Serving HIM Vol. 3

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Book Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Acknowledgement

  About The Authors

  Serving HIM

  Vol. III

  By Cassie Wild and M.S. Parker

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 Belmonte Publishing LLC

  Published by Belmonte Publishing LLC.

  Book Description

  “Faced with the racist insults from Dominic’s mother, I realized that my new job of serving HIM was no fairytale after all. Now I had a choice to make. Stay or get the hell out.”

  Aleena Davison is a strong and smart woman, but can she play in the wicked games the women of New York’s high society play? Especially when they play by different rules.

  Find out in this sexy third installment of Serving HIM by bestselling authors, M.S. Parker and Cassie Wild.

  Chapter 1

  Aleena

  The wind cut into me as I bent over the railing of Bank Rock Bridge to stare into the water. It was cold, icy and sharp, but it was nothing compared to the misery I felt inside.

  Sleeping with the help.

  If I thought it would lessen the pain, I’d have made myself puke, just to get rid of all the poison that seemed to choke me. But it wouldn’t do any good. This kind of pain didn’t come from anything physical.

  I could still see the look of disdain she'd given me—and the complete and utter withdrawal on Dominic’s face as he watched.

  He hadn’t said anything.

  Logically, I knew it was possible to hurt like this.

  Logically, I should have already been prepared for something like this. I’d been in this position before after all.

  Danny Holton hadn’t pretended to care about me the way Dominic had though. Dominic had made think he…

  “What?” I muttered to myself. A few feet away, a couple with a camera looked at me oddly.

  Tourists, no doubt about it. New Yorkers were used to people talking to themselves—or to a street post or the clear blue air. Then, to my surprise, I was able to laugh at myself, even if only inside my head. After a little more than six months, I was already feeling like a New Yorker.

  Although sometimes, like now, I hated it here. My laughter faded away.

  The couple was still watching me and I managed to give them a weak smile. They hurried off and I went back to staring down into the water. It rippled slightly in the wind, casting back a wavering reflection.

  Made you think what? I asked my unsteady double down in the water. Made you think he cared?

  Sure he did. He cared. In an abstract sort of way. He wasn’t a complete asshole like Gary. But he didn’t really care. He might like me on a casual level, but in the end, what mattered was the fact that I was handy. Easy access to a piece of ass. Easy access to an agreeable piece of ass too. My face flushed all the way to my ears. I’d been naïve. He liked to play kinky games and I’d been open to learning.

  It was as simple as that.

  I’d been stupid enough to think otherwise.

  I’d wanted to think otherwise.

  But if I’d mattered…

  I sniffled and dashed at the tears on my face.

  If I’d mattered, he wouldn’t have let her talk to me like that.

  Exotic. Somehow, that word was worse than some of the derogatory insults I'd experienced.

  “I should have told her to wait a few minutes and I’d go find my servant girl uniform and get her some tea and crumpets,” I muttered, dashing another tear away. “Just to see what she said.”

  At least I’d stood up to her. At least I’d said something. I hadn’t been able to do that the last time people had torn me down.

  And it was more than Dominic had done.

  He’d just…sat there.

  My heart twisted again and I shoved away from the railing. Starting to walk, I focused on the wide, winding sidewalks of Central Park. If I gazed up in a certain direction, I could see the penthouse, so I didn’t let myself look, not until the trees and paths hid it from view. Then it was almost like being back in Iowa, and right now, that was comforting.

  It was cold and my legs had long since gone numb, but the last thing I wanted to do was go back to the penthouse. I didn’t feel comfortable calling it home.

  It wasn’t home. I wasn’t even sure I wanted it to be home. Not now.

  With a knot choking me, I swiped at the tears burning a path down my face. I ended up bumping into a woman—she was dressed for exercise and she waved off my apology, clearly into her power-walk. All around me, people moved with purposes, even those who were just out to get their calorie burn on. I was just here to…

  I stopped in the middle of the path.

