Page 33 of Billionaire Unbroken - Asher
Asher had obviously brought her along when he’d driven me to his place.
“Devon brought you cat treats?” I asked in an astonished tone.
He shrugged. “I asked him to do me a favor. I found most of the things I needed for the cat, but she didn’t have any treats.”
“She doesn’t usually get them,” I confessed. “She gets a very small amount of tuna once in a while, but high-quality cat treats are kind of expensive.”
“Why in the hell didn’t you just tell me that you needed higher pay?” he asked in an annoyed voice. “You live in the worst area of Billings, in what is probably the biggest shithole in the city. Everything is broken in your apartment. You have no damn furniture and almost no clothes. It doesn’t surprise me that you’re hungry because there’s no food in your home. All you had to do is tell me your pay wasn’t enough and I would have raised it, Sierra.”
“You pay me more than enough,” I said in a rush. “It’s complicated, Asher. I send all of the extra money I can to my mom in Texas. She had to retire from her cleaning jobs, and at the age of seventy, she should have retired way before she did. She doesn’t really make enough to live on, and she certainly doesn’t collect enough retirement to fix all of the things that need to be fixed in her old house. She really needs a new roof, so I’m saving as much as I can. She was a single mother. When I was a child, she gave me everything she had. I need to take care of her now. You pay me plenty, Asher, way more than you should. Things are just really tight for me right now.”
“Why do I have a feeling that things were tight when you were a child, too?”
“Most of my life, actually,” I confessed. “But I still felt lucky when I was a kid. I had a mother who loved me, and she made things fun even though we didn’t have a lot of money. I know my place isn’t much, but it’s what I can afford right now.”
He shot me a warning glance. “You’re not going back there.”
I let out a huff. “Of course I’m going back there. I live there.”
He crossed his arms over his muscular chest stubbornly. “Not anymore. You’ll stay here with me. It will be a better arrangement when the bad weather comes anyway.”
He actually stunned me into silence, which was unusual for me.
I was so shocked that I simply stared at him.
Asher Remington wasn’t the kind of guy who would want to share his space with anyone, especially a housekeeper.
“You don’t want me to live here,” I said, my voice a little shaky.
“I do want you to live here,” he corrected. “How old are you, Sierra?”
“Thirty-seven,” I said defensively. Was he going to tell me that I should have my life more together at my age?
Asher was in his early forties and he was a billionaire. He’d been wealthy at my age, and he’d started with nothing.
God, I knew I should have my shit together by now, but I didn’t want to hear that from Asher.
He frowned. “You look younger.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ve heard that before.”
To my surprise, he didn’t say a word about what a mess my life was right now.
“I want you to live here,” he said huskily. “I want to make your life easier from now on. I think I’m going to have to insist on it. Your position here just became a live-in job.”
I should be indignant that he was being so high-handed, but I knew he was trying to help me in a typical Asher sort of way.
“When exactly did you decide that the position had this new requirement?” I asked, my tone slightly miffed.
“Since I saw your apartment,” he said drily. “That got me to thinking about an arrangement that would work for both of us. It would be convenient for me to have you here. You’re not going back there, Sierra. You can’t even lock your damn door, for fuck’s sake.”
I knew it wouldn’t really be convenient for him to have me living here.
He was just trying to make me feel better.
Honestly, I really wanted to take him up on his offer. I was tired of trying to get things fixed in my apartment.
It really was a dump, but it was all I could spend until I was able to take care of my mom’s immediate needs.
