Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 32809 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32809 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
The coffeepot was still on warm, and he went to grab himself a cup. “How do you like your coffee?” he asked.
“Uh, cream, no sugar,” she said.
He smiled. He knew exactly how she liked her coffee. He’d watched her make herself a mug enough times. It’s how he also knew she could cook. If she wasn’t down in time to eat with the rest of the staff, Murphy often refused to cook any more. Once Murphy was gone, Harper came into the kitchen to cook herself some food. Oftentimes, he’d watch what she cooked and wish he’d gotten the food she had made.
Murphy had been a good cook, but the bastard was now dead. He watched Harper, she didn’t look frazzled, and she concentrated on plating his breakfast. He hadn’t even noticed her make toast, yet there were a couple of slices on the plate. She arranged the bacon and eggs, then lifted the plate toward him.
“You’re not going to eat?” he asked.
“I already ate,” she said.
“Then join me for coffee.” He held out her mug, and it looked like she wanted to argue with him. “That’s an order, not a request.”
And with that, he made his way into the dining room. He was pretty sure he heard her huff, which was just an added layer to her cuteness. Enzo couldn’t help but smile.
He cut into the bacon, and it was perfectly crisp, and the eggs were not too hard, nor too soft, not an ounce of soggy or gooey to them. They were also seasoned to perfection.
Harper sat down close to him, holding her mug of coffee. Her hands were not clenched. She looked quite calm.
“Will you hire anyone else?” Harper asked.
“No.”
“Don’t you think that is a little unfair?”
“No. You’ve proven on more than one occasion you could handle it. This place doesn’t need anyone else but you.” He lifted his gaze to look at her, and he saw the annoyance in her eyes. “Do you have a problem with that?” He partly expected her to shrivel up and submit to him.
Harper did not shrivel.
However, she did not back down.
“No,” she said. “I can handle it.”
“Good.”
Chapter Two
Enzo always had to have the last word.
After he’d been shot, Harper expected their routine to go back to normal, or some semblance of normal. Only, it didn’t. Enzo didn’t leave the house all week. Any work he did was in his office.
She had to learn a whole new routine, which included making him breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Enzo also demanded that she eat with him, so it wasn’t about preparing his food and leaving him to eat. Nope, he didn’t accept that. She had to sit with him through every meal and eat with him too. For all meals, she sat with him at the dinner table or in his office. Enzo often took lunch in his office.
Sometimes they would eat in silence, and other times, he’d ask her questions—some of them not too personal, but others a little more so. He asked her if she had a boyfriend, which she answered with a snort, seeing as she hadn’t left this building in two years. It was kind of strange to openly admit she’d not left the house in two years, other than to go to the garden. She hadn’t even dared to use the pool he had, nor the gym in the basement.
If she was honest with herself, knowing Enzo Castelli was a member of the Villa Mafia, she had spent the first year assuming the basement was a murder zone where he brought people to torture and kill. That soon changed when she was given the order to clean the basement. Once she went down there, she’d been shocked by how dusty it had become, and she spent a good four days getting it back up to standard where there was no dust, and the scent of sweat was gone completely. She told Murphy, who’d given her the instructions at the time, how sorry she was. She didn’t realize the basement held a gym.
Harper never went anywhere she wasn’t supposed to go.
By Sunday, she was getting used to the routine, waking at five, as she liked to rise early and go to bed early.
She had on a pair of pajamas as it was getting cold. Fall was already upon them, and she made her way down to the kitchen to flick the coffeepot on. She let out a yawn, rubbing the back of her head.
“Cute,” Enzo said.
Harper let out a little scream. This was part of her routine, had been for two years, and not once during those times had Enzo been in the kitchen. No one had been in the kitchen.
“You’re the coffee queen.”
Harper put a hand to her chest. “You scared me.”
He didn’t say anything, just watched her.
She noticed his gaze moved down her body, to her dolphin pajamas. She loved gimmicky and kitsch pajamas. When October arrived, she’d be in her Halloween-themed clothes, and she loved them as well. Of course, there were a few times she freaked herself out with the spiders on her pajamas, but once she realized they were fake, she’d get a good laugh out of it.