The Housekeeper's Daughter

Zara

Dominic’s hot breath tickles my neck as he thrusts into me. His arms are so tight around my waist that I can’t even move even though I want to.

“Zara.” I’ve always liked the way my name sounds on his tongue. The same tongue that now trails down my throat, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

I know this is wrong.

I know it every time his hands find me in the dark, every time I let myself stop thinking long enough to just feel him. I know it when he says my name in that low, careful way, like he’s trying to hold something back and losing the fight. I know it the way I know my own heartbeat, I know it yet I’m here anyway.

Dominic fucks me hard against the wall of his study, one hand gripping my waist, the other tangled in my hair, and the only thought I have left is that I never want him to stop. The room smells like him, dark wood and expensive perfume and power. I have memorised it without meaning to, the way I have memorised everything about this man without meaning to.

“Come” His voice is rough as he pulls me towards the couch to sit on him. I start riding him like my life depends on it, my sanity certainly does. “Yes, baby. Fuck yes!” He buries his face in my hair and growls so low that my entire body vibrates.

“Kiss me.” I say before pulling his face towards me. His tongue invades my mouth, but I’m not complaining, it’s exactly what I need.

He makes a sound low in his throat and lifts me like I weigh nothing, and I wrap my legs around him and stop thinking entirely and he lays me on the couch and pounds me within an inch of my life.

This is what we are, this is the only place where nothing between us is complicated. Where he is not Dominic Ashford, heir to a dynasty that was built before either of us were born. Where I am not Zara Cole, the housekeeper’s daughter who grew up doing homework in the staff kitchen while his family ate dinner in a room with a chandelier worth more than my mother earned in a year.

In here, we are just this; two large throbbing glands.

The sex is never anything like I thought it would be four months ago when I finally stopped pretending I did not want him. I thought it would be sharp and urgent and over quickly, something we would both feel guilty about after, I was wrong about every part of that. Dominic Ashford does nothing fast when he does not have to. Now he takes me apart like he has all the time in the world and intends to use every second of it.

By the time we are done, I am breathless and warm and pressed against his chest, listening to his heart pound.

This is my favorite part, the part I will never tell him about. The quiet after, when his hand moves slowly up and down my spine and his breathing evens out and for a few minutes he forgets to be careful with me. He forgets to maintain the distance he keeps in every other hour of the day. He just holds me, and I let myself pretend that this is real, that this is something we are allowed to have.

“I can hear you’re thinking,” he says.

“I’m always thinking.”

“Not usually this loud.” His chest rises under my cheek. “What is it?”

I almost tell him, I almost say the thing I have kept myself from saying for months now, the thing that sits in the back of my throat every time I look at him. I almost tell him that I’m not sure how much longer I can do this, that loving him in the dark is getting harder and harder, that staying away from him is killing me. Almost.

Instead I say, “Nothing. I need to go.”

His arms tighten around me before I even move.

“Zara.”

“Dominic.”

Another pause. Then, he takes a deep breath and buries his face in my hair again. “You don’t have to go tonight.“His voice is so soft, it’s heartbreaking. I swear, I can feel my heart crack in my chest.

I sit up and look at him in the low light, this man who controls billions of dollars and entire boardrooms and the livelihoods of thousands of people, looking up at me with a vulnerability that no one else gets to see.

“I have an early start,” I say. “Mum needs help with the east wing before the Hargrove dinner tomorrow.”

Something shifts in his face at the name. It’s just for a second, but I know you don’t spend your lifetime loving a man without knowing his every expression.

“Right,” he says. “The Hargroves.”

I pry his hands apart and get off him, just to put some distance between us. “Celeste Hargrove is very beautiful, from what I’ve seen.” I say as I reach for my dress.

He sits up. “Don’t do that.” Not the least bit ashamed of his nakedness. I’m turned on all over again just watching him.

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Zara.” His voice has an edge now, that controlled, careful edge it gets when he’s giving you a chance to employ common sense.

I pull my dress over my head and turn to face him. He looks entirely too sexy for comfort, dishevelled and dark-eyed, devastatingly handsome and completely, utterly out of my reach.

“Goodnight, Dominic,” I say.

I make it to the door before he speaks again.

“The Hargrove dinner is a business arrangement, Zara. It has nothing to do with this. With us. You should know that.”

I don’t turn around, I just put my hand on the door ready to leave.

“You know what the strange thing is?” I say quietly. “I believe you. I do, but it still doesn’t change anything.”

I let myself out into the corridor before he can answer.

The hallway is dark, but I’ve walked it too many times. Besides, I can’t afford to turn on any lights and draw attention to myself. How would I explain being in this part of the house by this time? I may have worked here all my life, but Mrs. Ashford doesn’t give second chances.

I am almost at the staff stairs when I hear it.

Voices, down the hall, near the sitting room. Of course, it shouldn’t be my business but then again, the Ashfords never stay up late. Before I can make the wise choice to just leave, my legs carry me towards the sitting room.

Damn it, Zara. Just leave it alone.

I recognize one of the voices immediately. Eleanor Ashford does not raise her voice, she never needs to. Every sensible part of me knows that I should turn back now that I haven’t been found, but do I do that? Absolutely not.

I stop.

“It needs to be handled before it becomes a problem,” Eleanor says. “I don’t care how.”

A second voice, a man’s voice, a man I do not recognise. “And the girl?”

There was a pause, a rather long pause.

“The girl,” Eleanor says, then she chuckles. “She’s not going to be a problem, is she?”