MAID FOR THEM

NOTHING BUT A CARELESS NUN

LIORA

The last maid was gone for the day.

The heavy oak doors of the mansion closed behind her early this morning after her duty, sealing the house like a tomb. It was just me, Jeronimo and that beast of a dog, Titan.

The silence was so thick it felt like I was buried underwater. Every now and then, I reached down to my hips and wipe my sweaty palms.

It was showtime.

I stood in the center of my bedroom too large to be for one person, with silk sheets I still didn’t feel comfortable touching.

The mirror on the opposite side mocked me every time I looked at it. It probably thought I couldn’t do it.

My mission was clear, burned in my mind like a brand. I had to make Jeronimo want me. A man known for his iron will and cold fidelity—yes, this man.

I had to make him bend for me.

How the hell was I going to pull this feat? What was I even thinking when I let Avaline talk me into agreeing in the first place?

It sounded like a joke or a setup to a bad story. I’d always been a nun who could scrub stone floors until my knuckles bled. I knew how to wake up at four in the morning to chant in a freezing chapel.

I knew how to speak to young girls on purity—well until recently.

I didn’t speak the language of seduction. I knew how to hide my body under layers of clothes, not to mention being a siren.

The woman staring back at me in the mirror looked terrified in the grey dress. It was one of the clothes she got me before she left.

It looked modest from a distance but up close, it was a trap. It clung to my skin like oil, squeezing my ribs and hips and thighs until my curves were on display.

It forced me to be aware of my body every second.

“You have a body, Liora,” Avaline had told me in a sharp voice. “Stop hiding it. Jeronimo ignores everything that is offered to him freely. He wants what is quiet. Be the quiet temptation.”

Quiet temptation my foot.

“Do it for the money,” I whispered to my reflection.

Here in this mansion, I was offered a hiding place from the world. After my parents dumped me, this was the price for a modest life at least. My virtue for her husband’s fall.

I didn’t have to sleep with him either.

I took a deep breath and smoothed the fabric over my stomach. Go time.

After brewing Jeronimo’s black coffee and making him toast, I arranged them on a silver tray with a single biscotti, just the way he liked it.

With my wide-eyed look, anyone could tell I looked like a deer about to walk into traffic.

“Walk slow. Don’t rush.”

By the time I got to the heavy double doors of the study, I felt faint. My heart kept hammering against my ribs like a bird trapped in a cage.

Sweet Lord.

All I had to do was offer him coffee and then offer him the promise of me. Why was that so hard to do?

Pushing the door open, I found Jeronimo sitting behind his massive mahogany desk. He wore a white shirt with the top button undone and sleeves rolled to his elbows to tease thick forearms flexing with muscles as he wrote.

He was a beautiful man with stern, cold eyes often burning with an intensity that scared me.

He looked tired today. Perfect for introducing the cup of coffee. As he rubbed his temple, his wedding band glinted in the morning sunlight.

“Your coffee, sir.”

My voice betrayed me immediately with a thin squeak that cracked in the middle. I sounded like a twelve year old.

“Put it on the coaster, Liora.” He didn’t look up from his work.

My legs felt like lead when I moved. The dog opened one eye, watched me for a second and went back to sleep.

Even he is bored by me.

The chinaware trembled with a clink. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, sweating bullets down the middle of my back.

Now came the hard part.

Avaline’s advice was to bend at the waist and not squat. To keep my legs straight and arch my back so he could see the shape of me against the light.

And for that to happen, I needed a reason to bend. I looked at the tray where a linen was tucked under the spoon.

With a trembling hand, I brushed the napkin in an attempt to push it off the edge of the desk. It fluttered to the end of the floor, landing near the leg of the chair.

Good.

“Oh no,” I exclaimed.

Even to my own hearing, it sounded fake. The man didn’t look up from his work. I took a deep breath.

I tried to arch my back and stick my bottom out to create that curve like the woman in the magazine Avaline showed me.

As I reach down, my heel caught on the thick edge of the rug and I fell forward. Panic spiked immediately.

My hand grabbed for the edge of the desk but I missed, stumbling forward and crashed into the heavy wooden arm of his chair.

The pain as my hips slammed into the wood was sharp and immediate. I stumbled to my knees on the rug, right next to the sleeping dog who scrambled away from me.

“Liora!”

Jeronimo spun his chair around. He didn’t look at my curves or my arched back or my tight dress. He looked at me with pure alarm.

Great. Now I was the one who needed saving from the man I was supposed to seduce.

He was beside me in a split second. His large hands grabbed my arms to hold me steady.

“Are you alright?” He asked, his deep voice full of concern. He looked at my face, searching for injury.

I was burning with undiluted shame. I was on my knees alright, but it wasn’t in submission. It was in clumsiness. I had to be such a klutz and ruin it.

“No, sir. I mean, yes, I am fine,” I stammered, feeling flustered at the closeness. I tried to pull away but he held me firm.

“Did you hit your head? That was a nasty fall.”

“I just slipped. The rug…” I couldn’t even finish the lie.

He sighed and the tension left his shoulders. He offered me a hand to help me up and it just feels completely platonic.

Yes, he was touching me but it felt like a father helping a toddler who just scraped a knee.

“The floors are slippery and those heels look uncomfortable. You should wear better shoes while you work. Safety is important.”

What is this now? Safety tips 101?

I managed a nod in my silliness.

He turned back to his desk to adjust his papers. “Sure you don’t need ice?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Good. Take the tray, please. I don’t want the coffee spilling on the files.”

He dismissed me from his mind as easily as he dismissed the dust on the shelves. He didn’t see a sexy woman or a temptress.

He saw a clumsy girl who couldn’t even walk across a room without tripping over her own feet and making a fool out of herself.

Although my hip hurt, my pride was worse because plans to sashay out of the room with a flourish failed.

I now had a limp in my steps.

When the door closed behind me, I leaned my forehead against the cool wood. I failed woefully.

Looking at the dress, it didn’t feel like a weapon to hold any man ransom. It felt like a clown costume and I was the horrible performer.

“I am a joke,” I whispered to the empty hallway.

Inside the study, the scratch of his pen resumed. He had already forgotten me.