It was the same every time he lost control: he vowed to never allow it to happen again, but no matter what, it always did.
Chapter 7
“Can’t believe you’re kicking me out of the house, Mother,” Matilda said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I need this room for storage. Maybe you can ask Mr. Hill if you can live in his mansion. I know he needs someone to clean every day. It only makes sense for you to stay there until you have earned enough money to move to Portland.”
“Mom, this guy is legitimately crazy. I can’t believe you would suggest I live with him. What happened to motherly protectiveness?”
“That went out the window when you moved to the valley with your idiot boyfriend,” her mom said, patting her cheek.
Matilda rolled her eyes and groaned. “Mom. You cannot be serious. He almost fired me yesterday. What makes you think he’s going to allow me to live in his mansion?”
“James Hill is a very messy man with a lot of money. He needs a cleaning lady. You are the very last cleaning lady on Fate Mountain who is willing to work with him,” her mother said. “What did you do to annoy him anyway?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Matilda objected. “I cleaned the kitchen like a champ. You would not believe how disgusting that place was. By the time I was done, every surface was gleaming.”
“Good job, honey. Obviously, I’ve taught you well.”
“Are you really kicking me out?”
“I don’t have any other choice. I told you when you first moved in here that I was going to start using that room for storage this month. I’m expanding the business and hiring several more employees. I can’t afford an extra storage space right now for all the new equipment. So unless you want to sleep on the couch, I would suggest you ask Mr. Hill if you can be his live-in help.”
“This is not going to end well,” Matilda said, shaking her head.
“If worse comes to worst, Matilda, you’ll end up sleeping on your mom’s couch.”
“Right…” Matilda said in a low voice.
“You better get going, your appointment is in fifteen minutes. I’ve heard Mr. Hill does not like tardiness.”
“Okay, okay, I’m leaving.”
Matilda left the house with her bucket and mop and threw it all in the back of her car. On the way up the mountain, all she could think about was what would happen when she asked James if she could be his live-in cleaning lady.
She really didn’t want to sleep on her mother’s couch. It hadn’t been replaced since 1998. Matilda’s mom was a cheapskate. She expected her daughter to do it on her own just like she had. According to Matilda’s mother, it built character, or something stupid like that.
Matilda knew one thing for sure: being forced to ask a weirdo like James Hill if she could live in his weird house was definitely going to build her character. No more character development would be needed after this. She didn’t think she would survive it.
She pulled up in front of his house. He swung open the front door, glaring at her as she walked up the walkway. Was he really that pissed that she was a little late?
“You’re two minutes late,” he barked.
“It’s nice to see you too,” she said, following him over the snow-covered ground. “Oh, did you notice that it snowed three inches last night?”
“That’s no excuse. From now on, I expect punctuality. I will accept no less.”
“I’m sure I can get here on time every single day if we had some kind of arrangement,” she said, trying to get up the nerve to ask him if she could be his live-in help.
He turned and glared at her, obviously confused by the statement. He closed the door behind her, and they stood staring at each other in the front hall.
He was wearing black loungewear that looked like it had come out of a designer men’s catalog, but he still hadn’t shaved, and his hair was as wild and shaggy as it had been before. The smell of his cologne filled her nose and the heat of his body burning in the space between them made warmth rise from the base of her spine.
It filled her with a tingling ache that she couldn’t ignore no matter how much she wanted to. Dammit. Why was she so attracted to this weirdo? It just did not make any sense. And now she had to ask him if she could live in his house.
“What exactly are you talking about?”
There wasn’t any point in dancing around the subject. Better to get it out there in the open.
“Well, you know my mother is the owner of Fate Mountain Cleaning, right?”
“I was not aware of that.”
“Anyway. My mom needs the room where I sleep for storage, so now I’m basically homeless. That presents you with a great opportunity to have a live-in cleaning lady at your disposal twenty-four-seven. I’d be on time every single day.”
“I told you yesterday, I can’t have you around here.”
“Me… or anyone?”
“You or anyone else. But especially you.”
“Do you have some kind of problem with me that I don’t know about?”
He looked at her and growled, his lip curling back over his teeth. She saw the sharp curve of his canines, and the bright yellow glow in his eyes. She was slapped in the face with the realization that James Hill, the eccentric billionaire, was a shifter.
She had had no idea until that moment. Now she was even more scared than she had been before. Her heart slammed in her chest and she wanted more than anything to leave. She had nowhere to go. If she went back home now, her mother would be pissed. She might even lose the invitation to sleep on the couch if she screwed up this job.
“Are you a shifter?” she asked, taking a step back.
“Yes. My inner bear is particularly grumpy. Especially around chatty cleaning ladies who lack punctuality.”
“Chatty? No one’s ever called me chatty before.”
“One word is too many. Now let me show you to your job for today.”
