Weak, useless, and pathetic.
I didn’t have time to dwell on how unsuited for civilization the broken shell of my body was.
The minute Eileen disappeared, I raced to the teapot and showered my hand with its hot liquid.
When it ran out, I hustled in the direction of the nearest bathroom.
Natalie caught me halfway through my journey, a batch of documents in her hands. “Oh, hey. Mr. Costa and Mr. von Bismarck were wondering if—”
I sidestepped her, barking out behind me, “The answer is no.”
The bathroom door burst open in my rush, flinging against the wall. The crystal handle attached to the interior shattered all over the tiles.
I kicked the door shut and stepped on spiky glass shards with my bare feet, barreling to the sink.
Blood pooled at my heels. The pain didn’t even register.
I just needed to get her the hell off me.
I flipped the faucet to extra hot, thrust my hand into the pouring stream, and tipped my head back, groaning.
The water came out fire-hot, lashing my flesh, stinging every inch like electric wires. I closed my eyes, practicing deep breaths.
The “good” thumb—the one that hadn’t been contaminated by Eileen’s touch—rubbed soothing circles over my infected skin.
Images of dead, rotting flesh plastered against me assaulted my brain.
Blood.
Skin burned down to the muscle.
“Just wait, Zachary, we’re coming to get you.”
“Shit, Stan, that kid’s gonna be fucked up. No way is he coming back normal from this.”
“If that were me, I’d want to die, too.”
I slapped the faucet handle with my quivering free hand, trying to get it hotter, but it had already maxed out.
The water hissed as it scorched my skin beneath it clean to the bone. I didn’t withdraw. Couldn’t.
Not when I needed to rid myself of her touch.
No matter the price.
The door behind me jiggled, shaking on its hinges.
“G.I. Jerk, are you okay? I saw you running.”
Of course, it was her.
I couldn’t catch a break.
Another rattle. “Hey, is this thing jammed?”
“Go away,” I growled.
But she didn’t.
She wouldn’t.
She never followed instructions.
“What the…?” Her voice came from behind me, but I was too deep inside my trance to figure out how she’d managed to get inside despite the broken doorknob. “Jesus. Zach.”
The water shut off.
I still had my eyes screwed shut, my jaw rock-hard to prevent the bile lodged in my throat from projecting all over the marble.
It scorched my larynx with its sourness.
“Holy shit, dude. Your skin is pink.”
Farrow.
She was here. Inside. Right beside me.
My eyes shot open.
She came into focus like a restored painting, familiar yet new. Blue eyes flared. Full mouth opened.
Why did her stained maid uniform look more delectable than a Burberry dress suit?
Seriously. When did Farrow Ballantine start to look so breathtakingly beautiful to me?
Even now, with her hair tied up in a messy bun and her crooked wavy bangs glued to her forehead with sweat.
“How did you get here?” I snarled, shaking away these useless thoughts. “The doorknob shattered.”
“The outer lock is still intact.” She raised a bobby pin between us before tossing it into the sink. I recognized the moment she processed my current state of duress. She slapped a hand over her mouth, pupils running wild in their sockets. “What the fuck, Zach? Look at you.”
Farrow surveyed our surroundings, grabbed a decorative vase, and used it to guide me away from the sink, herding me like a shepherd.
She knows I don’t do touching.
She figured it out.
The idea that she knew my darkest, most depraved secret—and respected it—made my stomach twist into thick knots.
It was so typical of life to thrust me into such a cruel situation—just to teach me an even crueler lesson.
Salvation came from the most unexpected places. Sometimes it came from religion. Sometimes it came from forgiveness. And sometimes it came from the girl you finally realized you didn’t actually hate.
Farrow backed me all the way into the opposite wall of the bathroom. “Your skin is raw. It’s gonna blister. You have, like, third-degree burns. It’s all gonna come off if we don’t treat you.”
She returned to the faucet and flicked it on, setting the water temperature to cool but not cold.
While she waited for the temperature to change, she started tossing open cabinets, searching for something.
“Upper cabinet to your left.” I slid my back down the wall, sitting on the floor and clutching my wrist. “What kind of idiot keeps their first aid kit on the lower level?”
