Chapter 4
Titus
For the second day in a row I have to make myself turn off the feed to my security cameras.
I will get absolutely nothing done if I leave them on.
All I’ll do is sit here and watch Mariah move around my house.
Observe the strangely addictive sight of her as she goes about her day, making herself at home.
In my home.
I did leave the screen on while I responded to a few emails and touched base with my brothers.
Long enough to make sure she got everything she wanted from the grocery.
The hint of a smile I saw when she got to the boxes of butter was oddly gratifying.
Made me consider placing another order to see if it would happen again.
But then my mother showed up, and I’m self-aware enough to know the last thing I need to hear is anything she has to say right now.
I’m not necessarily pissed she brought Mariah in, but I’m also not exactly happy about it.
So I flipped the switch and broke the spell.
Did what I should have been doing in the first place and got to work.
I’m barely through the first report before there’s a soft knock on my door, a lot like the one last night that signified dinner.
I must be harder up for actual food than I realized, because I immediately become Pavlov’s dog, salivating as I wait to make sure Mariah’s out of sight before rushing to see what she left on the tray outside.
I don’t usually eat breakfast. Not in the morning anyway. But that’s not because I’m not hungry. It’s just not worth the effort. Not when I can make a pot of coffee and power through.
Since someone else is making the effort though…
I quickly collect my morning meal and close the door, locking up before carrying it back to my desk. It’s served on the same tray as dinner was yesterday—which looks vaguely familiar, but I honestly have no clue where she found it—and smells just as appetizing.
I want to give myself a pat on the back for finding that grocery list last night when I went to restock my energy drink stash, because what I’m looking at now is fucking amazing.
Mariah’s made eggs Benedict, some sort of seasoned sautéed potatoes, and a cup of fresh fruit topped with a sprinkling of pistachios and a drizzle of honey.
I know she can’t stay. I like being alone way too much for that to be an option. But if she could, I’d double her pay to make sure she wasn’t tempted to go anywhere else. Because this? This is fucking insane.
Since my breakfast requires use of both hands and I won’t be able to work anyway, I leave the monitor on and indulge my interest in my new private chef's activities. Mariah’s puttering around my kitchen now, cleaning up from cooking for me.
Unless she ate really quickly, it doesn’t seem like she made any food for herself, and I don’t fucking like that.
She can—and should—eat anything she wants. Surely my mother told her that.
I feel a little better when she splits an English muffin and pops it into the toaster. While she waits for it to brown, Mariah takes a cautious sip of a steaming beverage from…
Is that a fucking bowl?
A paper tab dangles out of one side, and I rack my brain trying to remember if I’ve ever seen any sort of mug in any of my cabinets. I’ve got the insulated cup I use, but other than that…
Blowing out a groaning sigh, I pull up the website I order from way more frequently than I should and type coffee cups into the search bar.
The woman probably thinks I’m a fucking Neanderthal. No food. No coffee cups. Fucking squalor everywhere.
I’ve never felt bad about the way I live my life. It’s what I have to do to go on. But I do feel a little regretful that my way of living is affecting someone else. Someone who makes the best damn eggs Benedict I’ve ever tasted.
Scrolling through the displayed options, I pick a simple set of mugs, ordering two packages before sifting through the suggested items the algorithm serves me.
A few of them are probably also needed, and soon I have a bunch of items in my cart.
I’m sure there’s plenty more I'm missing, but at least it’s a start.
Before the end of the day, Mariah will be able to drink her tea from a mug instead of a cereal bowl.
After checking out, my eyes drift back to the screen, watching a little too intently as my new chef nibbles at her English muffin.
I would’ve expected someone who went to culinary school to love food, so it’s surprising she’s not enjoying her meal more.
Maybe she’s just not a morning meal person.
It would be a shame, because she makes one hell of a breakfast.
A breakfast so good I’m just finishing licking the fucking plate clean when my phone starts to ring.
“Yeah?” I answer Tobias’s call, tucking my cell between my shoulder and my ear as I carry the empty tray back to my door, quietly sliding it out into the hall before closing myself back in.