Matilda tried desperately to hold back her irritation as James led her through the house. Who did this guy think he was? Even if he did want to accept her offer of being a live-in cleaning lady, she doubted that she could handle living with such an irritating person anyway.
No matter how great his ass looked in the lounge pants he was wearing. She couldn’t help but stare at it as she followed him through the mansion. Her mind started playing dirty tricks on her, forcing her to imagine what it would feel like in both of her hands.
When they made it to the master bathroom, she had to squeeze her eyes closed for a moment to force the image from her mind. When she opened them again, she found herself standing in a huge marble tiled room with a massive walk-in shower and a deep jetted bathtub. All that beauty was covered in laundry, trash, and who knows what, from James’s personal hygiene routines. There were wet towels covering the floor, and she didn’t even want to know what she would find in the toilet.
“I don’t usually let people into my private space, but my master bathroom is in desperate need of cleaning. This is your assignment for the day.”
Matilda glanced up at James like he was crazy. As much as she wanted to make a good impression and be a good worker, she could not help being stunned by him. It was only slightly less shocking than the level of slovenliness he was clearly comfortable living with.
“Can I ask you a personal question, James?” she asked, unable to stop herself.
“No.”
“Why don’t you just clean up after yourself?”
“I’m a billionaire. Why should I do that?”
“Um… So you don’t have to live like a slob?”
“And that, my dear, is the one and only reason I invite you into my space. I have other things to do. Could you please do your job?”
“Not a problem, sir,” she said, trying to hold back the sarcasm.
“If you do a good job at this, we can talk about you maybe living here. Until I can find someone else that is.”
“Really?” she said, her tone lightening.
“I’m not making any promises, and it’s only until I can find someone else.”
“Okay then. I’ll get to work.”
Matilda set down her mop and bucket, unable to believe that this was her life now. She had sunk to begging a weirdo to be his live-in cleaning lady. James Hill may be a billionaire, but he was the slovenliest person Matilda had ever encountered in her life. And she was the daughter of a cleaning lady; she thought she had seen it all.
The things she had to clean up in James’s bathroom would have made the guys in the kill room at the meatpacking plant hesitate. But Matilda was a professional. She did what she needed to do to get the job done.
Several hours later, the bathroom was just as clean as the kitchen had been the day before when she’d left. She hadn’t seen it yet today, but she doubted it was still in the same condition.
As she scrubbed the last corner of the bathroom floor on her hands and knees, she felt the distinct feeling that she was being stared at. She turned just in time to see James standing in the doorway, staring at her as she knelt on the floor. His eyes were clearly burning a hole in her ass. Her own eyes grew round with shock and she gasped.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
Her heart was thumping a million miles a minute and she couldn’t calm down. She should hate the feeling of his eyes on her, but instead, it made her blood boil and her juices run hot. She bit her lip and stood, brushing off her maid uniform.
“The room looks great. I can take a decent shower again.”
“It looks like my two hours are up. I should get going, unless you’re ready to talk about me living here.”
“I should not agree to this. However, I do need a cleaning lady. I’m going to let you stay here, but only until your mother finds me someone else.”
“I wish you would tell me what I’ve done wrong.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” he growled. “Let me show you your room.”
He led her through his bedroom, which was just as messy as the bathroom. She noted the sturdy four poster bed covered in fluffy black blankets made of the softest fabrics.
They went down the hall and turned the corner, until they came to another wing of the mansion. It was cold in this part of the big house. He opened the door, and she peered inside. It was a well-appointed guestroom for a young woman or a girl. The bedspread was covered in pink hearts that matched the curtains on a window that overlooked the snow-covered garden below.
A fireplace sat in the corner, with a stack of wood beside it. An easy chair faced the hearth, and a bookshelf covered the opposite wall. It looked like a sweet, cozy little place to call home for a time. Even though this was a strange situation, she was grateful to have the room.
“Thank you,” she said, walking inside.
“You can go get your things from your mother’s house if you need.”
“That won’t be necessary. My mother made me bring them with me in the car.”
Chapter 8
James left Matilda alone in her room and stormed down the hall, unable to believe that he had agreed to allow her to live in his mansion. His inner grizzly was going mad, threatening to break through his human defenses. The beast insisted that he claim the woman right here and now.
There was no way James could ever have Matilda. He was mad in more ways than one. His human mind was cracked and the mind of his grizzly was broken beyond repair. The horrors of war and the solitude of the mountain had pushed him over the edge.
He needed to get her out of here as soon as possible. There was no way for them to live safely together in his mansion. When she’d told him she had nowhere to go, he couldn’t help but want to help her.
She was his fated mate. As a shifter, his primary instinct was to protect her. That instinct had led him to allowing her to live in this house, as stupid as that decision may have been. Now he would be forced to smell her sweet scent every moment of every day as it filled his mansion.
