SWNOVELS The Housemaid: Part 1 – Chapter 30
The house is quieter with Cecelia gone.
Even though she stayed up in her room a lot, there was a certain energy she brought. With her gone, it seems like silence has descended over the Winchester household. And to my surprise, Nina seems more cheerful. Thank God, she hasn’t brought up the phone call on the night we went away.
Andrew and I have been meticulously avoiding each other, which is difficult when we live in the same house. If we pass each other, we both avert our eyes. Hopefully, we can get past it, because I don’t want to lose this job. It’s bad enough that I have no chance of a real relationship with the first guy I’ve liked in a decade.
Tonight I’m hurrying to get dinner ready so I can have it on the table before Andrew comes home. But as I’m carrying the glasses of water to the dining room, I run smack into Andrew. Literally. One of the glasses slips out of my hand and shatters on the floor.
“Damn it!” I cry.
I hazard a look at Andrew. He’s wearing a dark blue suit with a dark tie, and yet again, he looks devastatingly handsome. He’s been at work all day and he has a five o’clock shadow on his chin that only makes him more sexy. Our eyes meet for a split second, and against my will, I feel a jolt of attraction. His eyes widen, and I’m sure he feels it, too.
“I’ll help you get this cleaned up,” he says.
“You don’t have to do that.”
But he insists. I sweep up the large pieces of glass, and he holds the dustpan and disposes of them in the kitchen. Nina would never help me, but Andrew isn’t like her. As he takes the broom from me, my fingers brush against his. Our eyes meet again, and this time we can’t ignore the fireworks. It’s physically painful that I can’t be with this man.
“Millie,” he says in a husky whisper.
My throat feels really dry. He’s only a foot away from me. If I leaned forward, he would kiss me. I know he would.
“Oh no! What happened?”
At the sound of Nina’s voice, Andrew and I jump away from each other like we were lit on fire. I grip the broom so tightly my fingers turn white. “I dropped a glass,” I say. “Just, you know… getting it cleaned up.”
Nina’s eyes drop down to the floor, where little tiny shards of glass are glistening under the overhead lights. “Oh Millie,” she says. “Please be more careful next time.”
I have worked here for months and I have never once dropped or broken anything. Well, except for that night she caught me and Andrew watching Family Feud late at night. But she doesn’t know about that. “Yes, I’m sorry. I’m just going to grab the vacuum.”
Andrew’s eyes follow me as I return to the utility closet (which is slightly larger than my bedroom upstairs), stuff the broom back inside, and grab the vacuum. He has a pained expression on his face. Whatever he wanted to say to me a minute ago, he still wants to say it. But he can’t—not with Nina in the room.
Or maybe he can.
“We should talk later,” he murmurs in my ear, just as he follows Nina into the living room to wait for me to clean up. “Okay?”
I nod. I don’t know what he wants to talk to me about, but I take this as a good sign. We already agreed never to speak of what happened that night at The Plaza. So if he wants to revisit that…
I shouldn’t get my hopes up though.
About ten minutes later, I’ve got everything cleaned up and I call Andrew and Nina back in from the living room. They’re both sitting on the couch, but at opposite ends. They’re looking at their phones, not even attempting to talk to each other. I’ve noticed they’ve started to do the same at dinner time.
They follow me back into the dining room and Nina takes her seat across from Andrew. She looks down at the plate of pork chop with applesauce and broccolini. She smiles at me, and that’s when I notice her bright red lipstick looks a little bit off. It’s smeared over the right side of her lips, which gives her almost a demonic clown appearance. “This looks delicious, Millie.”
“Thank you.”
“Doesn’t it smell wonderful, Andy?” she says.
“Mmm.” He picks up his fork. “Very nice.”
“I’m sure,” Nina continues, “you never got food like this in prison, did you, Millie?”
Mic drop.
Nina is smiling up at me pleasantly with those demonic lips. Andrew, sitting across from her, is gawking at me. Obviously, this is new information to him.
“Um,” I say.
“What sort of food did they serve you there?” she presses me. “I’ve always been curious about that. What’s prison food like?”
I don’t know what to say. I can’t deny it. She knows my past. “It’s okay.”
“Well, I hope you don’t get inspired by any meals you had there,” she laughs. “Stick with what you’ve been doing. You’re doing a good job.”
“Thank you,” I mutter.
Andrew’s face is ashen. Of course, he had no idea I was ever in prison. I never even considered telling him. Somehow, when I’m with him, that time in my life seems like something from the distant past—another lifetime. But most people don’t see it that way. To most people, I am only one thing. A convict.
And Nina wants to make sure I know my place.
Right now, I’m desperate to escape Andrew’s shocked expression. I turn around to head back up to my room. I’m nearly at the stairwell when Nina calls out to me, “Millie?”
I stop, my back going rigid. It takes all my self-restraint to keep from snapping at her when I turn around. I slowly walk back to the dining room with an artificial smile on my face. “Yes, Nina?”
She frowns. “You forgot to put out the salt and pepper shaker. And unfortunately, this pork chop does need a bit of salt. I wish you would be more generous with the seasoning.”
“Right. Sorry.”
I walk into the kitchen and grab the salt and pepper shakers from the counter. They were roughly six feet away from where Nina was sitting in the other room. I bring them out to the dining room, and despite my efforts not to, I slam the shakers down on the table. When I look at Nina, the corners of her lips are twitching.
“Thank you so much, Millie,” she says. “Please don’t forget it again.”
I hope she steps on a shard of broken glass.
I can’t even look at Andrew. God knows what he must be thinking about me. I can’t believe I was contemplating some sort of future with him. I wasn’t really, but for a split second… Well, stranger things have happened. But that’s out the window now. He looked horrified when she mentioned I had been in prison. If only I could explain…
I manage to make it to the stairs this time without Nina calling me over to tell me that, I don’t know, I need to pass the butter from the other side of the table or something like that. I trudge up the steps to the second floor, then up the darker, narrow set of steps to my bedroom. I slam the door behind me, wishing not for the first time that I could lock it.
I plop down on my bed, trying to keep the tears from welling up. I wonder how long Nina has known about my past. Did she only recently discover it, or did she do a background check when she hired me after all? Maybe she liked the idea of hiring a convict. Someone she could boss around. Anyone else would have quit months ago.
While I am sitting on the bed, feeling sorry for myself, something on my nightstand catches my eye.
It’s a copy of the playbill from Showdown.
I pick it up, confused. Why is the playbill on my nightstand? I put it in my purse after the show, and I’ve been keeping it in there as a reminder of that magical night. My purse is on the floor, leaning against the dresser. So how did the playbill get on the nightstand? I definitely didn’t take it out. I’m sure of it.
Someone else must’ve put it there. I locked the door to the room, but I’m not the only one here who has the key.
I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. I finally understand why Nina blurted out that I had been in prison. She knows that I saw the show with Andrew. She knows we were in Manhattan together, all alone. I’m not sure if she knows we spent the night at The Plaza, but she knows we weren’t home at eleven o’clock at night. And I’m sure if she’s smart enough, she could find out whether or not we checked into the hotel.
Nina knows everything.
I have just made a dangerous enemy.