Chapter 6 Sam
Sam
The look on Olivia’s face when she saw the hammer stuck in the wall was priceless. As was her befuddlement when I asked her how she was going to fix it. It was like she was the human manifestation of an “oh no!” emoji.
The truth was I was impressed with how hard she was working.
Admittedly, it was a low bar to surpass my expectations, but she’d worked harder than I thought she would.
She didn’t know what the hell she was doing, but she was trying hard.
And torn herself up in the process. Her clothes were filthy, her makeup smudged, her hair matted to her head, and her fingernails were already ragged.
I kind of liked her this way. She looked more approachable. More like a normal person.
I’d given in to my curiosity earlier and googled her on my phone. There was no mention of her arrest, but there were pages and pages of stories about her attending exclusive parties and fundraisers, her work with Laurent Enterprises, and to my surprise, her charity work.
I didn’t have anything against the wealthy elite per se, but I did have something against people who amassed huge sums of money and didn’t do a thing to help the less fortunate.
In every picture Olivia looked perfectly put together, wearing designer clothing and hanging out with famous people or Seattle elite. Apparently she was a minor celebrity here in Seattle. I hated celebrities.
About ninety minutes later I called the lunch break for the crew. Olivia had gotten most of a wall clear of the wainscoting, although she was now sporting a nasty looking cut on her arm.
“What happened?” I asked, pointing to her wound.
“Just scratched it with a nail,” she said dismissively.
“What’s my top rule for a work site?” I called to Jose who was walking by with a stack of floorboards.
“Safety first, boss,” he said dutifully, as if he’d heard this more times than he could count. Which he had.
“That’s right, safety first. That means all injuries, no matter how small, need to be reported to the foreman.” I pointed to my chest. “That’s me by the way.”
Olivia’s eyes lingered on my chest for a few seconds before she looked at her cut again.
“It’s not bad. Doesn’t even hurt that much.”
“Until it gets infected,” I said. “When was your last tetanus shot?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come with me, I’ll help you clean it up while you figure it out.”
Olivia followed me to a bedroom on the main floor that I’d claimed as my office. More than likely it used to be the maid’s quarters. It was small, but there was enough room for my desk and laptop, which was all I needed. Grabbing the first aid kit I kept on the shelf, I pointed to a chair.
“Sit.”
I put on gloves, then kneeled in front of her, trying not to think about how close we were and how intimate the position was.
I started by cleaning the cut, Olivia hissing in pain when the disinfectant hit the cut.
I lowered my head to blow on it, the same way my mom used to do for me, and when I glanced up, she was watching me with an intense look on her face, her momentary pain forgotten.
Fortunately, although the cut was a few inches long, it wasn’t too deep, with only a small amount of blood oozing out.
I smeared some antibiotic cream on it, then covered it with a square of gauze that I taped onto her slim arm.
The woman had zero muscle tone. She was going to be sore tomorrow, pulling off wainscoting was much more taxing than sitting at a desk.
“There you go, Princess,” I said, pressing the tape against her skin.
I felt that strange buzzing again, as if everywhere my finger touched her arm I was leaving electrical sparks, and when I looked up at Olivia, she was staring at her arm like she felt it too.
She raised her eyes to meet mine and then we were staring into each other’s eyes, heat pooling low in my belly.
I’d never thought of first aid as erotic, but I swear the temperature in the room skyrocketed the longer we looked at each other.
I felt the strangest urge to lean forward and kiss her.
When Olivia swayed the tiniest bit towards me, I came to my senses.
I was at work, in an industry where women had a hard time being taken seriously.
And Olivia was just some spoiled heiress entertaining herself while she was here. I needed to remember that.
“Okay, you’d better go eat your lunch. The guys are at the table in the backyard if you want to join them. We usually eat outside if the weather is good.”
“What do we have?” she asked.
“Whatever you brought,” I said.
She gave me a blank look.
“You did bring a lunch, right?”
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t think I needed to.”
Of course. She was probably used to servants hovering around meeting her every need. The woman probably hadn’t cooked a meal for herself in her life, I’d bet money on it.
“You can try to run out and get something in town, but you’ll have a hard time getting back in time. We only have an hour for lunch.”
“What are you going to eat?” she asked.
“The lunch I brought from home.”
“Maybe I have a granola bar in my purse,” she mused. “I know I have some water.”
I sighed, opening my desk to pull out my lunch bag. I gave her one of the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I’d brought as well as an apple, saving the other sandwich, chips, and banana for myself.
“Help yourself to a bottle of water from the refrigerator in the kitchen,” I instructed.
When she sat there looking at the sandwich like she’d never seen one before I prodded, “Go join the guys outside. I have work to do.”
“Okay.”
She got up, then paused in the doorway to look back at me.
“Thanks for taking care of me Sam,” she said. “With the cut and the sandwich.”
“Yeah, well, I hope you like peanut butter and jelly.”
She cocked her head. “I don’t think I’ve ever had that.”
“Your mom didn’t make you and PB and J when you were a kid?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“Uh no,” Olivia scoffed. “She left the cooking to the household staff.”
“What did you eat in school then?” I asked.
“I went to boarding school. They gave us hot meals.”
“Well you really missed out on the American schoolkid experience there, Princess Livi. Now get out of here so I can work.”
She looked bemused, and maybe a little taken aback.
I had a feeling that there weren’t a lot of people in her life who bossed her around like that.
I had a flash of what would happen if I ordered her to drop to her knees and lick my pussy, then quickly pushed it away.
I was here to work, and she was here to keep herself out of jail.
Even if that wasn’t true, we weren’t exactly the type of people who would date.
A high maintenance woman like her dated CEOs and rock stars and people who lived in mansions.
The last woman I dated worked in a strip club, the one before that was a waitress.
Good, solid people, there was no doubt about that, and definitely from my own social class.
I’d learned the hard way that dating outside my station only led to heartbreak.
That didn’t stop me from daydreaming for the rest of the day about what would have happened if I hadn’t pulled away when Olivia leaned towards me.
I’d seen the hungry look in her eyes as she stared at my lips, and it had been tempting.
Maybe if I wasn’t technically her boss I would have satisfied my curiosity, but I’d worked way too hard to be taken seriously as a woman in this industry.
The last thing I needed was to be accused of sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior.
The best plan was to foist Olivia off on Barney and the guys as much as possible. I just needed to keep my distance, and this inconvenient crush would go away. I only hoped it would…