Page 6 of Maid for My Billionaire Boss
That didn’t make me a jerk.
I didn’t want to fall out of love with her, but she wasn’t the person I had loved anymore.
But I couldn’ttellher that.
That would take communication skills.
My communication skills were deficient.
I headed to the attic.
Four
Atalie
Backathomethatnight, I was on a mission to come up with the perfect smoothie recipe. Not that I was a huge smoothie connoisseur, but I had a pile of past-due produce that no one should ever really eat. I had made friends with the man at the fruit and vegetable stand. He was going to toss this spread into the trash before I begged him to give it to me.
I clearly was out of pride.
With my random waves of low blood sugar this morning, my skipping breakfast had proved to be something which had snuck up on me in a bad way, nearly making me sick. I was hoping smoothies would be something slick in the morning I could drink to settle my sensitive stomach.
With a spoon, I scraped a little off the top of my blended concoction and held it out for Josiah to taste. “Try this one.” His cerulean eyes—which melted my heart more than any other pair on the planet—popped wide and he sealed his lips. “Come on, Bud.” I moved the spoon a little closer to his lips while cupping my free hand underneath the spoon just like I used to do when he was a toddler.
“Mom, it’s puke green.”
“That’s because I added a little spinach, but you can’t taste it and it’ll give you energy.”
“Yes, yes, you can taste it.” He sealed his lips back up and gave me his I-can-totally-out-last-you-in-stubbornness glare.
“Don’t waste it.” Disappointed he wasn’t totally on board with my new food plan, I moved the spoon to my mouth. “Look, I’m going to try it.” The moment the mush hit my taste buds, my tongue lurched forward in reflex, trying to push the horrid blend out.
“See!” Josiah pointed to my pinched lips. “I told you it’s gross. You’re going to puke.” He was right! Covering my mouth, I fled to the sink, letting it spill out. I shuddered as the last of the chunks dripped off my chin. It wasn’t so much the taste, but the regurgitated, chewed-cud texture had made it impossible to pallet.
Josiah came in next to me, handing me a dish towel. “See. You puked.”
“I did not.” I reached back and snatched the towel, taking a moment to dab my chin. “It was sabotage because you made me laugh.” I could tell by his stare he wasn’t buying it, and I knew I was never makingthatrecipe again.
“I can’t believe you ate that.”
Running my tongue over the front of my teeth, I willed my mind not to taste the remnants. “I don’t think I swallowed any of it. It was more a lingering on my tongue.” My admittance sent Josiah into a fit of laughter. “Okay.” I dumped the cud into the garbage disposal and replaced the rinsed-out pitcher on the base. “Time for a new recipe. What do you think? Should we try more citrus next time?”
His lips pulled into a sly smile that revealed his two missing teeth. Not the front teeth because that would have been Christmas-card adorable, but the two next to those. They’d been missing for months, and I was beginning to wonder if the adult teeth would ever grow in. He dramatically winced. “What’s thiswestuff?”
“We have to leave early. I need something I can prep the night before.” I hiked a warning brow at him before I emptied more ice into the pitcher. “Just because my first attempt was a failure, doesn’t mean I’m giving up.”
His eyes widened dubiously as he scanned my spread of veggies that were laid out on the counter. “In that case, I agree you need to add way more citrus.” He dramatically snatched two oranges and started to roll them on the counter, prepping them for peeling. “I’ll pick my own recipe.”
It took another dozen or so batches before I found the right combo, but once I did, I knew it was the golden nugget: mango, strawberry, blueberry, and lime for raw ingredients. Then I added powdered greens—they were less cud textured than the raw ones—for digestion, coconut oil to make it slick on the swallow, and acai powder for an immunity boost. In my shaker only, I also added in my secret weight management blend, and it was better than a five o’clock cocktail.
Well, maybe I wouldn’t go that far, but it was edible.
After another sleepless night, I was up early again—not like a regular early morning that most people went to work. Early as a crazy and obsessive person stuck in nocturnal mode. I dug through my headbands and tried to find the perfect one that made my new hair layers look intentional. Once I added loose curls, it didn’t look too bad.
Okay, the phrase “blow-dried-poodle head” came to mind, but I was out of options until I got paid and could afford a real haircut.
Now that I was ready, all I had left to do was deal with this impending feeling of doom budding in my chest. As much as I tried to force positive thoughts, I didn’t want to go back to that house. It had been humiliating meeting my boss like that. I’m not sure how it hadn’t been enough embarrassment to kill me. In an odd way it didn’t surprise me, though. Just another notch on the this-year-can’t-get-any-worse belt I was forced to wear.
I really had no idea what I was even doing anymore.
