11. Violet
eleven
Violet
DAY 8 AT SILVER LEAF... ONLY 78 TO GO
I’ve spent a week as Chord’s personal assistant, and here’s what I’ve learned: I need to try harder to stay out of his way.
It shouldn’t be this hard. It’s a big house. It’s an enormous property. His busy schedule and the daily instructions stuck to his fridge can only be strategies he’s using to limit direct contact with me. And that’s smart, I reassure myself. Logical and practical and I can’t take it personally. If anything, I should be relieved.
Chord and I don’t need to be friendly for me to do my job, and after all, professional distance was always my plan. Keep my head down. Do my job. Survive the summer without making a fool of myself or getting fired.
There’s no good reason I should be surprising Chord when he’s nursing bloody wounds in darkened kitchens or disturbing him while he’s on his half-naked morning runs.
Oh. My. God .
I twist in my sheets, away from the soft morning sun streaming into my room, and squeal into my pillow. I will never, ever get over the sight of a shirtless, breathless Chord Davenport, his gray workout shorts slung low enough to show the carved dips of his hips, t-shirt dangling from his waistband, every hard muscle on his body glistening with sweat and tight with strain. Dark hair, damp and matted. Blue eyes, nowhere near cool enough to counteract the extreme heat of his extraordinary physique.
I’ll never forget how my pulse raced when he set his hand on my back.
But I’ll also always remember how inadequate I felt when he learned I’ve lived in San Francisco for ten years without ever driving out to Sonoma. How agonizing it was to force small talk with a man who would rather converse via sticky notes.
Resolved to try harder to keep out of sight, I find a pencil and scrap of paper and scribble down what I know about Chord’s schedule outside of the appointments I set for him. He leaves the house early to run practically naked around the ranch. Passes an hour in the gym before lunch. Swims until two p.m. He spends the late afternoon performing tasks around the property and eats dinner alone long after sunset.
Satisfied I can work around him for the next seventy-eight days and counting, and with a little more confidence than I had last night, I shower and dress, throw my hair in a knot and my glasses on my nose, and head down to the kitchen.
As I expect, there’s a new list of tasks on the fridge, Chord’s messy scrawl covering the square of yellow paper, but that’s not the only thing stuck to the stainless steel this morning. For the first time, there’s something else, and even with my glasses on, I can’t work out what it is until I’ve slipped the stack of brochures out from under the chunky black magnet and spread them out over the kitchen counter.
Tourist information for Sonoma County. Wineries and restaurants. Historic gardens and hiking trails. Bicycle rentals and horseback riding. Guided tours and swimming spots. Markets and galleries.
I look up and around, half-expecting Chord to be watching nearby, but I’m alone, so I allow myself a small, honest smile of excitement and gratitude, which is chased by a falling rush of incredulity. I’d dismissed Chord’s suggestion to take an afternoon for myself off as empty words to fill a silence, but maybe he meant it. He went out of his way to collect these for me, and that’s… Well, it’s sweet, and not at all the kind of gesture I expect from my grumpy, self-absorbed boss.
I glance around again, wishing it were one of those times we might run into each other so I could thank him, but the house is quiet, and I’m alone. Before I talk myself out of it, I tear a square of paper from the stack on the counter, dash off a quick “Thank you for the brochures—Violet” and attach it to the fridge, then scurry from the room.
After that, I’m so nervous I eat my breakfast in the office. Lunch, too. A dull, fluttering ache in my chest reminds me how silly it is to want to accidentally bump into him, but when I visit the kitchen later in the afternoon, and my thank-you note is no longer on the fridge, the ache drops into my stomach. All this effort to avoid him and I’m disappointed that it worked.
Frustrated with my daydreams and ready to take a breather from sorting through Chord’s unhinged fan mail, I run up to my bedroom and scoop up armfuls of dirty laundry.
The eight days of worn clothing is more than the compact bathroom hamper can hold, but I shove in as much as I can and balance the overflow against my chest. I’ve been waiting for a safe time to do it and now, while Chord’s working on the fences and I’m guaranteed a few hours without interruption, is as good a time as any.
The laundry room in Chord’s house is plucked straight from an interior design magazine. It’s located in the basement adjacent to a full bathroom with an infrared sauna attached to the spectacular gym, and it’s at least as big as my kitchen back home. Completely outfitted and finished with the same white Shaker cabinets and dark-veined marble surfaces as the kitchen upstairs, it also has sleek, top-of-the-line, front-loader washer and dryer machines with every bell and whistle—a fact I filed away when Chord gave me the tour.
No more washing my lingerie in the bathroom sink for me.
I drop the clothes hamper with a thud and dump the extra armfuls of laundry on the smooth, clear counter. I sort it into three loads—whites, darks, and delicates—and put the largest in to wash first. I locate laundry detergent and fabric softener in an overhead cupboard, choose a thirty-minute cycle, and hit start .
Once I return the empty hamper to my bathroom, I spend the half hour in the home office setting Chord’s physiotherapy appointments for the next two weeks. Back in the laundry room, I transfer my wet clothes to the dryer and add the next load to the machine. With another thirty minutes to kill, I sort through Chord’s official Fury correspondence, including event invitations and media requests, and hurry back just as the machine beeps to signal the end of the wash cycle.
The last load to go through is my underwear. Half of it is made up of the sensible white sets I prefer during the day. The other half is a rainbow of the soft, silky pieces I’ve been wearing at night.
