The Billionaire's Will

The Billionaire's Will

By

Marti Talbott

© all rights reserved.

Cover art
by
Book Cover Art

Editor:
Frankie Sutton

Table o
f Contents

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It was no accident that Teresa Gregory secured a position as maid to Mathew and Laura Connelly – she planned it that way. She asked around, found out which temp agency the Connellys used, signed with that agency, and then waited her turn. Word was that Laura Connelly went through maids like water, and Teresa didn’t expect it to be very long before the agency sent her there. The American wealthy favored pretty girls with British accents, and she was certainly all that. As it turned out, she was not offered the position until two weeks before she was due to return to England.

The agency carefully explained the Connelly situation to he
r, and it soon became clear – the reason the Connellys couldn’t keep a maid was because Laura was a drunk and Mathew was a letch. The position required fulfilling Mrs. Connelly’s needs, doing laundry, cleaning, serving meals, answering the phone, and keeping the Connelly’s social calendar up-to-date.

The agency didn’t say anything about fulfilling Mr. Connelly’s needs.

It was early morning when Teresa arrived at the wealthy gated community on Chester Street in Denver. She got out of the taxi at the gate, was let in by the security guards, and walked up the street. There were several houses facing the circular drive, but according to the internet map, the sprawling, two-story, Federation style mansion in the middle belonged to the Connellys. It had a four-car garage and a limousine, complete with a driver, who was waiting in the wide driveway. The expansive lawn was well cared for, and was bordered with rose bushes that gave off their sweet aroma.

Carrying a small bag, she walked
up the drive to the front door, nodded to the waiting driver, rang the bell, and was let in by a middle-aged woman who introduced herself as, Eleanor.

“I am the cook
, and my husband, Mark, does odds and ends, and drives the Connelly’s limo,” Eleanor explained, as she led Teresa to a bedroom located on the bottom floor just beyond the indoor swimming pool. “Mark and I have the room next to yours. You can knock on the wall if you need help.”

“Will I need help?” Teresa asked.

“I hope not. Mr. Connelly ain’t here much, and when he is, you best just stay out of his way.”

“I see.” Teresa set her bag on the bed and looked around. It was
a comfortable enough room, especially for her purposes. It had a bed, an easy chair, a table, and a television on a stand. The door, she noticed, had a deadbolt on the inside.

“There’s an elevator for when Mrs. Connelly can’t make it up the stairs.”
Eleanor took hold of the doorknob. “You hungry? The Connellys don’t eat breakfast, but I’d be pleased to make you up something.”

“No, thank you, I’
ve already eaten.” She smiled as Eleanor closed the door and then she took a deep breath.

She
was in…at long last.

*

A tall woman, with long dark hair and blue eyes, twenty-two-year old Teresa was dressed in the required gingham, short sleeved, French style uniform. It was blue with trim on the sleeves that matched her white half apron. Her first glimpse of the Connellys was a brief one. Mathew hurried his wife out the door and climbed into the back of the limo beside her. They didn’t say where they were going and Teresa didn’t ask.

Once they were gone, she took her time becoming familiar with the place.
Oddly, the furnishings and the decor in the eight-bedroom, ten-bathroom house, clearly had not been updated for at least twenty years. Most of the rooms hadn’t seen much use either. Yet, there was plenty of work to keep a small staff busy and then some.

Teresa
decided to ignore the other rooms for now, made the beds in the separate bedrooms the Connellys apparently occupied, and located several places to hide…should the need arise.

When the
Connellys came home later that afternoon, Teresa was in the dining room dusting the tall china cupboard. Laura immediately headed for the liquor cabinet in the living room to make herself a drink, while Mathew watched. Neither of them seemed to care who might be listening, so Teresa moved a little closer to the arched doorway between the two rooms.

Mathew
glared at his wife. “She told me she called you. What did you tell her, Laura?” A little too thin for his height, Mathew’s tailored, dark blue suit fit him well enough. He was an unusually handsome man with slightly graying sideburns. His dark hair was fashionably short, and he had intense blue eyes.

“I
told her the same thing I told all the others,” Laura answered.

It was obvious Laura
had once been quite a beauty, but the alcohol she consumed over the years made her face puffy and her cheeks red. Even so, she still had a girlish figure, dark hair, pretty blue eyes, and a nice smile – although her smile was disingenuous just now.

“Laura, I need to know
exactly what you said.”

“Why?
Is she the one you
truly
love these days?” She finished pouring her drink, took a long swallow, and then headed up the mahogany staircase.

Mathew
soon followed. “I don’t love her, but I
do
need her.”

Dr
ink in hand, Laura stopped halfway up and turned around to face him. “I can’t imagine what for. Darling, don’t you have someplace to go? Why don’t you just run along? You know you want to.”

“There was a time when you wanted me to stay home.”

“There was a time when…” Laura stopped in midsentence and continued up the stairs.

He watched her disappear around the corner,
closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. When he turned to go back down, he spotted Teresa standing in the archway. “See that she doesn’t hurt herself, and remember to make sure she takes her medicine every morning.”

“Yes, Mr. Connelly, I’ll remember.”

As soon as he reached the bottom step, he stopped, looked at her for a long moment, and started to say something. He changed his mind, and instead, walked out the front door, letting it slam behind him.

Teresa went to the window
, moved the curtain aside and watched. One of the garage doors opened, Mathew backed out, and then drove his red Ferrari around the curved driveway toward the gate. After he was gone, she let the curtain close and went upstairs to see about Laura.

