Chapter 8
897 Words
Sienna’s POV
The sharp smell of alcohol hit my nose before the sound of liquid splashing reached my ears. For a split second, I thought someone had opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate something and i was wondering what was there to celebrate but then I turned and my blood pressure spiked so fast I could practically hear it in my ears.
Joe was standing over my rug, calmly tipping the contents of a bottle all over it. My rug.... the handmade, cream-colored rug I had imported from Milan.
“What the hell are you doing, Joe?”
The words ripped out of me like fire.
His face snapped towards me, guilt flashing across his features, but instead of dropping the bottle, he tilted it again like he was mid–science experiment.
My eyes widened, and I lurched to my feet. “Stop it! Are you insane?”
The room froze. My PR team had been bickering about hashtags and sympathy campaigns, but now they were gaping at Joe like he had grown a second head.
Joe straightened slowly, still holding the nearly empty bottle, and looked around at all of us like we were the ones being unreasonable.
“I was... ” he started, his voice calm, almost apologetic. “I was trying to disinfect the rug. To get the coffee out.”
My jaw dropped. “Disinfect.... disinfect?!” My hands went to my hair, clutching at the roots. “Joe, Did you just say that you were trying to disinfect my handmade rug ...with wine?... not just any wine my most expensive one!”
He blinked, like the distinction between difference in alcohol had never once occurred to him. His confusion made my skin prickle.
Behind me, Louis pinched the bridge of her nose so hard I thought she might draw blood. Finally, she spoke, voice like a guillotine dropping.
“That is the wrong alcohol Joe.”
Joe frowned, glancing down at the bottle. “What do you mean?... It says it’s aged and it's good quality"
Louis’s head snapped up, incredulous. “Because it’s wine, you i***t. A three-thousand-dollar bottle of wine. Who disinfects a rug with vintage Bordeaux?”
A stunned silence followed. My PR team collectively looked from Louis to Joe to me like they were watching a live soap opera unfold.
I wanted to scream, cry, run mad maybe all three. But what came out instead was a strangled shout. “Of all the people on the planet, this is the fool you think I should date?”
The words echoed in the high-ceilinged room. Even my assistant flinched at my tone.
I spun to face my PR team, jabbing a finger toward Joe like he was Exhibit A in the world’s worst trial.
“Look at him!” I raged. “He applied for a maid position and does not even know the difference between cleaning alcohol and expensive alcoholic wine. You want this man to fix my reputation? You want me to parade him around like some fairytale boyfriend when he can not even save a rug?”
Joe flinched, his tall frame somehow curling inward, as if he wished he could vanish. For a moment, guilt pricked at me just a moment but I swallowed it down. The stakes were too high for softness.
“I was only trying to do my job,” Joe said quietly, his voice tinged with something fragile. He set the bottle down on the coffee table, careful not to make eye contact. “I’m sorry, Ma'am.”
Sorry.
Sorry would not bring back a rug that cost more than most people’s rent. Sorry would not erase the headlines, the photos, or the fact that my life was one giant flaming disaster.
I could no longer breathe in that room anymore. The walls felt too close, everyone’s eyes burning holes in me.
Without another word, I pushed away from the armchair and stormed out. My heels clicked furiously against the marble floor as I left them behind, ignoring the mutters and the awkward silence that followed.
In the living room, I could still hear them faintly through the walls.
One of the junior PR guys broke the silence first. “But really,” he snorted, trying and failing to keep a straight face, “what kind of maid is he?”
The sound of muffled laughter followed, sharp and nervous.
But it cut off just as quickly.
Because Louis’s death stare was lethal enough to silence a stadium. Joe’s was not far behind his eyes dark, his jaw clenched in a way I had probably not seen before. For once, the quiet man looked dangerous.
The junior PR guy swallowed, suddenly paling. “Right. Not funny,” he mumbled, sinking into his chair.
Meanwhile, I was upstairs, slamming my bedroom door harder than I meant to, the echo rattling through the frame.
I paced the room in my heels, dragging my hands through my hair until strands caught in my rings. My rug reeked of alcohol.... My reputation was hanging by a thread.... And now my PR team thought a fake romance with a clumsy, wine-wasting, good for nothing, don't know how to do his job maid was the solution.
I collapsed onto my bed, burying my face in my hands.
How had my life come to this?
- Writer
