Page 15 of Purchase Power
“She will arrive around six,” Noah said. “I’ve hired a car to bring her.”
“I see. I’ll make sure everything is arranged for her arrival.”
“Everything?”
“Yes, sir.” Candace gritted her teeth. “Everything.”
Noah did not begrudge the hard work his steward put into keeping the house running. She was responsible for the drivers, the cooks, everyone else but the security, who reported directly to Noah. She was also responsible for the nurses, psychiatrists, and other medical specialists who were in and out of Gabriel Manor all week long. Sundays were the true day of rest for the medical side of Team Gabriel, but Candace didn’t get whole days off unless she arranged them ahead of time. Noah would rather she worked daily part time hours for full time pay and benefits than take a whole weekend off. In return, he compensated her fairly and didn’t meddle with her affairs. He asked for the same in return.
Candace took her leave. Noah was left with his tablet and his reading glasses, neither of which attracted his attention. He was too busy thinking about the mess he had secured himself. Bringing a strange woman into his house… it was foolish, wasn’t it? There was already a mess when he had the occasional girlfriend serious enough to know some of the uncomfortable truths of his life. Except there were many reasons for them to not hang around himorhis money. If it wasn’t what his family had been through…
…It was how it had affected him and his ability to be the man their hearts wanted.
Some things never changed. Good thing he preferred for things to stay the same.
***
The car pulled off the highway shortly after leaving the city limits. Lucy had been following their journey from New York City and already knew that Noah lived in the secluded countryside that boasted more mansions and luxury vacation homes than her mother’s corner of Vermont. Yet she wasn’t prepared for how dark and foreboding the road would be. The only lights shone atop the locked gates of expansive properties and along the single golf course that lined one side of the road.
“I can’t believe you’re really leaving me for a whole month!” That bemoan came from Lacey, Lucy’s little sister who balanced her time between home and school. They had been inseparable from the moment Lacey was born and her brand-new big sister declared,“I’m gonna take care of her, Mama!”Lacey and Lucy may have had the same parents, but Lucy was the only one who vaguely remembered their father, a nondescript man who was there one day, and gone the next. Sometimes, Lucy thought her little sister was better off not remembering the man who abandoned them.I barely remember him, and yet I think about him constantly.They had done well growing up with only a single mom to take care of them – well enough that Lucy and Lacey were self-sufficient, well-adjusted women who had their own lives to live now – but from the moment her little sister was born, Lucy knew that she would have to buck up and be a responsible four-year-old.Like I sensed our dad was about to bail.
“You’ll be fine, all right? You have a new semester, so don’t worry about me.”
“Mom knows you’re doing this, right?”
“Of course she does.”
“Good. Because I don’t want to be the one to tell her you’re off on some one-time assistant gig and might not be able to call her for four whole weeks.”
Lucy grimaced.Like I told them the truth!She had stretched her white lie so thin that she barely recognized it anymore. First, she was off to do field research for a new article. Then, she had won an internship to be a billionaire’s assistant in another state. At least she had been careful to not say where.
She didn’t tell her sister she was actually off to get an emotionally-detached dicking every damn day. Nor did she mention she was living in Thornfield Hall, which was what she had started calling it from the moment she received the address to “Gabriel Manor” and Googled it. The fucking thing wasn’t on Google Maps, of course, but she could see the gate from the street. It was big enough to make her realize how much money her billionaire really had.
Enough money to pay her to plant her ass in his house and be sexually available 24/7. Whoopee.
Well, she wasn’t too concerned. Noah felt… good. He didn’t mind doling out an orgasm to a girl, or at least he hadn’t two nights ago. Was he going to tenderly kiss her before ramming his cock into her ass? Ha! No. But he would at least ask before lubing up and sliding it in there.
Lucy crossed her legs and tightened her thighs together as she perused the documents emailed to her the day before. She popped a mint into her mouth as the driver announced they were five minutes away from their destination. Noah had graciously sent her not only her live-in details, but a few rules she was expected to follow from the moment she arrived.
“You shall not leave your chambers without an escort.”Gee, that was lovely. Lucy knew how much she loved feeling like a sexy prisoner in some man’s home.It’s only a month. You’ll live. You’ve got sex to look forward to! “This is to protect yourself as well as the privacy of the staff and other residents of the house.”What a roundabout way to say Lucy was to stay away from Noah Gabriel’s family, whomever they were.
She sighed. Being the secret mistress of some married guy was not gonna be easy, but his moral quandary was not her problem.
“Your phone and other electronic devices will not be confiscated, but you will be asked to sign more NDAs forbidding you from discussing your time here with anyone else. On top of that, you are not to take any identifiable photos of the people living at the address or anything that could lead people back to the address itself.”
That sigh turned into a yawn. The car turned onto a side road.
Lucy had everything ready to carry out of the car by the time they parked in front of a brightly lit entryway. Yet before Lucy could admire the trimmed hedges and the purple winter flowers dotting the cobbled walkway leading to the front steps, rain began to fall. Cold, obliterating rain that smacked right on top of her head. The driver had not gotten out of the car to help her. The only person coming outside to greet her was a woman in a medicinal pink A-line dress and dark hair pulled back into a pristine bun.That bun’s about to get drenched.
“Lucy Craig?” the woman chirped.
Lucy held a backpack over her head. The rain was falling harder now. There went the makeup she had put on half an hour ago while they were still on the freeway. There also went the soft winter coat she had donned. It was great at blotting out the cold. Not so great getting drenched in precipitation.
“Yup! That’s me!”
The woman motioned that Lucy should follow. “Come with me. We will finish our greetings inside. Someone will come for your bags.”
Lucy had packed two full suitcases of makeup, dresses, lingerie, and toiletries. All she carried with her into the house, however, was her backpack containing her electronics and books. And the purse strapped around her chest, she supposed.
