Page 30 of Broken Beyond Repair
Pulling her thoughts from the gutter, she focused instead on the irritating personality and unrelenting demands of said employer. Like the three a.m. wake-up calls she’d received the last two nights when Beatrice clearly couldn’t sleep. She’d given Sydney a task for the next day and then texted until she received an acknowledgement. It was easier to relent than to turn her phone off, which she expected would result in Beatrice dragging herself up a flight of stairs to her room to demand a response.
Sydney roused herself from her thoughts and made her way back through to the bedroom, where Beatrice was sipping at her cup of coffee in bed. She placed the bikini beside her.
“I do hope you don’t expect me to wear that today,” Beatrice said with a raised brow.
“I’ve bought you a waterproof cast protector. It’s bath time.”
Sydney watched with delight as Beatrice’s face battled against the sheer joy of the thought. Constraint finally won out.
“I’m assuming you will need some help getting in and out of the tub, in which case a bikini is better than… nothing.” Sydney gulped as she waited for a response.
Beatrice turned her attention back to her phone, and only once her eyes were fixed upon it did she reply.
“Very good.”
Sydney nodded in satisfaction. “I’ll run the bath whilst you change,” she said before making a quick exit. She was relieved Beatrice was amenable to her suggestion. She had appeared uncomfortable when she massaged her leg the day before. Sydney had used her dress to cover the leg and save Beatrice from embarrassment—she feared she may be paranoid about the hair growth on her leg. Hairy legs were nothing to her, though; Sam had always kept a healthy growth.
The bathroom was yet another excessively sized space. A roll-top bath sat in front of the window overlooking the parkland. Sydney kept the bath shallow and with few bubbles so as not to risk getting the cast wet; she was unsure how well the waterproof cast protector would do its job. As she tested the temperature of the water, Beatrice made her entrance wrapped in a black silk robe, pushing the door open with a crutch.
“Where would you like me?”
Sydney stumbled over her answer until she realised Beatrice was referring to her placement for the cast protector to be put on.
“Can you perch on the toilet?”
As Beatrice placed herself on the toilet lid, her robe slipped to the sides, revealing her long, ivory legs. Sydney unwrapped the protector, placing it over the casted foot and up over her knee. Her hands smoothed out the tight neoprene seal against Beatrice’s thigh, a little too efficiently as she begged her eyes not to wander.
“Are you done?” Beatrice asked.
“Yes,” Sydney said, blushing as she stood. She must have stood up too fast.
Beatrice extended her hand. Sydney was about to take it when the woman barked, “Crutches.”
Retrieving them from the floor, she returned to find the silk dressing gown dropping off Beatrice’s shoulders, revealing her form in her red bikini.
Wow!
Trying not to look, yet realising she needed to pick the robe up off the floor as the woman stood, she well and truly got her eyeful. The woman was perfection, with smooth curves in all the right places.
Needing her mind back on business, Sydney opened her mouth to speak, then failed miserably to find words. “I suggest… don’t submerge… drape your leg… over…” She stopped before she embarrassed herself completely, thankful Beatrice was too absorbed in the logistics of movement to notice her assistant’s wandering eye.
With a crutch and Sydney’s shoulder for assistance, Beatrice perched on the side of the bath and swung her good leg in, lowering herself into the water whilst keeping the cast elevated on the side of the tub. It was a challenge, one she hoped Beatrice wasn’t going to insist on becoming a daily occurrence.
“I’ll pop back in fifteen minutes?” Sydney suggested.
“No, stay. Sit,” Beatrice demanded. “We have much to discuss.”
The only options for sitting were the toilet seat or the floor; she opted for the toilet seat.
“Did you read what I sent you last night?”
“Most of it.”
Beatrice eyeballed her. “And?”
As soon as she had begun reading Beatrice’s work, she knew it would be best to get the woman’s thoughts on her own offering first. Once she’d given her honest opinion to Beatrice on her work, she feared reprisal may come in the form of a dishonest attack on her own writing. Her novel was something she’d been working on for years and never shown to anyone else, so an unbiased opinion was important to her. No doubt Beatrice would pick holes in it anyway, even though Sydney considered it to be her finest work to date.
“You first. What did you think of what I sent?” Sydney asked.