“Maybe the same one who voluntarily gave himself a third-degree burn because he doesn’t like being touched but doesn’t have the balls to own up to it,” she snapped, popping a red-and-white box open and rummaging through it.
I tried to swallow and failed.
She was more perceptive than my childhood friends. They’d taken far longer to discover my secret.
For the first time, I wasn’t amused by Farrow Ballantine.
I was worried.
There was nothing more dangerous in this world than a smart woman.
“Petroleum jelly.” She withdrew a tub of Vaseline. “Bingo. Hey, why is most of it gone?”
Fucking Ollie.
I mustered the courage to examine the skin slowly melting from my hand. Bright red. Purplish at the edges. Swollen and blistered fingers.
I’d seen worse, but she probably hadn’t.
Farrow deposited the Vaseline on the counter, continued sifting through the kit, and swore.
She dumped the contents onto the marble and snapped her fingers. “Up on your feet.”
I stood without question.
Not sure when I’d started taking orders from my own maid, but here we were.
Her finger darted beneath the faucet, double-checking the temperature.
“Put your hand under the running water. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.” She wagged a finger in my face. “I swear to god, Zach—if you move an inch from this place, I’m going to find you and smother you with a bear hug.”
With that, she left.
The cool water felt good against my skin, which surprised me, since I rarely felt anything at all.
I heard Farrow moving in the nearby kitchen, slamming drawers, cursing in… Hungarian?
It wasn’t lost on me that I should’ve been more disturbed that she knew my secret. Maybe because I knew all of her secrets and could dangle her own weaknesses in her face.
No.
The truth was, I kind of trusted the little shit.
Farrow smacked the door to the bathroom open, holding a roll of Saran Wrap in her hand and a jumbo bottle of Advil in the other.
She discarded the painkillers on the counter and turned off the tap. Then, she plucked out a cotton swab, smeared it with Vaseline, and applied a thin layer to the scalded area in long, gentle strokes.
She pulled out a strip of the film and tore it with her teeth. “You better throw in a bonus for all the stuff I do for you.”
I ignored her. Farrow opened a hydrogel pad and clamped it to my hand, careful not to make physical contact with me. The burn intensified, licking at my flesh like fire. I groaned.
“Stay still,” she instructed. “Don’t worry. I’ll wrap you up without touching you.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that a woman like her couldn’t possibly worry me, but now wasn’t the right time to be prideful.
I shut my trap and extended my arm her way. She maneuvered the roll of film with surgical precision, managing to wrap the affected area and hydrogel pad without touching my skin with hers.
A foreign sensation exploded from my hand, shotgunning to my gut.
Pain?
Something I hadn’t felt in so long that I almost didn’t recognize it.
I didn’t know whether I liked or hated that I felt pain when she was around.
Her deft fingers worked another layer of film over my skin. “Was this a hot date?”
I scowled, leaning against the sink. “Are you trying to be punny?”
“Succeeding,” she corrected. “A hot date. Get it? Because you got yourself burned.”
“Funny people don’t have to explain their jokes, and it wasn’t a date.”
“Thank God. You were really cold and unapproachable. I would’ve bailed at hello. And that house tour? Dude, you are not the President. No one cares about the decorative driftwood in your master bedroom.”
I pinned her with a warning glare.
She ignored me. “If it wasn’t a date, what was it?”
“A possible business arrangement.”
For absolutely no logical reason, it felt deeply wrong to talk to her about Eileen.
“Does Natalie know?” The corner of Farrow’s mouth coiled into a smart-ass smirk. “She kind of has a thing for you.”
“I have a thing for her, too.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. Boredom.”
“Poor Natalie.” She shook her head, applying a third layer of the film around my skin. She nodded to the wrap. “Can I pin it with my finger? I’ll have to touch you.”
She would have to touch me through three layers of polyethylene. I’d survive.
Despite all efforts to fight it, a hint of heat crept up to my cheeks. “It’s fine.”
Her thumb dug into the wrap at my pulse. I watched in awe as her nimble fingers worked the clear sheet.
It still felt uncomfortable to be touched, but I didn’t mind it so much through a barrier.
