The Billionaire's Housekeeper: A Marriage of Convenience Romance for Adults (12 page)

“
Don’t listen to that
viper. She just wants to make trouble for everyone. She always has,”
Anne Ainsworth said. She put a straw in her mouth and sucked down a
Bloody Mary.

“
That’s not what I mean. I
meant what’s been happening with Rita.”

“
Oh? You two finally admitted
you’re head over heels for each other, and now you’re
running away like a child?” Anne snorted into her straw. She
was on her third drink, and George knew he would have to cut her off
soon. She was a tumultuous drunk, but the worst part was that she had
no filter, and was usually always right.

“
Yes…but with all that’s
happening with Julie. I don’t think this is something I can
handle right now,” George sighed and looked down at his barely
eaten meal.

“
What are you saying?”
Anne said. She was looking very serious now. She really liked Rita,
and she liked how she was making George happier. The thing standing
in the way was her ex daughter-in-law who was out to destroy
everything for George out of plain spite.

“
I may have to end things with
Rita. It may be for the best.”

“
That’s total bullshit
George,” Anne hiccuped. “Don’t let the pain of one
relationship carry into another. Rita isn’t anything like
Julie, thank God, and you could use a bit more happiness in your
life. Look what Julie’s doing to you! You can’t turn away
from someone who really loves you…who
you
really love.
How many of us get a chance to find love under such amazing
circumstances?”

George rolled his eyes. He was about
to respond when he heard his phone ringing. He took it out of his
pocket and answered it.

“
Mr. A?”

“
Jose?” George was
surprised to hear Jose on the other end of the line.

“
Mr. A, where are you?”
Jose sounded almost frantic. That made George perk up in his chair,
his eyes wide.

Anne leaned in closer in an attempt to
eavesdrop, but she couldn’t hear the voice on the other end of
the call.

“
What’s going on Jose?”
George asked.

“
It’s Rita. I tried to
stop her, but she says she won’t change her mind
,”
Jose said desperately. “
I was with her the night that you
left. She’s been crying for days now. She told me this morning
that she booked a flight back to Montreal
.”

“
What?” George shouted.
Several people walking by turned their heads to see what all the
commotion was about, but quickly went back to their own business.

“
I’ve been trying to
talk her out of it. I told her to wait for you. She said she couldn’t
wait and that she was doing the best that she could for herself
.
She took out what was left in her savings
,” Jose said.
He was exasperated. The one person he knew Rita would listen to was
George. He didn’t want to see his friend get hurt, but he knew
that she loved George, and that was all that mattered to Jose. He
didn’t want her to leave with so much left unsaid, and to put
herself in potential danger by going back to Montreal.

“
When is her flight?”
George asked desperately.

“
At 5 today…
”

And suddenly nothing else mattered to
George. His business would survive, the press would move on, and
Julie would eventually be bored. The only thing that mattered to him
right now was Rita. He was prepared to let her go in order to save
himself, and now she was going to leave him. He couldn’t have
that.

“
Thank you, Jose. Thank you. I
won’t let her leave. Please tell her not to go,” George
said. He hung up the phone and looked up at his mother, who was
staring wide eyed at him.

“
What in the hell is happening?”
she asked.

“
I can’t talk right now. I
have to go,” George said, grabbing his belongings and getting
up from the chair.

Anne shook her head at him as he
turned away.

“
Finally!” she muttered
loudly enough for him to hear before taking another long sip of her
Bloody Mary.

*****

It was pouring rain by the time George
got to the mansion. He didn’t care that he was soaking wet when
he burst through the door. He was moved by adrenaline, fear, and
anger. He was afraid that he couldn’t fix things with the woman
he truly cared about, and he was overwhelmed by how furious he was
with the woman from his past.

He called Julie on his way back to the
mansion, and gave her a piece of his mind. He wasn’t going to
be threatened or talked down to. He was so upset that he ended up
telling Julie the whole truth of the matter, and that there hadn’t
ever been an affair. Julie blubbered through the phone and had more
to say, but he didn’t bother listening. He hung up the call
before she could speak. If there was anything else that she needed to
say, then she could get in touch with his lawyer.

“
Rita?!” George called out
once he shut the door behind him. He was dripping from head to foot.
He was so full of adrenaline that the cold hadn’t even hit him
yet.

George trudged through the house,
leaving a trail of water everywhere. He called out to Rita as he made
his way through the rooms and even up the stairs. Her things weren’t
in the guest room, even though she had moved a lot of them to the
main bedroom since they had professed their feelings to one another.

George went to search his room, but
her things weren’t in there either. His heart sank. It was too
late. She was gone, and he didn’t know how on earth he could
find her now.

He moved toward the second floor
balcony. That was the best place for him to clear his head. He
stopped in Julie’s art studio for a minute. He looked around at
the vast emptiness of it. It was no longer Julie’s place for
escape; it was now his own. It gave him his favorite view of the
gardens. He would be able to see the little white cottage from there.

George’s eyes filled with tears,
and as they trickled down his face, they merged with the rain drops
that were flowing down his body. He was feeling everything that
mattered to him slip away. He left Julie’s studio and took a
step onto the balcony.

The sky was as dark as ever and there
was no sign of any possibility that the rain would stop any time
soon. He found his favorite chair and sat in it. He let his tears
flow freely as he looked out into the garden.

That was when he noticed something. He
was too sad to look out at the cottage at first, but as his eyes
scoped the grounds he noticed something.

