on hold until he’s able to talk?” Sophie asked desperately.
“You want me to put you on hold?” the voice responded.
“Yes! I’ll wait!” Sophie said eagerly.
A second later the familiar sounds of a watered-down, instrumental version of a pop song started. Sophie sighed in relief. She could do this.
Ten minutes later, after listening to the same song on an endless loop, Sophie was ready to rip the pay phone out of the booth. She’d be singing the song for days to come! She had just about neared her breaking point when a masculine voice came on the line.
“Jack Sullivan,” he said.
“Hi!” Sophie said excitedly, then winced at the eagerness in her voice. Trying to tone it down a bit she continued, “My name is Sophie LaPlante and I’m calling about the ad for a housekeeper.”
“Right. We’re holding interviews on Monday at the Hilton Hotel,” Mr. Sullivan said brusquely. “You need to be there for four o’clock. Just ask at the desk and they’ll point you to the room. Bring a resume.”
Sophie jotted the information down in her day planner. “Monday, Hilton, four o’clock,” she repeated. “I just wanted to tell you—”
“You can tell me at the interview,” Mr. Sullivan cut in. And before Sophie could respond he had hung up.
Sighing, she followed suit and returned to her apartment. She was about to insert her key into the lock when she noticed the door wasn’t closed quite right and at a slight push it swung inward. Sophie quickly stuck her keys in between her fingers so they were jutting out and she could use them against an attacker as she’d been shown in a self-defense class. The light was on inside the apartment and although she had left in a hurry she was sure she had turned it off. She quietly slipped in the door, her eyes darting around.
She jumped at a crash from the kitchen which was followed by a loud, “Shit!”
Dropping her hands to her sides she threw down her purse and slammed the door. “Oh for fuck’s sake!” she muttered and stalked into the kitchen.
Bent over in front of the refrigerator was a tall man with scraggly, dark brown hair that was hanging loosely over his collar. He was picking up pieces of a shattered drinking glass and cursing under his breath.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Tony?” Sophie asked.
Tony straightened up and grinned at her. It was a boyish, “Aw shucks. You caught me,” kind of grin. There had been a time when that grin would have had her heart racing, but now she just found it kind of irritating.
“Hey, Sophie, babe!” He held open his arms to her. Sophie pointedly crossed her own arms across her chest and glared at him. He dropped his arms and his smile slipped a bit. “I just wanted to see you, babe,” he said. “You know I miss you.”
“Tony, we broke up four months ago,” Sophie reminded him. “You can’t keep coming over here. How the hell did you get in, anyway? I thought you gave me back your key after the last time.”
The sheepish little grin returned. “I had a copy,” he said. “I knew you didn’t really want me to give it back to you. You’re going to want me back.”
Sophie snorted. “Newsflash, Tony—when a girl asks for her key back, she wants her key back. It. Is. Over. For good,” she added. “Now give me the copy and get out.”
Tony walked over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “You don’t really mean that,” he cajoled. He ran a hand down her arm and slid it around her waist. “We had a good thing going.”
Sophie managed to slide out of his grasp and head toward the door. “You sound ridiculous!” she sneered. “If we had such a good thing you wouldn’t have needed to pick up strange chicks in bars! Don’t blame me for this when you couldn’t keep your little dick in your pants!” She was shouting now.
Tony’s eyes blazed and he strode toward her until she was backed up against the wall. He grabbed her chin tightly and held her so she couldn’t turn her head. “My dick is the best you’ve had,” he growled at her. “It’s the best you’ll ever have. Who the hell else would want a bitch like you?”
Sophie struggled against his grasp but he was so much bigger than her that she was able to do very little good. So she stopped and went limp. Taking this as a sign that she was relenting, Tony released her chin and moved to put his arms around her. Sophie ducked down so his arms closed on empty space and she moved out from between him and the wall.
“Get out of here, Tony!” she cried. “Just stay the fuck away from me!”
He whirled around and, as he turned, his elbow caught her on the cheek just below her eye. Sophie reeled away and lost her balance. She fell backward and her head hit the door frame. And everything went black.
