Chapter 150: Chapter 150 Meeting the boss Lorenzo woke with a start. In his dream, he had been searching for something elusive, that kept appearing and disappearing, an ethereal vision in blue.
Then, just as he had glimpsed of it, he had fallen into a wide, deep abyss.
He shuddered.
What the hell was that about?
The pallid winter sun seeped through the windows as reflections from the Thames play on the ceiling.
What had woken me? He recalled the woman he had brought in last night and had a one night stand with.
Leticia.
Boy, she was an animal. She wasn’t asleep beside him, and he couldn’t hear anyone in the shower. Perhaps she was left already.
He listened carefully for any noise within the flat.
It was quiet.
He grinned. No awkward small talk. The day was looking up until he remembered he had a meeting with his father and one of the directors at noon.
At twenty, people always told him he looked and behaved older than his age. Well, he could agree he matured quicker his peers.
He was often called a genius. At twenty, he was already a university graduate and was now working at the Moretti group to learn the ropes of the family business.
Lorenzo groaned and pulled the covers over his head.
He didn’t feel like going out today.
Something clattered to the floor somewhere in the apartment.
He sat up.
Shit. Leticia was still here.
That meant conversation.
He really loved it when his one-night-stand disappears before he wakes up.
Reluctantly, he hauled myself out of bed, dragged on his nearest pair of jeans, and go to find out if she was as wild in broad daylight as she was in the dark.
He padded down the hallway in his bare feet, but there was no one in the drawing room or the kitchen.
What the fuck?
He turned around at the kitchen entrance and halt. He was expecting to see Leticia, but a slight young woman stood in the hallway staring at him.
Her eyes were large and dark, reminding him of a startled doe, but she was dressed in a ghastly blue housecoat, cheap overwashed jeans, old trainers, and a blue headscarf that concealed her hair.
She said nothing.
“Who the hell are you?” He asked.
Holy Molly!
He was here, and he looked mad.
Danica froze as his blazing green eyes met hers. Tall, lean, and half naked, he towered over her. His hair was an unruly chestnut mess with gold highlights that glinted beneath the chandelier in the hallway. He was as broad-shouldered as she remembered, but the tattoo on his upper arm was far more intricate than she recalls; all she could distinguish is a wing.
A smattering of hair on his chest tapered down over a toned stomach. Then resumed beneath his navel and traveled farther down into his jeans. The tight black denim was ripped at the knee. But it was the hard line of his full lips and his eyes, the color of spring, in a handsome, unshaven face that made her look away.
Her mouth dried, and she didn’t know if it was from nerves or...or...from the look of him.
He was so attractive!
Too attractive.
And he was half naked! But why was he so mad? Did she wake him? No! He will send her away from the piano.
Panicked, she dropped her gaze to the floor as she floundered for something to say and clutched the handle of the broom to keep her upright.
Who the hell was this timid creature standing in his hallway?
Lorenzo completely bemused. Has he seen her before? An image from a forgotten dream developed like a Polaroid in his memory, an angel in blue hovering at his bedside. But that was days ago.
Could it have been her? And now she was here, rooted to the hallway floor, her impish face pale, her eyes downcast. Her knuckles grow whiter as she clasped the broom handle tighter and tighter, as if it’s anchoring her to the Earth. The headscarf concealed her hair, and an oversize, old-fashioned nylon housecoat swamped her small frame. She looked totally out of place.
“Who are you?” He asked again, but in a softer tone, not wanting to alarm her. Wide eyes, the color of a fine espresso and framed by the longest lashes he had ever seen, look up at him, then back at the floor.
Shit!
One peek from her dark, fathomless eyes and he was unsettled. She was at least a head shorter than him, perhaps five feet five to his six feet two.
Her features are delicate: high cheekbones, an upturned nose, clear fair skin, and pale lips. She looked like she needed a few days in the sun and a good hearty meal.
It was obvious that she was cleaning. But why her? Why here? Had she replaced my old daily?
“Where’s Ximena?” Lorenzo asked, growing a little frustrated at her silence.
Perhaps she was Ximena’s daughter, or granddaughter.
She continued to stare at the floor, her brow furrowed. Her even white teeth chewed at her upper lip as she refused to meet his gaze.
Look at me, He willed her.
He wanted to reach forward and tilt her chin up, but as if she read his mind, she raised her head. Her eyes meet his, and her tongue darted out, and nervously she licks her upper lip.
His whole body tightened in a hot, heavy rush as desire hit him like a demolition ball.
He narrowed his eyes as annoyance swiftly followed his desire.
What the hell wad wrong with him?
Why did a woman he had never met have such an effect on him?
It was irritating. Beneath fine arched brows, her eyes grow wider, and she took a step back, fumbling with the broom so that it fell from her hands and clatters onto the floor. She bent with easy, economic grace to pick it up, and when she was standing once more, she fixated on the handle, a slow flush staining her cheeks as she mumbles something unintelligible.
Bloody hell! Was he intimidating the poor girl?
He didn’t mean to.
People have often told him about how intimidated he made them feel and for the first time he was annoyed at himself.
Or maybe it was another reason. “Perhaps you don’t understand me,” Lorenzo said, more to himself, and I ran a hand through his hair as he brought his body to heel.
Was she mute?
How could they hire a mute person for him?
How was he going to communicate with her?
He didn’t know sign language.
“I am the new cleaner, sir.” She whispered, her eyes still downcast and her eyelashes fanned out above her luminous cheeks.
“Where’s Ximena?”
“She resigned.”
“When?”
“Since last week.”
Lorenzo rubbed his temple, he recalled Ximena saying something about a new cleaner but he wasn’t listening.
So what she was trying to tell him was that she was resigning and getting someone to reply her.
Ugh!
He liked the old woman. She’d cleaned for
him since he moved out of his parents’ home and into this apartment, three years ago, she kinda all his dirty little secrets. And he never got to say good-bye.
Maybe it was temporary. “Is she coming back?” He asked.
The lines in the girl’s forehead deepened, but she said nothing, though her eyes flicked to his feet. For some unknown reason, this makes him feel self-conscious.
Placing both hands on my hips, he stepped backward as his bewilderment grows. “How long have you been here?”
She responded a breathless, barely audible voice. “In Mexico City?”
“Look at me, please,” He asked.
Why was she so reluctant to look up?
Her slim fingers tighten around the broom again, as if she might brandish it as a weapon, then she swallowed and raised her head, regarding him with large, liquid brown eyes. Eyes, he could drown in.
His mouth dried as his body comes to attention again.