The Billionaire’s Housekeeper

Chapter 2

“Me?” Rita asked. George’s eyes were wide. The three of them looked utterly confused. Rita had no idea why they would want to speak to her.

“What for?” George asked. His voice was getting defensive. It was one thing to drag him into some silly media business, but Rita didn’t have anything to do with him or his affairs.

“I don’t know. The minute they mentioned Rita I turned around and came back this way,” Jose said.

“Don’t move. I’ll try and get this sorted,” George said.

Rita could hear the aggravation building up in George’s voice. He didn’t like the press snooping around. They kept him from his work, and now having someone else being suckered into their nonsense was more than he wanted or needed. George furrowed his eyebrows and walked briskly off of the lanai and out of sight.

“What’s going on?” Jose asked. He eyed Rita, searching for even a hint of an answer from the expression on her face.

“I have no idea,” Rita said. Her eyes flickered for a moment when realization hit her. There was a reason that the press would want to speak to her and not to George Ainsworth. “No…idea.”

Her voice shook, but she wasn’t feeling much of anything. She had a calm look about her. It was only the sudden panic that George had and her mind reeling with possibilities that made her stay in place on the lanai.

Rita’s heart was now leaping in her chest despite being so still. The world around her seemed to be stuck in place, even Jose wasn’t moving. The birds themselves had stopped chirping about the gardens, and the only thing that had any movement in the world at that moment was her heart.

She was hoping she hadn’t been found out. Rita had a secret, but she tried to stay relaxed because she was sure it was a secret that only she knew. She had kept it to herself for long enough. There was no way someone from the press could know anything about her. She kept the calm look on her face. It wasn’t time for her to worry yet. She didn’t know what it was the press knew. It could have been about something entirely different. It could have been something that involved George himself.

‘Maybe they’re trying to get Mr. Ainsworth’s staff to reveal some information about him and the divorce,’ Rita thought to herself. It was wishful thinking of course, but she wanted to make sure that the paparazzi wanting to speak to her had nothing to do with her. She spoke her thought aloud just to be sure that time hadn’t frozen.

Jose shrugged.

“Maybe. All I know is that Mr. A better sort this out quick because right now I’m trying to do something about the marigolds out front and…” Jose droned on and on about the work that he needed to do on the flowers. Rita was too busy thinking about her own situation to pay much attention to what Jose was saying. She saw a quick flash of someone passing by the French doors, and she could see that it was George. He had changed out of his tuxedo and was putting a jacket on over a shirt and comfortable pants.

Rita rooted herself in place. It took a lot of willpower to not want to follow George to see what it was that was going on outside.

“How many people did you say were out there?” Rita asked Jose. He shrugged as a response.

“More than 5, less than 15. Whatever it is they think they’ve found, they want a story…badly. Are you sure there’s nothing going on between you two?”

Rita nodded.

“We don’t spend a lot of time conversing with each other. I don’t know what’s going on,” she half lied. Even as close as Rita was with Jose, she still hadn’t let him in on the full story of her life. It wouldn’t be a good time to admit it now…she needed to know just what the paparazzi wanted with her.

Jose took Rita by the wrist and started leading her inside the house. She twisted her arm a bit in resistance, but he stopped and turned to look at her.

“Do you want to know what’s going on or not?”

“I would, but…”

“But nothing!” Jose said in a shrill whisper. He looked around to see if there was anyone in sight who could possibly be listening in on their conversation. “No buts! Let’s find out what all of this is about.”

Rita didn’t have a chance to finish her sentence. Jose was once again leading her back into the house and in the direction of the front entrance. She hoped that he was doing this for her benefit more so than to satisfy his own curiosity.

“I don’t want to talk to them,” Rita hissed at Jose. He scoffed and stopped once again to take a good look at her.

“Honey, who says anything about talking to them? I was just gonna eavesdrop from the front door. There’s the intercom right there,” he said and pointed toward the door. Rita didn’t like the idea of snooping around, but since this directly involved her, she was curious as to why the press suddenly had an interest in the live-in housekeeper of a handsome young billionaire.

Jose and Rita skittered across the Italian marble floor like tiny guilty mice and almost made it to the front door when it suddenly opened. Surprised, Jose let go of Rita’s wrist and pretended to engage her in conversation.

“You know, flowers in wall sconces by the entrance way might really brighten this area up a bit. What are you thinking…begonias…oxalis?” Jose said. He gesticulated wildly and kept sneaking glances at Rita. George had just stepped into the house and shut the giant iron doors. He leaned back on the doors and slowly slid down.

“Nice cover,” he said breathlessly, looking at Jose. Jose lowered his arms sheepishly. He didn’t have to keep up the charade, they had been caught. “I still don’t know what in the hell is going on out there.”

Rita lowered her eyes. She didn’t want to see either of them looking at her. She felt exposed, and she wasn’t even sure what the reason for it was yet. She could only speculate, but she was hoping it wasn’t what she had feared for the last few years. There was no way someone could know about her life before she started working at the mansion because she had never told anyone all of the details.

“What happened?” Rita asked. One of her arms was at her side, and she lifted the other to get hold of her elbow. She rubbed along her straightened arm with her thumb. She looked up every few moments just so she could possibly decipher the expressions on his face. She hoped he wasn’t upset with her. She couldn’t tell because he appeared to still be out of breath.

“They kept saying I should ask you, and that they’d get to the bottom of it sooner than later if you wouldn’t come out. They wanted to know more about where you’re from. I thought it was extremely peculiar.”

Rita didn’t have a response to that. Whatever it was they wanted to know about where she was from, she hoped that they weren’t talking about when she had left Montreal.

“I won’t let them get to you. I promise,” George said. He moved away from the door and over to Rita and Jose. He looked at her as her eyes floated upward to meet his gaze. He didn’t look away and neither did she. She felt assured just by staring into his eyes. “They’re just like roaches that are looking for whatever they can find. They’re probably gonna find some co*k and bull story about me and Julie. Don’t you worry about anything ok?”