He wasn’t sure, but it looked
like there was a light coming from one of the rooms in the cottage.

Rita!

George shot out of his chair, nearly
tripping over himself and ran out of the studio and down the stairs.
He moved towards the side of the house and to the lanai. He paused
only for a moment to look up at the sky, but nothing was going to
keep him away; not Julie, not the paparazzi, and certainly not
something as silly as the rain.

George stepped off the lanai and out
into the garden. He kicked off his shoes and took off his socks and
then broke out into a run. If there was a chance, he was going to
take it.

He ran across the gardens, closer and
closer to the little cottage. Now that he was closer, he could see
that the door was left ajar. That meant that she must have still been
there!

“
Rita!” he called out into
the rain, but there was no way that she could hear him through all of
it. He got to the porch and reached out to open the front door. His
lungs ached and his legs burned from the running, but he didn’t
care. He needed to see her. He needed to make things right.

George opened the door and staggered
inside of the cottage. His mind was racing with all of the things he
wanted to say to her when he saw her. But there she was. Rita was
standing in the living room. She was holding a pile of folded
clothes, and all she could do was stare at George.

His mind drew a blank. All he could do
was think about how beautiful she looked. He wanted to hold her, but
he knew that she wouldn’t want that. He closed the door behind
him, and they stared at each other for a while.

Neither of them knew what the other
was thinking. Neither of them wanted to speak first. There was so
much to say between them that it almost felt like the walls were
closing in on them. The only sound was the rain pouring outside, but
the cabin was so quiet inside that Rita could hear George’s
heavy breathing clearly.

“
What are you doing here?”
Rita’s voice was weak but defiant. She didn’t take her
eyes off of him. George pushed a clump of wet hair back and breathed
deeply a few times before getting ready to speak.

“
Please, don’t go,”
George said. His voice was pleading, but Rita couldn’t tell if
it was because he was cold and tired from running in the rain, or if
it could have been something else.

“
I think I have to,” Rita
said. She finally looked down at the pile of clothes in her hands as
if seeing them for the first time. She didn’t have much more to
pack, and the driver was waiting to take her to the airport in a few
hours. “I spoke to my mother already. She’s expecting
me.”

“
I’ll bring her,”
George said brightly, as if now there were a glimmer of hope.
“Whatever I have to do, whatever it takes Rita, I’ll do
it.”

“
You don’t have to do
that. Using your money is the last thing I want to do. I just wanted
to grow with you George,” a lump formed in Rita’s throat.

“
It’s not like that. I
just thought it would be better to grow as much as I can for myself
before trying anything with someone new.”

She looked skeptically at him. Just a
few weeks ago he hadn’t been sure about her. He didn’t
know if this was something that he could venture into because of his
past. Julie was still very much in the picture, and she probably
wouldn’t go away until she had drained George of all the money
that he owed her.

“
What about Julie?”

“
What
about
Julie?”
he echoed with an exasperated sigh. “If you want to know, I
talked to her. I told her the truth about everything. I told her
there was never an affair, and I was doing what I could to help you.”

“
Oh,” Rita said.

“
I also told her that I was
falling madly in love with you. Our marriage isn’t a sham,
Rita. I want to do anything I can to make it work with you,”
George was talking so fast now that Rita could barely keep up. It was
unlike him to be so nervous, but it had been a long time since he’d
really bared his soul to anyone.

“
But we come from two different
worlds, George. I’ll never be a socialite or a debutante…”

“
And who says you have to be? I
didn’t fall for a debutante, I fell for you. We came from two
different worlds, but something brought us together and we’ve
made our own world from it. It’s a world I’ve never known
before, and I’d like to spend as much of my life exploring that
new world
with
you.”

Rita didn’t realize she was
crying until a sob escaped her lips. She put the pile of laundry down
on the armchair nearest her and began to wipe her eyes.

George took long strides towards her,
taking out a handkerchief from his breast pocket and handing it to
her. Rita laughed. It was soaking wet.

“
It’s good to hear you
laugh,” George said. He gently lifted her face so that she
could meet his gaze.

“
You really want to make this
work?” Rita asked. Her expression had turned serious once
again, and her eyes danced, trying to catch even the slightest change
in his expression. George nodded and offered her a warm smile. He
shivered just then.

Rita moved her hands onto his wet
shirt and helped him remove his wet jacket.

“
Let’s get you out of
those wet clothes,” she said. She took him by the hand and led
him to the bedroom inside of the little cottage.

Once they reached the bedroom, George
spun Rita around to face him and drew her closer. She didn’t
care that her blouse was getting soaked. He still felt warm pressed
up against her. George lowered his face and kissed Rita softly on her
cheek. The blood rushed to her face, and she felt like she was on
fire being so close to him.

She held his face with her hands and
rubbed her thumb against his rugged cheek. Rita tiptoed and kissed
George. It didn’t scare her anymore. This felt right. This is
where she wanted to be, and this is who she wanted to be with.

Every second longer of their kiss took
down another brick in the wall that Rita had built up inside her
mind. Being with George made her feel like she was free to truly love
again; free to have someone love her the way she deserved to be
loved.

“
George,” Rita whispered
as she pulled away. He leaned forward to kiss her again.

“
George, I love you,” she
said, fully giving into him.

“
I love you too,” he said,
wrapping his arms around her waist. He reached underneath her wet
blouse and gently grabbed at her skin with his fingers.