The Billionaire’s Housekeeper

George perked up suddenly. Rita eyed him. Why was he getting so cheery all of a sudden? She could practically see the wheels turning in his head.

“Rita…what if I told you that I knew a way for you to stay in America?”

*****

“Married?!” Jose and Rita were in the family room of the mansion the next morning. Jose wasn’t scheduled to work that day, but Rita had called him with some very interesting news.

“That’s what he said,” Rita replied. She was taking the curtains off of the rods. She needed to climb on a ladder to get to them. Jose was down below and taking the curtains from her once she was able to maneuver and bring them down.

Rita told Jose about the night before. After she had finished crying, George Ainsworth had proposed an idea…and that meant proposing to her.

‘It’ll make everyone happy,’ he had said. Proposing to her meant that she would be able to get a green card and legally stay in the country. It also meant the press would have their juicy gossip without trying to sniff around too much. He hadn’t worked out all of the details, but he assured her that she shouldn’t worry.

George had left earlier that day to get in touch with some very important officials. It would mean their marriage would be quick, legal, and very hush hush until they were ready to go public.

Rita explained all of this to him once she got off the ladder and dragged it to another side of the room in order to get the last set of curtains.

“So you’ll just be married?” Jose said with a bit of an exasperated huff. He was still floored by the news.

“Well, we’d get divorced later, of course…”

“Of course…” Jose echoed quickly.

“It would take a few months to finalize my papers, but once that process is over, I’ll be a citizen and I won’t have to worry about the press or my ex-boyfriend or anything,” Rita said. She felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She had thanked Mr. Ainsworth profusely before he left, and called her mother right after with the news.

“Then it’s settled,” Jose said. A smile was forming on his face. “You’re going to be Mrs. Marguerite Ainsworth!”

*****

Rita and George were set to be married the following Saturday. It had become quite awkward for Rita being in the house. But not George. George, with the way he was, treated this like another business meeting or transaction. He kept reassuring Rita, and he had brought a lot of paperwork to the house for her to read and to sign. He had even brought a prenuptial agreement to make it seem even more legitimate.

George had told the officials that it was a secret wedding because they had secretly been in love for a few months. He didn’t want anyone getting wind of the story. He knew that his friends were trustworthy, but he also didn’t want them to know Rita’s secret because it wasn’t his secret to tell.

“This is the last of the paperwork, I promise.”

George had just come home from work. It was Friday night, the night before their wedding.

Rita was finished with her work for the day, but George had given her a call earlier that day to tell her not to go back to her cottage just yet. She was sitting out on the lanai with her hands clasped over her lap. She had been pacing about in the garden, but after a while she just wanted to sit with her thoughts.

“Getting married really is like owning a company. There are so many contracts to sign…and even money’s involved. Whatever happened to being married for love?” Rita said. She was speaking more to herself than to George, but he answered anyway.

“Sometimes love doesn’t last. We’re so caught up with pride and status and money that we lose sight of the people around us who love us and who we love. But after all of this, you can do what you’d like. You won’t have to feel so cooped up on the property anymore,” George said. He handed her a pen and a certificate for her to sign.

Rita read through it quickly and with a dainty hand swirled her signature at the bottom of the page.

“That’s very true,” Rita agreed. She was thinking about how George was with Julie before things had started to go south with them. She had always fantasized about a man loving her the way George had once loved Julie. But the love had made him cold. If he couldn’t find a way to make any situation a pragmatic one that involved paperwork and business transactions, then he didn’t really like to discuss it. Helping Rita out was the warmest he had been since the divorce came through. He spent a bit of time each night talking to Rita about their plan, and what they were going to do once they were married.

“Please stay in the mansion tonight. You can choose any of the guest rooms that you’d like. We can get ready together in the morning,” George said. He reached out his hand and Rita rested hers in his. He gave her hand a light squeeze as if to tell her that he had everything under control, and she didn’t have to worry anymore. The squeeze filled her with a new kind of strength. She looked into his eyes and nodded. They were having a silent conversation with their bodies.

George had gone up to bed, and Rita was up the stairs and down the hall in one of the guestrooms to do the same. She couldn’t help but feel excited and grateful. She had always wanted to be married. This wasn’t at all what she had ever had in mind, but now all that was in her head was the fact that she could be free from her fears and her worries that she hadn’t quite left back in Montreal.

Rita’s mind wandered to George for a time. He had never talked about the wedding itself. He was busy with the paperwork and the legal aspects of it that she didn’t even know what she was to expect the next morning.

She thought of how handsome he looked the other morning in a tuxedo. His shoulders were broad, and he was so tall and charismatic with the way he moved and spoke.

Rita put her head on her pillow and fell asleep…

“How’s my darling?” George was in a three piece suit, but it wasn’t a tuxedo. He had a bouquet of flowers in his hand. Rita stepped into the room in a short summer dress adorned with polka dots of various colors and sizes. Her hair was swirled into a bun and a small golden headband was around her head.

“You look absolutely ravishing,” George said when he saw her. Rita didn’t recognize this place. It looked like a larger version of her cottage, but she could smell the sea and knew they were on a beach front property somewhere.