She collected the Advil bottle from the counter, gathered two pills, and discarded them into my healthy hand. “Swallow those while I secure the film.”
I popped them in my mouth and gulped them dry, glaring at her.
Why did Farrow tending to my burn wounds excite me more than eating triple-yolked mooncakes with my immaculate bride-to-be?
This made no sense at all. And sense was the one thing I could always count on.
I slanted my head, watching the film ripple as her breath fanned across it. “What I don’t understand is, how can you be so poor when you don’t have to pay rent and utilities, co-own a relatively successful small business, and have a side hustle as a fencing coach?”
The answer had landed in my lap during a deep dive into her life, but I figured I should establish some sort of discourse between us before I broached the subject of fucking her.
Farrow’s throat rolled with a swallow, her eyes trained on my injured hand as she worked. “The house is paid for, and the deed is under my and my stepmother’s name, but I do pay rent in the form of property taxes and half of the utilities. Regardless, I’d gotten myself into a… situation. I have to pay a large fee. I’m still working on it.”
“What did you do?”
But I already knew.
What I really wanted to ask was—why did you do it?
She didn’t seem like the type.
“It’s none of your concern.”
“You’re in my house. Your character is my concern.”
“Should’ve thought about that before you hired someone who tried to steal from you. Allegedly.”
The knots up and down my back began to loosen, even though she still touched me through the film. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
I didn’t actually care.
It didn’t factor in my decision-making, though it might become a headache to use another man’s woman.
She squinted. “I’ll repeat myself—it’s none of your concern.”
“Can we make one thing clear?” I rested a hip against the vanity. “Everything you do, everyone you communicate with, and every single fucking breath you take is my business. I made you my business the day I hired you, and I am a very good businessman. Now that that’s out of the way, you can either volunteer the information, or I can extract it in other ways. The choice is yours.”
“What choice? You’re leaving me no leeway.” She stepped back and picked up the phone she’d discarded on the tiles when she’d busted into the bathroom, pocketing it. “You’ll get the information either way.”
I shrugged. “Might as well fess up.”
“I don’t have a boyfriend.” Her nostrils flared. “And I’m not interested in one, either.”
“The male population of the world is surely devastated,” I drawled.
But she seemed completely unbothered by my quip.
Maybe even relieved.
“That’s a pity.” She flashed a grin. “You know how the saying goes… If you can’t handle me at my worst, then I’ve got news for you. My personality will only deteriorate from here on out.”
“That is not the correct saying.”
“It’s the correct saying for my personality.” She dusted off her hands on the apron of her uniform. “Anyway, do you like her?”
Why?
Do you care?
I played dumb. “Who?”
“Audrey Huffborn.”
“It’s Hepburn,” I corrected.
“Not your bride. She is put together and elegant like the real thing, but she’s obviously miserable.” Farrow slanted her head. “So? You into her?”
“Yes,” I lied.
I had to.
She kept staring through me, deep into a soul I didn’t think existed, searching my face for something she’d never find.
Emotions.
“She’s very pretty.” Farrow’s frown smoothed out. “Glossy hair, red lips, almond eyes—”
“You’re better than that,” I interjected, wondering internally if she truly was.
“Better than what?”
“Describing minorities through food.”
She seemed surprised, but not defensive. “I never thought of it that way.”
I arched a brow. “How would you feel if I said you have pancake eyes?”
She tipped her head back, snorting. “Duly noted. Although…”
“Yes?”
“For the record, I love almonds. And pancakes.” She groaned. “God, I love pancakes. Ooey, gooey chocolate-chip pancakes topped with extra almonds.”
She was ridiculous. Completely unhinged.
Yet, my lips twitched, fighting a smile.
“You may leave now.”
She squinted. “Aren’t you going to thank me?”
“For what?”
“Your hand!”
“Thank you for my hand?” I blinked, deliberately not getting it. “You didn’t stitch it back together, Octi. You merely wrapped it in film.”
“Wow, you’re a jerk.”
She pivoted, stalking out of the bathroom.
And you’re mine.
I’d make sure of it.
“Don’t forget to clean the breakfast conservatory,” I called after her. “My date left some crumbs.”