“What the fuck is up with our mother?” Tobias sounds a lot like I did yesterday, and I have to wonder what my mother could have done to elicit his reaction. It sure wasn’t the same thing she did to me. He’d be thrilled to have a personal chef. Happy as a hog in mud to have Mariah in his kitchen.
And for some reason, that chaps my ass.
“I’m gonna need you to be more specific.
” Ever since we all accidentally forgot Thanksgiving dinner, our mother’s been a little squirrely.
Ranting about the way she raised us and questioning our priorities.
I wish I could say I don’t know what she wants from us, but I do.
I also know I won’t be the one to give it to her.
I can’t do it.
Just the thought has old emotions pushing their way through, trying to reach the surface that still bears the scars of the worst day of my life. The day that’s the reason I will never give my mother what she wants.
“She rolled up here this morning in her side-by-side, acting like she knows something I don’t know, and I don’t fucking like it.
” Tobias is the third born son and it shows.
He managed to skate by without facing the pressure of being the oldest, or the smothering that comes with being the baby, so I imagine he is a little weirded out by our mother’s sudden attention to his life.
“She’s just got a bug up her ass. For some reason she's decided we’re unhappy and it's her mission to fix that for us.” My gaze drifts to the screen displaying my downstairs where Mariah seems to be crawling around on the floor.
“I am fucking happy, so she can just calm the fuck down.” Tobias is wound up.
He’s also a fucking liar. That guy hasn’t been happy since…
Well, since he was dumb enough to break up with the best thing that’s ever happened to him and ended up alone and miserable.
Maybe not totally alone. He does have the world’s horniest toy poodle humping everything in his house.
“I’m gonna recommend you don’t tell her to calm down.” I smirk a little at the thought. “You might end up with—” I’m about to say a few missing teeth, but violence isn’t my mother’s style of retaliation.
Hiring a private chef is.
“You know what, maybe you should tell her to calm down. You don’t need her butting into your business.” I’m being an ass right now, but I don’t want to be the only one in my mother’s sights. Who knows what I’ll end up with if all her focus is on ruining my life.
I think it’s in my best interest to make sure she spreads it out a little.
“Yeah?” Tobias sounds skeptical. “You really think she’ll listen?”
“She’ll for sure hear what you say.” I’m also guessing she’ll repeat it right back at him to make sure she heard him right. “It’s worth a shot.”
My brother is a lot of things, but good at understanding women is not one of them. A trait that becomes painfully clear when he says, “I think you’re right. I’m gonna talk to her.”
“You do that.” I look over my contact list after we hang up, considering whether I should go ahead and delete his number now, or wait until our mother murders him.
I’ll wait. He might surprise me and manage to survive a few more days.
Setting my phone aside, I pull in a steadying breath and lean forward, preparing to turn off the screen I haven’t looked away from since switching it on.
Proving I’m incapable of any sort of self-restraint, l end up sitting here, trying to figure out what in the hell Mariah is doing as she scrambles around on her hands and knees going in and out of view.
Did she drop something? It’s the only explanation I can come up with for why she—
One of her arms flails around, giving me a glimpse of the small hand broom she’s clutching.
There’s a clump of something dangling from one end of it.
I squint at the screen, watching as she tries to shake the clump into what I now see is a pile of everything she’s swept from beneath my limited amount of furniture.
“Shit.” I snatch my phone back up and dial my mother’s number, completely forgetting the horrible advice I just gave Tobias as I stand up and start to pace. When she answers, I don’t even say hello. “You need to tell this woman to stop cleaning my house. That’s not what you’re paying her for.”
“I’m not paying her, you are. And if you want her to stop cleaning your house, you can go down and tell her that.”
Why does it sound like she’s smiling? “I didn’t hire her, you did.
You’re the one who set this up, so you should be the one who has to deal with it.
” I know I have a good point, but that doesn’t really matter with Deidre Bradshaw.
If I’m not careful, she’ll have me thinking I’m the one who hired Mariah and brought this unwanted human contact into my space.
