Chapter 6
T he house still didn’t need cleaned. Paley checked Piedmont’s room and made his bed. She sniffed the sheets to make sure they were fresh. They were. She gathered his dirty clothes and wiped down his bathroom, tucking a few things away he’d left out. He’s kind of a slob, she thought. Was it because he had a hired person to pick up for him, or was it because his genius brain didn’t tend toward things like tidiness and organization? All the smartest people she’d ever known had also been a bit scattered. What he’d said about being bad with names made her think the culprit was his high intellect more than laziness or indulgence. The brain only had so much available space. When it was taken up with intelligence, things like common sense tended to fly out the window.
She finished and made another cup of coffee, feeling restless and overpaid. Bonvoy was paying her ten thousand more than she made at her last job, and that didn’t even include the perk of room and board. She would have to buy health insurance but, even so, she would make more than enough to live on, and even a hefty surplus amount for savings, barring any sort of emergency. She was doing basically everything she had done as a housewife—cleaning, cooking, shopping, and laundry—but without the added burden of working another job outside the home. She couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty about that.
With nothing else to do, she took her coffee and meandered outside, her mind once again filled with possibilities. It could be spectacular, a true oasis. Maybe she should use some of her money to plant a few things. That could be a way to fill the empty hours and ease her guilt over making too much money with so little to do. But maybe he wouldn’t like that. Maybe he liked things plain and dull and void of character. Seeing as how she’d had exactly one surface conversation with him, she had no idea. Her phone beeped with a text. She picked it up and read the message with a smile. She hadn’t talked to her high school best friend, Mattie, in years, much, much too long. Judging by the tone of the message, they were going to pick up like no time had passed between them.
Your mom told me you got dumped. Sad trombone.
Nice, Mr. Sensitive. I’m heartbroken and destroyed here, she replied.
That’ll teach you to listen to me. Guy was a putz. You should never have married him.
You said that about every guy I dated, she reminded him.
Not true, I never said it about me, he replied.
You should have, she said.
Ha, ha. See, I cry to cover my weeping. At least now we’re free to elope. How’s Friday?
No good, I’m still married and started a new job.
*audible sigh* Fine. I’ll wait until you’re legal.
You say that to all the girls. Hopefully.
Ha, statutory jokes are awesome. Let’s do dinner ASAP. How’s Friday?
Don’t you have a date? she asked.
You, hopefully, he replied.
Her hand hovered over the phone. Aaron hadn’t liked Mattie, and the feeling had been mutual. Paley’s friendship with him had seemingly petered and died. She believed it was the natural course of things when one became married, but now she regretted the loss. Mattie had always been a wonderful friend to her, loyal, supportive, and fun. With the loss of Aaron, she could resume their once-close friendship with zero guilt. Friday is perfect. She hit send and stared into the backyard some more, wondering and hoping that things would be as easy and fun with her former friend in real life as they were in text.
Meanwhile at work, Piedmont Bonvoy hadn’t given his new housekeeper another thought, but that was his nature. He tended to focus obsessively on things that were in front of him, his mind so busy with information it had to make a concerted effort to zero in on the important things. Most of the time, that was his job. Not until lunch arrived did he summon the memory of the early morning encounter with Paley Marshall. He stared at the lunch she had handed him, amused. No housekeeper had ever packed him a lunch before. He should probably tell her he bought lunch every day, but he hadn’t had the heart after she handed him the tidy little brown sack as if she were the mom and he were the kid heading off to school.
Out of curiosity, he opened the sack and stuck his head inside. When it was too dark to see what was inside, he withdrew the items one by one and made his inspection. She’d cut an apple into wedges and secured it together with a rubber band. There was a sandwich, and it looked good. So good, in fact, he took a bite without really thinking about it and then paused in his inspection, staring at the sandwich. It was good, really, really good. So good he took it apart and looked at it curiously. What made it so good? He had no idea, so he put it back together and continued eating it.
After devouring the sandwich and the apple, he moved on to the crackers and cheese, plus an assortment of nuts and dried cranberries. They were all the things he liked, and it was a lunch he would have prepared for himself, if he ever packed a lunch for himself, which he never did.
He pressed the intercom button. “Acacia, could you…”
She poked her head in the door. “You rang?”
“Yes.” He cleared up the remnants of his lunch and stuffed them in the trash. “I met my new housekeeper.”
“Paley,” she reminded him.
“I know,” he said, though not unkindly. He sometimes had trouble with names—Acacia was good with names and more often than not had to remind him. “Where’d you find her?”
“She made the cookies for the party a couple of weeks ago,” Acacia said.
“The purple ones? The ones I ate three of?” he asked.
“I didn’t keep count of how many you ate, but, yes, those,” Acacia said.
“How did she progress from caterer to housekeeper?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I had a feeling when I met her you two would hit it off.”
He frowned. His secretary wasn’t the sort to fix him up with a woman, but that sounded awfully like what she might be doing. Like usual, she read his mind.
“I thought she was married, when I asked,” Acacia interjected.
“She’s not?”
“In the midst of a divorce,” Acacia replied. “And pretty heartbroken over it, from the sound of it. She didn’t ping on my radar as being in search of love, is what I’m saying. I think you’re safe there.”
“Good,” he said, relieved.
Acacia noted the crumbs on his desk. “Did you eat a packed lunch?”
“I did. I feel like I’m ten. And she handed me a travel mug of coffee on my way out the door, made exactly as I like it,” Piedmont said. “This one might be a keeper.”
Acacia nodded, a little bit stunned. Piedmont was friendly and affable, but he didn’t normally warm up to strangers so quickly. She had worried, when she made the arrangement, that perhaps Paley would fall for Piedmont. Now she began to fear it might be the other way around. She would make some discreet inquiries on his behalf, to make certain Paley was as genuine as she seemed. Acacia usually had a good sense about people, and she liked Paley from the beginning, when she shyly presented a plate of cookies at the law school meet and greet several months ago. She had taken the cookies to be polite, because it wasn’t the kind of thing one presented at an event like that. But after tasting the cookies, she had been a dedicated fan of the woman’s talent. Even so, Piedmont had been through a lot the last few months, and Acacia was protective of him. She didn’t want to see him get hurt again, even by a girl she liked.