The Playboy Carries the Maid

Every camera in the room was pointed at my own unconscious face.

"Who," Victor Ashford repeated, in a voice that could freeze soup, "is that girl?"

I was still kneeling on one knee with a diamond ring in my hand. My brain screamed ten different answers at once. She is my cousin. She is a spy. She is a very tired woman who just discovered her life is a mess.

"She is the maid," I said.

"The maid."

"Seraphina Vale. She works here. She has low blood sugar." I paused. "And she has been very overworked."

Behind Victor, a reporter lowered his microphone. Another leaned toward his friend and whispered, "Since when does Lucien Ashford know a maid's name?"

Victor's steel-gray eyes moved from the girl on the floor to me. He studied me for three long seconds, the way a man studies a painting he is sure is a fake.

"Then have someone take her out," he said. "She is spoiling the photographs."

"Right away, Father."

I stood up. My knees cracked in a very male way. I handed the ring box back to Victor, crossed the room in six long strides, and looked down at myself lying on the marble.

My face was pale. My mouth hung open. There was a tiny trail of drool at one corner.

I had never been so embarrassed by my own body. Even unconscious, I looked like I was apologizing to the floor.

There was no one else to move me. The other staff were frozen near the doors, staring at the cameras like rabbits. So I bent down, slid one arm under my knees and one behind my back, and lifted.

It was shockingly easy. Lucien's arms did it without effort. I rose from the floor as if I were carrying a sack of feathers, and the whole room gasped for the third time that morning.

"He is carrying her!" someone whispered.

"Lucien Ashford is carrying a maid!"

A dozen flashbulbs went off at once. I stood there with my own body in my arms, blinking in the white light, and knew with perfect clarity that this would be on the front page of every newspaper in the city.

Camille's high heels clicked toward me. Her voice dropped to a sweet, dangerous whisper.

"Darling. You are holding a servant."

"She fainted," I said.

"Then ring for a doctor. Or an ambulance. Or the garden hose."

"I am taking her to a quiet room."

"Why you?"

"Because I am a gentleman."

I had no idea where that came from. Camille stared at me like I had said I was a dolphin.

"You never carried me," she said. "You told me I was too heavy."

"I am sure that was a joke."

"It was not."

Then she looked at the maid in my arms, at the way her head rested against my shoulder, and I saw something cold slide behind her pretty eyes.

"Do hurry back," she said. "We have a wedding to plan."

She leaned in and kissed my cheek. I felt a strange pinch in my chest that I did not want to name. I was a maid. I was not jealous of a model.

I carried myself out of the room.

I made it as far as the first hallway before my own body opened one eye.

"Put me down," Lucien whispered.

"You are awake."

"I have been awake for two minutes. I was pretending."

"You were pretending to faint?"

"I was pretending to still be fainted. It is different." His voice dropped lower. "Put me down. Everyone is staring."

"No one is here."

"There are four cameras at the end of the hall."

I looked. He was right. Two photographers were stuck behind a pillar, their lenses poking out like turtles.

I kept walking. "Then you will have to wait."

"You are also holding me wrong."

"How can a person hold a person wrong?"

"My neck is bent, and your elbow is in my kidney."

"Your kidney is fine."

"This is humiliating."

"You are the one who fainted."

"I do not faint!"

"You have fainted twice today."

"One of them was a fake!"

"One of them was on the floor!"

"Because you proposed to Camille!" He threw up both of my small hands. "You knelt! In front of the whole press! In my body! With my knee!"

"You said I should not ruin your life."

"You got me engaged!"

"I got us a week!"

"The wedding is in four days!"

"I did not know that!"

"Neither did I!"

A photographer behind the pillar coughed. We both stopped.

"The press," I whispered through my teeth, "can hear us."

"The press is going to write that the playboy and the maid are fighting."

"Then we are fighting quietly."

"We are not."

"Then I will drop you."

"You will not."

I did not drop him. I carried him all the way upstairs to the master bedroom, kicked the door shut, and set him on the edge of the king-size bed. He bounced twice.

"Oh," he said, with deep respect. "This mattress is very soft."

"It is yours."

"I know. I am only saying it is nice to see it from the outside." He folded my small hands in my lap and stared at his own enormous bed. "I have never been carried before."

"You are welcome."

"I did not say thank you."

"I am used to it."

Silence. The only sound was the soft hum of the air conditioner. Then he glanced at me, and his shoulders slumped.

"My father arranged this," he said.

"The wedding?"

"I never agreed. I did not even know Camille was going to be at breakfast today." He rubbed his face with both hands. It was strange to watch my own fingers pull at my own cheeks. "Camille wants a ring. My father wants her family's company. And I want to be left alone."

"You did not look like you wanted to be alone last night."

"I was drunk."

"You were drunk, and you were with six women."

"Four. Two of them were bartenders."

I raised an eyebrow. His. It was a very good eyebrow.

"You are judging me again," he said.

"I am only counting."

"Do not count." He lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "Seraphina."

It was the first time he had ever said my name. It sounded strange in my own voice.

"What?"

"Is it always like this?"

"Like what?"

"Being you." He turned his head. "Waking at five. Sleeping in a closet. Being yelled at by people who do not know your name."

"It is usually less loud."

"Your uniform itches."

"I know."

"And your bed squeaks. Every time I turned, it screamed."

"It likes you."

"Your shoes are too tight."

"I know."

"And your wallet." He sat up. "I found it in your bag this morning. You have forty dollars to last the entire week."

I looked away.

"You pay for your mother's hospital with that?"

"The rest goes to the hospital directly."

"Forty dollars," he repeated slowly, as if he were reading a sentence in a foreign language. "My watch costs more than your mother's treatment for a year."

"I do not want to talk about this."

"I did not know."

"You did not ask."

He opened his mouth. Closed it. He had nothing to say, and I saw it land on his face like a slap.

Then, for the first time since this madness began, Lucien Ashford spoke without a joke.

"I am sorry about the wine."

My heart did something odd. I told myself it was the heat.

"You should be," I said.

"I mean it."

"I know." I crossed my arms. "Do not make a habit of it."

His mouth twitched. It was nearly a smile.

"Your mother has visiting hours tomorrow at ten," he said quietly. "It is on the calendar by your cot. I will go. As you."

"As me," I said, and my throat tightened. "Do not scare her."

"I would never."

Then a phone buzzed on the bedside table. It was Lucien's phone, in my pocket. I took it out. A message glowed on the screen.

Darius Voss: Congratulations on Saturday. Or condolences? Come to dinner tonight. I have something that will interest you. Come alone.

I frowned. "Who is Darius Voss?"

"My biggest rival," Lucien said slowly. "And he never sends flowers. He sends warnings."

A knock sounded at the door.

We both jumped. Lucien hid under the blanket. I opened the door.

Mrs. Hargrove stood there, small and straight, her gray hair pinned up tight. She looked at me, then at the lump in the bed, then back at me, and her face did not move at all. Her eyes lingered on me a moment too long.

"Mr. Ashford," she said. "Your father has asked to see the maid. Immediately. In his study. Alone."

Under the blanket, my body let out a very small, scared sound.