“You are less than fifty feet from her and I’m at the other side of the property. By the time I get there, she’ll probably be done.”
“We both know that’s not true.” It would take a team of housekeepers hours to bring my home back up to a reasonable standard.
“Then maybe you should go help her. You’re the reason it looks that way in the first place.”
I guess I’m not the only one with a good point, but if I wanted to clean my house, I’ve had plenty of time to do it. There’s just no reason for it to be clean. It’s only ever been me here, and having an immaculate home is the least of my priorities.
I stare at Mariah working so hard to rectify the situation I created. “I’ve gotta go.” I hang up the phone and sit back at my desk.
For the second time since she’s been here, I use Mariah’s bank information to send her additional money. I don’t know what my mother agreed I would be paying her, but I’m positive it’s not enough to put up with my bullshit.
Once that’s done, I turn off the screen and get to work.
I have so much to do, I can almost forget there’s someone—a woman—in my house.
I can almost pretend I’m not dying to turn that damn camera feed back on again.
I can almost convince myself my fascination with her is simply the product of isolation.
That I would be just as intrigued by any other person roaming around outside my door.
But Mariah doesn’t roam. Everything she does is purposeful. Intentional. From the way she carried all of her belongings in, to her dedication to cleaning the kitchen, down to the perfect execution of every meal she makes.
My lunch—delivered precisely at noon—is salad.
Normally, I would be a little unimpressed by a pile of vegetables, but Mariah has even found a way to make lettuce appealing.
The bed of greens is scattered with pecans and dried fruit and crumbles of goat cheese.
It’s topped off with a juicy, flavorful, perfectly sautéed chicken breast.
That alone would have been one of the best meals I’ve ever had, but she served fresh, warm slices of homemade bread alongside it.
Before I’ve even finished eating, I’m sending her more money. The woman’s going to bankrupt me before the week’s out, and I’m not sure I’ll care as long as she keeps baking bread.
Dinner is equally amazing. Steak medallions with some sort of wine-ish gravy drizzled over them. Next to them is a pile of charred broccoli, along with the fluffiest fucking baked potato I’ve ever met, topped with cheese, sour cream, and chives.
And more of that fucking bread. It’s not warm this time, but still just as freaking good as I remembered.
I’m sitting at my desk, congratulating myself for managing to survive the bulk of the day without watching my new chef's activities, when a sense of awareness creeps over my skin.
Mariah’s outside my door again. I don’t know how I know, I just do. She’s probably sick of being ignored. Tired of cooking for some guy she’s never met. Cleaning my nasty house without so much as a ‘thank you.’
To be fair, I did thank her with money. That has to count for something.
I flick on the monitor, expecting to see Mariah preparing to knock on my door, but the hall is empty. I shove down the wiggle of disappointment in my gut as my eyes lock on yet another tray.
This one isn’t loaded with food like the others. There’s just a single plate and drinking glass. I can’t quite identify what she’s brought me—even through the best security cameras on the market—and curiosity makes it impossible for me to put off finding out.
I retrieve the tray, pulling in a deep breath of sweet scented air as I hold it in front of me. The thick slice of layered cake is brownish, but not dark enough to be chocolate. It doesn’t smell like cinnamon, so it can’t be a spice cake.
Carrying it back to my desk, I break off a large chunk of fluffy, sugary, goodness and shove it into my mouth.
Holy. Fucking. Hell. What is this wizardry?
It’s rich and buttery and the frosting practically melts the second it hits my tongue.
I plow through the serving she’s given me then drop my fork to the tray so I can pick up the plate.
I lick it clean like the greedy bastard I am, wanting to get every last taste.
I’ve never had anything that good in my life, which is saying something since my mother has her own cooking show and cooking magazine. I grew up eating the kind of shit most people only have in restaurants, and already I can say without a doubt Mariah’s food is the best I’ve ever had.
And maybe I’ll tell my mother that one day. She deserves it for going behind my back and hiring someone to live in my house.
Even though I’m not as mad about it as I was yesterday.