  I didn’t know why I was here.

  Other than to get away from Dominic.

  He’d just sat there, staring at his mother. He’d barely even looked at me.

  Sleeping with the help…

  But that’s what I am.

  Frustrated and hurting all over again, I stormed over to a bench and dropped down on it. She’d talked about me like I was next to nothing and he hadn’t said a word.

  Yeah, I was his employee, but he could have said something. He hadn’t and that hurt was an ugly, vicious wound inside me. I didn’t know how to handle it, how to process it. Forcing myself to swallow past the knot in my throat, I leaned back and stared out across the park, watching the people without really seeing them.

  I’d messed up.

  Being attracted to Dominic as I’d been, I hadn’t let myself think things through and maybe that was understandable. It had put me where I was now and it wasn’t a good place.

  I’d slept with my boss.

  Worse, I cared about him.

  The question now was, what was I going to do?

  I had absolutely no idea.

  ***

  I found myself at Molly’s.

  Over the past few months, she’d become my best friend and there was little I couldn’t tell her, but after she’d ushered me inside and put a hot cup of coffee in my frozen hands, I just shook my head.

  “I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong,” she said, snuggled up on her ragged couch next to me. “I mean…I can guess it’s about Dominic. We were just talking earlier, but now you look like he told you that fairytales aren’t real.”

  “What?” I managed a wan smile in her direction. “You mean they’re not? My Prince Charming isn’t coming?” My heart gave a painful thump.

  “He got lost on the way to the ball, that’s all.” She gave me an affectionate smile.

  It was a familiar joke between us, but I couldn’t make myself smile back at her this time.

  Lifting my coffee to my lips, I sipped it. Its warmth was slowly seeping into my frozen hands and I thought that maybe, in a few more hours, they’d thaw out. “I just need to not think about it for a little while, Mol.”

  “I think you need to talk about it,” she said, shaking her head. “You look terrible.”

  “Gee, thanks.” I made a face at her. After one more sip of coffee, I rested my head on the back of the couch and stared up at the ceiling. T
here was an old water stain that had been there since she'd moved in. It was vaguely Iowa-shaped and looking at it filled me with foreboding. “I’m just…tired.”

  I wasn’t lying. My body ached in the best of ways and if it hadn’t been for the interruption, I wanted to think that I could, even now, be lying in bed with Dominic. Maybe we could have—

  I shoved the thought away.

  It was for the best that his mother had interrupted.

  Now I knew what I was dealing with.

  “I know that look on your face.”

  I shot Molly a look and immediately wished I hadn’t. She had a shrewd, knowing look in her eyes and I could imagine her seeing straight through my skull, finding the memory of what had happened earlier…

  And then hunting down Dominic Snow and punching him in the nose.

  Molly wasn’t the sort of girl who had problems standing up to people. She could stand up for herself and her friends. It didn't matter that he was more than a foot taller and she weighed about a hundred pounds dripping wet.

  Abruptly, I stood up, moving so fast the coffee sloshed out and burned my hand. “Ouch!” Bobbling the cup to keep from spilling more, I headed over to the tiny kitchen area. Her apartment was even smaller than the one I’d shared with Emma, but in New York, that was to be expected. The eating, sleeping and living area was all in one area and if you’re having company in this place, it better be somebody you liked. I dumped the coffee down the drain and stood there, taking a minute to calm my breathing and make sure I wasn’t going to cry. It wouldn’t help. It definitely wouldn’t help.

  “Do you mind if I just crash here for a while? I can sleep on the couch.”

  I turned and gave her my best smile, hoping she couldn’t see how close I was to falling apart.

  Molly was much better at being a friend than I was at acting. She gave me an easy smile and pretended not to notice how close I was to sobbing like a child. “Knock yourself out, Aleena. Just promise me you haven’t started snoring.”

