Read Online Maid for It (A Maids for It Novella) by Lucy Rodgers - Free Book Online Page A

or send you away if you told me you couldn’t jump into
the pool because you can’t swim? What kind of monster do you think
I am, Gabi?”
    The question pierces my heart like a serrated
knife, leaving torn and jagged edges in its wake. “No, of course
not.”
    But even as I say the words, I know they’re a
lie. I was afraid to disobey. More afraid than I was of
drowning. And that, I suddenly realize, is the most damning
condemnation I can level against him. I’ve told him that although
I’ve given him my life, I don’t truly trust him with it.
    I want to throw myself at his feet, beg him
for forgiveness, promise him that next time, I’ll do better. It’s
too late for that, though. Something has been broken beyond repair,
and truth is beginning to drag me back to earth.
    He pulls me down onto his lap in a deck
chair. With a sigh that carries a world of both patience and
exasperation, he says, “I’ve known for a long time that you weren’t
telling me the whole truth about how you came to work for Daniels.
I promised myself I’d find out eventually, work you into trusting
me enough to tell me, but after this, I know that was never going
to happen. But now, you’re going to tell me anyway. All of it.
Because I don’t for one moment believe you came here with any idea
of what you were getting yourself into.”
    I close my eyes, the nausea I felt when I
first hit the pool deck rising to my throat again. I’ve already
wounded him with my lack of confidence in him. Now, I’m about to
destroy everything we’ve built in the past two months.
    But God help me, it’s what I have to do.
    The story comes out through my tears in
halting, disjointed sentences. How I turned the wrong corner from
the Instituto Technologico and looked Sinaloa’s most notorious drug
lord in the eyes as he shot two of his rivals in an alley. My
family’s certainty that Cantavares would soon discover my name and
send someone to ensure I never revealed what I saw to the
authorities. The desperate effort to pull together enough funds to
smuggle me to the United States through the most expensive, most
dependable pollero in Sinaloa, known as El Nariz for his
formidable nose. How after two days of travel over bumpy roads,
paying off multiple federales and passing through multiple
checkpoints with ease, the drop house was busted by La Migra on the day I arrived.
    Looking back, it all seems to have happened
so fast, but at the time, every minute was excruciating as an hour.
The constant fear, first of being caught, and then of what would
happen after we were caught.
    I explain about the judge and his order that
I work for Maid for It in exchange for avoiding deportation.
Ben’s eyes narrow even farther at this revelation.
    “A judge ordered this? Are you
sure?”
    “Yes, of course, I’m sure.”
    “In the courthouse? With bailiffs and
attorneys and robes and all that?”
    I don’t know what he’s getting at, but I
nod.
    He bites out a curse.
    “Is that bad?” I ask.
    His expression is black but he strokes my
back gently, reassuring me. “It is bad, but not for you. You did
nothing wrong.”
    “So you understand why I couldn’t tell you
the truth? You forgive me?”
    “There’s nothing to forgive.” He slides me
from his lap and stands up. “I have work to do now.” He turns in
the direction of his office.
    “Oh,” I say, baffled. I was expecting
something more dramatic to happen. Like for the sky to fall or the
earth to stop revolving around the sun. His response—or lack of
one—is an anti-climax of epic proportions. “What should I do?”
    He looks over his shoulder at me, but I can
see by his distant expression that he’s already gone. Where, I’m
not sure. “Relax. Watch TV. Read a book. Enjoy yourself. God knows,
you deserve it.”
    As I watch him go, committing the outlines of
his back and ass and legs and the fluid, easy way he moves to
memory, the same panic that gripped me when I was thrashing in the
pool threatens to