* * * *
Tony stared down at the woman who now lay unconscious on the floor. Stupid bitch. He hadn’t meant to hit her. Not this time, anyway. When he hit her while they were dating, it was only because she was acting like a selfish brat. He had needed to remind her who was in charge. Although when she had come home to find him fucking that chick he picked up, she had stood her ground and kicked him out. Even the back of his hand on her face hadn’t convinced her.
He had fucked up and he knew it. He could admit that. He wasn’t as unreasonable as Sophie thought he was. And he wanted her back. He had tried being with other women, but none of them did it for him the way Sophie did. He groaned as he remembered how it felt to slide his cock into her, and instantly, he was hard. He rubbed his crotch a bit and looked down at her again. It would be easy to just carry her into the bedroom and screw her right now. But as much as he wanted her, he would rather she was awake. He bent over and satisfied himself with a quick squeeze of her tits before walking out the door.
Chapter Two
Sophie woke to a cool sensation against her face. She couldn’t remember where she was at first. She slowly opened her eyes and found herself staring at the ceiling of her apartment. She frowned and winced at a pain in her cheek. She could feel something resting there and when she reached up she felt a small, cold object. Lifting it, she saw it was a gel ice pack. She turned her head and saw an older woman sitting in a chair at her kitchen table.
“Mrs. Ellerton?” Sophie asked.
The older woman glanced over and smiled at her. She came to take Sophie’s hand and helped her to a sitting position. “Don’t try to stand yet,” she said to Sophie. “I don’t want you passing out again.”
“What happened?” Sophie asked. “I think…I was… Someone was here…”
“I got home from my grocery shopping and your door was open,” Mrs. Ellerton explained. “When I walked past I could see you lying on the floor. You’ve got a bruise on your cheek and you were sort of at a funny angle. I couldn’t move you so I put the ice pack on your face for the swelling. Mr. Ellerton went to get the superintendent.”
Sophie nodded. Now that she was sitting up, the back of her head was pounding. She reached up and gingerly touched the spot on her head, sucking in a breath when her fingers made contact with a lump under her hair.
“Did you hit the back of your head, too?” Mrs. Ellerton asked. She took the ice pack and moved it to the back of Sophie’s head. The cool sensation helped and Sophie closed her eyes for a moment, trying to remember.
“Tony,” she said at last. “Tony was here.”
“Your old boyfriend?” Mrs. Ellerton gasped. “Did he do this to you?”
Sophie tried to remember and then shook her head. “I think it
was an accident. He turned and his elbow hit my face because I was right behind him.”
Mrs. Ellerton’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I see,” she said. “So he knocked you over and then left you lying on the floor, unconscious.”
“Well, when you say it like that, it sounds really bad,” Sophie responded. “He didn’t do it on purpose.”
“Stop defending him, dear,” Mrs. Ellerton said. “It doesn’t matter if he hit you intentionally, he shouldn’t have walked out when you were hurt!” She shook her head. “What was he doing here anyway?”
Sophie sighed. “He wanted me to take him back,” she replied. “He just doesn’t understand that it’s over. He still had a copy of the key.”
Just then, Mr. Ellerton and the superintendent, Mr. Singh, arrived. When he saw Sophie, Mr. Singh asked, “Do I need to call an ambulance?”
Sophie assured him that she was feeling all right. “I think I need to have my locks changed, though,” she said and explained the situation. Mr. Singh nodded and left to get his tools.
After the locks had been changed and Mr. and Mrs. Ellerton were satisfied that Sophie was fine, she was finally alone again in her apartment. Too exhausted to do anything else, she tumbled into bed and fell asleep.
* * * *
Monday afternoon, Sophie entered the lobby of the Hilton Hotel ten minutes before four o’clock. After inquiring at the desk, she was directed to a meeting room on the first floor. In the hall was a line of women waiting with resumes. Sophie joined them and stood, shifting from one foot to the other or occasionally tapping her toes. She hadn’t realized there would be so many people here. She eyed the others covertly, trying to size up the competition. Not that she could really tell anything about them. It’s not like they had their resumes stamped on their faces. Several more women joined the line behind her and Sophie gave them a small smile before she lowered her gaze to the floor and began counting the squares in the carpet pattern in an effort to keep her nerves in check.