I’ve got dozens of sets like these: bright, pretty, some of them sexy pieces I’ve never worn because I was saving them for the day I didn’t live with my dad. Joke’s on me, I suppose. When I started collecting lingerie all those years ago, I never imagined I’d be twenty-eight and still waiting to take them for a spin. But they were the first thing I put in my suitcase when I packed for Silver Leaf.
I navigate my way to the “delicates” program, add the underwear to the drum, and close the door. It’s a longer cycle than a standard wash, so after I’ve folded the first load and stuffed the wet items into the dryer, I take what’s clean back to my room and disappear into the home office once again.
When I return to the basement, the washer is still spinning, but there are dry clothes to fold so I busy myself with those. There’s something soothing about the act of laundry, I decide, when it’s not done in a rush in a communal utility room.
The sound of heavy footsteps outside the door straightens my spine, and with butterflies in my stomach, I twist toward the doorway just as Chord walks in, the knees of his jeans covered in mud, his boots caked with it too, his ridged abs flashing and flexing as he drags his filthy white shirt over his head. Dirt streaks his forearms and neck, and once his t-shirt is over his head, he freezes at the sight of me.
“I didn’t know you were in here.”
“I’m not.” I force myself to stare at the floor instead of the fine trail of dark hair leading from his belly button into the waist of his jeans. “I mean, I’m nearly done.”
The washing machine beeps to signal the end of the cycle, and Chord tosses his shirt over one shoulder as he crosses the room and opens a cupboard with a basket inside that looks like the receptacle for a laundry chute. It’s full of clothes, and Chord heaves it out before closing the cupboard door.
Oh, no. No, no, no. This cannot be happening.
“Um.” I shoot a panicked glance at the multicolored jumble of lingerie visible through the transparent door of the washer. “Do you have laundry? I could do it for you if you like?”
Chord spares me a sideways glance as he reaches into the overhead cupboard and takes out the detergent. “Housekeeping isn’t in your job description.”
“I don’t mind. I like doing laundry. It’s relaxing. Satisfying. You know. Uh, fun.”
His brow furrows with confusion—or is it concern? I’m not surprised. I sound like a lunatic. A dirty-clothes-huffing lunatic.
“I can do my own laundry,” he says. After a pause, he adds, “But thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I wring my hands and glance at the washer again, then back at Chord waiting on the other side of the room with his large arms crossed over his glorious chest and an expectant expression on his stony face.
Right. The machine is done. I need to leave. I’ve got a stack of dry, clean clothes to carry upstairs, plus an armful of sexy, lacy lingerie that nobody’s ever seen but me. Piece of cake.
Just do it. Drag those damp panties out of the washer and run!
With a purposeful and probably peculiar-looking nod, I lean over to put my body between Chord and the contents of the machine, yank open the door, and haul out my underwear. My heart races and my hands grow clammy as I drop a pair of white cotton panties and a pale pink sports bra twice before I’ve balanced my cargo securely in the crook of one elbow. When I’m certain I can stand without losing anything, I straighten and turn around.
Chord’s focus darts up to my eyes, and I blink. Was he… was he looking at my ass? By his steely look of disinterest, I desperately hope not because if he was checking me out, he’s not particularly pleased with what he sees.
“I’ll just take the rest of this stuff and get out of your way,” I tell him, crossing to his side of the room where my clean clothes are stacked on the marble counter.
I have to deposit my underwear next to them before I can maneuver my t-shirts and jeans into a tower between my forearm and my chin, and it wobbles when I scoop my lingerie against me with the other arm.
A lacy red bra escapes, and I drop everything to retrieve it with a mortified swipe, then try again to perfect my balancing act.
It’s not working, and I’m starting to sweat when behind me, Chord clears his throat and silently offers me an empty laundry basket.
I accept it with a murmured “Thank you,” dipping my chin to hide a rush of embarrassment that I didn’t think of it first.
I load the stack of clothes first, stuff my underwear into the gaps around it, and heft the basket with two hands.
I’m nearly free and clear in record time when a pointed cough from Chord pulls me up short. I know before I turn around that this isn’t good.
Lying there on the floor, equal distance between us is a coral-colored bra and a pair of black silk bikini-cut briefs.
My cheeks flame as we both stare at them, equally stunned into immobility.
I wouldn’t mind if a nice, big hole opened in the ground right about now.
Chord takes a step like he’s going to pick them up, but I dash forward before he gets the chance. Of course, when I lean over to collect them, half a dozen other pieces tumble out of my basket onto the floor at his feet.
He takes a step back as I keep my head bowed, gathering everything with superhero speed and super-loser clumsiness, blinking back tears and shoving bras and panties into my basket as more fall out.
Finally, I’ve collected it all, and abandoning any hope of regaining my dignity, I bolt from the room and Chord’s cool blue stare.
I maintain speed until I’m safe in my room, door closed against my back, chest heaving with deep, dazed breaths. That was possibly the most humiliating, cringeworthy thing to happen to me ever before and—dear God, please—ever again. I’m not usually that clumsy, even on my worst days.
How on Earth am I supposed to face him after that ?
You don’t , I remind myself. He wants as little to do with you as you want with him. Just stick to the plan and stay out of his way.
My earlier daydreams of accidental meetings with my boss now feel more like schoolgirl infatuation. Chord Davenport is way out of my league, but after today it’ll be all that much easier to stay out of his way.
If he wasn’t already trying his hardest to avoid me before, he’s certainly going to up his game now.