He walked out onto the back porch that led to the grounds. The drops of blood from the rabbits he’d devoured still clung to the snow. He gritted his teeth at the shame of it and hurried down the walkway, through the garden of statues that stared down at him from their pillars.
As he glanced at their faces, he knew that he could see them staring back at him. It was no comfort to know the depth of his own insanity. His poor little mate had to get away from here as fast as possible before he did something he would regret for eternity.
She needed a place to stay, but more than that, she needed to be safe. And being safe meant staying as far away from him as possible. He tried not to look at the faces of the statues as he trudged through the snow to the back corner of the grounds. He needed to get away from her smell and clear his head. He had to decide what to do.
There was a small gazebo glassed in by storm windows and protected from the elements. He walked through the door and sat on a wooden bench beside the fireplace.
Shivering in the cold, he threw a few logs in the hearth and started a fire. The longer he stayed out here the better. Pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace, he tried to muster the strength to go back to the house. He knew that as soon as he went inside, she would be there. The smell of her, the sound of her heart beating, the sight of her beautiful, curvaceous, young body. He would never survive it. Neither of them would.
As he gazed at the fire, his inner grizzly sent him images of himself ripping Matilda’s clothes off, and taking her like a madman across his king-sized bed. The images were so vivid he could almost feel himself sinking into her soft core. Thinking of the velvety warmth of her sex around his shaft made him roar with desire. He broke out of the fantasy and squeezed his eyes closed, rubbing his temples. The things his bear wanted could never be.
Matilda was his mate and therefore he had to protect her, even if it was from himself. These mad, dark thoughts were twisting through his mind and keeping his attention so intently that he didn’t notice the screen door of the gazebo had swung open.
The little raven-haired college girl stood before him, her heart shaped mouth puckered questioningly and her pale cheeks flushed with red from the cold air outside.
“What are you doing out here?” he demanded to know.
“I wanted to know if I could make something for dinner?”
“You don’t have to ask.”
“I didn’t want to intrude.”
“Obviously, you have to eat.”
“Okay. I’ll get out of your hair now. Thanks,” she said, turning away.
“Wait!” he said, too loudly.
She turned back to look at him, questions in her eyes.
“I’ll make something for you,” he stammered.
“You cook?”
“Yes, I cook. How do you think I got all those dirty dishes?”
“Point taken,” she said with a giggle.
The sound of her laughter excited something deep inside his heart, sending a tingle of pleasure through his entire body. He shivered in the cold air, and his inner grizzly growled at him to stop being an idiot.
“Come on,” he said in a low voice. “I have everything we need for beef stew.”
She followed him across the grounds toward the house. James avoided the eyes of the statues as he led her to the back porch.
“Is it just me or do the statues seem like they stare at you?”
“What?” he said, not sure he understood her question correctly. Was it possible she could see it too?
“The statues, it’s almost like they’re looking at me. I know it sounds crazy, but…”
“It is like that,” he said hesitantly.
“It’s not just the statues either. I swear sometimes the objects in your house move by themselves. I can’t explain it. God, I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
“The mansion can play tricks on the eyes,” he said.
He couldn’t believe that she saw it too.
“Well my eyes have been tricked since the first day I starte
d working here. I swear I saw a candlestick dancing out of the corner of my eye.”
“You did?” he said, opening the back door of the mansion.
“What’s with all this blood all over the back porch?”
“That? That’s from a few rabbits.”
“And you know that how?”
“Because I killed them and ate them in grizzly form.”
“Okay. That’s a little too much information.”
“If you’re going to live with a grizzly shifter, you should get used to it,” he said in a flat voice.
“I’m not judging or anything.”
They stepped into the mansion and walked through a sitting room and into the kitchen. He invited Matilda to sit at the kitchen counter while he began pulling things out of the fridge.
“It’s awfully nice to get to cook in a clean kitchen.”
“I’m better at cleaning than cooking, truth be told,” she said.
“That would make sense,” he said, before he could stop himself.
“What would make sense? You’re good at cooking and I’m good at cleaning? I don’t understand.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Obviously it isn’t nothing. There’s something going on here that I don’t know about. You know I need this job, but there’s only so much weirdness a girl can deal with. I just got out of a bad relationship, and I’m trying to have better boundaries. I read that on a relationship blog.”
“Boundaries are important.”
As James was preparing his beef stew, he noticed as Matilda pulled her smartphone out of her pocket and scrolled over the screen.
“I can’t believe I signed up for Mate.com,” she said. “They even found my fated mate. Can you believe that? But this guy has never even contacted me and his profile name is Bad Bear. That doesn’t seem very encouraging, does it?”
“I wouldn’t know anything about it,” he lied.
Matilda sighed and set her smartphone back on the counter.
“It’s kind of weird to have my boss cooking dinner for me,” she said.
“I’m not really your boss,” he growled.