*

The next morning, Teresa stood beside the bed, opened her palm and offered a pill to Mrs. Connelly.

Laura Connelly’s enormous bedroom on the second floor was decorated in outdated pastel mauve and blue. The room held a dressing table, a sofa and loveseat with a matching reading chair, a reading lamp, a magazine rack and a coffee table. Her walk-in closet was bigger than most bedrooms, held three dressers and more clothes than any one woman had a right to own. Teresa expected to spend an entire week just organizing it.

“I don’t want that, take it away,” Laura moaned. In her king-size bed, complete with a lace trimmed
mauve canopy, she turned her back to the maid and buried the side of her face in a pillow.

“Mr. Connelly gave me specific instructions to see that you take your blood pressure medicine.”

“Of course he did, he wants me alive, not dead…at least not yet.”

“You wish to die?”

Laura turned back over. “No I don’t. I can’t die now; I would miss all the fun.”

“What fun is that?”

Laura sat up and then held her head as her hangover pain began. She waited for it to subside, took the pill, put it in her mouth, and then washed it down with the glass of water Teresa handed her. “The inheritance, my dear, we have to go to court to settle the matter of my inheritance.”

“Is that why you were gone yesterday?”

Laura wrinkled her brow. “Didn’t I tell you?”

“I’m new, remember?”

Laura thought about that for a moment. “Of course, you are. We are contesting the will, you see, and I…what day is this?”

“Tuesday, the ninth.”

“Tuesday? I guess I must be in court again today. What shall I wear? Black would be proper in honor of my father, I suppose.”

Teresa set the glass of water o
n the nightstand, walked into the bathroom, and turned on the shower. “I think your red suit will do nicely.”

Lau
ra moaned a second time. “I hate red.”

“Yes, Mum, but it brings out the color
of your hair. Do you not want to please your husband?”

“Please him, no; taunt him, yes. Come to think of it, I might enjoy reminding him of what he is missing. Red it is.” Laura struggled to throw the covers back. “Who am I fooling? He hasn’t been tempted in years. We don’t even sleep in the same bed, and not even the same house most of the time. Crumbs, that’s all he ever gave me. I truly hate the man, but Connie, I still long for his crumbs sometimes.”

“Teresa.”

“Oh yes, Teresa.”

The maid held out a silk robe while Laura stood up and slipped her arms in the sleeves.  “Come along, it is time for your shower.”

Laura followed her to the bathroom, and then leaned against the doorjamb while Teresa tested the temperature of the water. “You know, it is almost spooky.”

“What is?”

“How much you remind me of me when I was your age.”

*

“Nicole
just fired Colleen,” Jim whispered as he walked past Maggie’s small office cubical. She stood up, made certain Nicole was not around, and followed him to the break room. She liked her dark hair long, but not long enough to reach the middle of her back as it did now. Sadly, a hairdresser was something she could not afford. Her wages were scandalously low, but considering her circumstances, she was happy to find any position with a Human Resources Department that didn’t require American references.

The
Gallagher Superior Telephone Service office building in downtown Denver, once housed over 500 people. With the failing economy and so many improvements that GSTS couldn’t match, the number of employees had dwindled to one-hundred-twenty-six. In Maggie’s department, that left only five.

Maggie
Jackson was an Account Cancellation Specialist for a phone company. Simply put, it meant she cancelled accounts, generated a final invoice and refunded deposits. The more their customers moved on to other providers and cancelled their GSTS accounts, the more secure Maggie’s job was.

For
three years, she watched fellow employees come and go, most of who were good workers and didn’t deserve to be fired. Unfortunately, there was more going on than met the eye, and some didn’t figure that out until it was too late.

As she hoped, Jim was the only one in the break room and he was at the vending machine getting a candy bar when she walked in. Dressed in jeans and a summer blouse, she sat down at one of the tables and waited for him to join her.

“Did you hear what I said?” Jim
whispered, as he chose a chair across the table from her. Wearing casual clothes as well, he had a stout build, curly red hair, and pleasant green eyes.

“
She got fired on a Wednesday morning? I thought Americans liked to do their firing on Friday afternoon.”

“Normally, they do. Issuing a last check for a full week is easier than trying to figure
out the hours in the middle of the week.”

Maggie adored Jim McMorrow. Her first day there, he took her under his wing and taught her how to use the complicated, nightmarish software.
When she spoke, she lowered her blue eyes, as well as her voice. “Did you have to issue her final paycheck?”

Jim
peeled the wrapper back on his candy bar and took a bite. “That’s the part I hate most about this job. Nicole should do it herself, but she always has me do it. I am the first to know when someone is getting fired and I truly, truly hate it. I can’t even look some people in the eye.”

“
Why did Colleen get fired?”

Jim puffed his cheeks.
“Since when does Nicole need a good reason?”

“Never
. Whose toes do you suppose Colleen stepped on?”

“Nicole’s probably.
I don’t know the details yet.”

Maggie
pushed a wayward strand of hair away from her face, and remembered to keep her voice down. “Another one bites the dust, as you Americans say. I thought Colleen was doing her job well.”

“Yeah, but
when has a department manager ever lasted more than six months?”

“Not since I’ve been
here.”

Jim
broke off a piece of his candy bar and offered it to her. When she shook her head, he put it in his mouth. “I’ve got a feeling she’ll offer the job to me and I don’t want it.”

“Neither do I.
”

He
took another bite and glanced at the empty doorway just to make sure no one was coming. “Last time she fired a manager, she combined both our departments and put Colleen over all of us. That’s a lot of work for one person and I don’t know who else is qualified.”