  Chapter 2

  Dominic

  Furious with both my mother and myself, I slammed the bedroom door and locked it, taking five seconds—just five—to turn the air blue before I grabbed a clean pair of jeans. After I dragged them on, I moved back out into the living room.

  Ignoring my mother, I stared hard at the front door, almost willing it to open, but it didn’t.

  When it didn’t, I stormed over and jerked it open, but the small hallway was empty.

  Aleena was already gone.

  Of course, the fact that she’d been pulling on her coat while I'd stood there like a statue should have been the first clue.

  Swearing all over again, I came back in, not bothering to shut the door. Shoes…shoes…I saw my tennis shoes near the TV and shoved my feet in, sans socks. That was fine. Who needed socks?

  My clothes were strewn on the floor, a clear sign of what we’d been doing when my mother decided to crash her way into my personal life—again. Snagging the steel gray dress shirt from the floor, I dragged it on and buttoned it. Now I had a shirt. Jeans, shirt, shoes. That covered it. And a coat because it was cold.

  I jerked open the closet as my mother asked, “What are you doing, Dominic?”

  “Going after Aleena.”

  “Whatever for?” she asked, clearly baffled.

  I ignored the question.

  It was harder to ignore her hand on my arm.

  I tried to shake her off but Jacqueline St. James-Snow doesn’t get shaken off. Her manicured hand didn’t precisely tighten, but I felt it close like a shackle around me. “Really, Dominic. What were you thinking?”

  “What was I thinking?” I demanded. It took all the control I had not to just let her have it. “Mother, I’ll be honest—thought didn’t come into the equation at the time.”

  She made a dismissive noise in her throat. “Don’t be so crude.”

  Her hand fell away as I jammed my arms into my sleeves. I moved to the phone. I’d called downstairs, tell them to stop her. I could still catch her.

  “Let her go, Dominic. Really. Please…sit. I came over here because we need to talk.”

  “Next time, call first,” I suggested. I rubbed my hand over my chest. There was a dull ache there, one I wasn’t familiar with.

  Aleena was angry and hurt. She could probably use a few minutes to calm down.

  Maybe…I blew out a breath.

  Okay, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to talk to her and she was probably mad and hurt.

  So I’d let her have a few minutes, then call her. We could meet somewhere and I’d buy her dinner. I could make this right. Aware that my mother was still watching, I looked over at her. “I don’t want to talk to you right now. I’m pissed off at you.”

  “Because of that woman?” My mother waved a hand. “Dominic, she’s hardly the first low-class girl I’ve caught you with. If you must bed them, so be it. But for it to be a girl you work with, it’s not wise. She could cause you a great deal of trouble.”

  I waited until she was done. I even waited an extra few seconds, hoping it might calm the sharp edge of anger bubbling inside me. It didn’t work.

  “Low-class,” I said, biting the words off. “That low-class girl is one of the sweetest, kindest women I’ve ever met. She doesn’t sit around and plan about how she can use the connections she’s made—”

  “She doesn’t have connections,” Jacqueline said, laughing. “What kind of connections does a girl like that have?”

  “Enough!” Slashing a hand through the air, I snapped, “I am done with this. I’m tired of it. To you, people with money are the superior species. But have you forgotten…I was adopted! For all I know, I came from that low-class group you so despise.”

  Jacqueline’s face went tight, her mouth taking on a pinched look. “Dominic, you are my son. That is all that matters.”

  “It’s not all that matters to me!”

  She stiffened, her face jerking back as though I’d slapped her. Slowly, like a queen rising from her throne, she came off the couch. “I see this isn’t the ideal time for us to talk.”

  “What clued you in?”

  She didn’t answer.

  I stared at her rigid back as she walked to the door. She paused there momentarily as if expecting me to let her out...or apologize.

  I stayed where I was.

  After a few more seconds, she opened the door.

  When it shut behind her, I moved into my bedroom. It was time to track down Aleena.

  ***

  There was a problem with that idea and I figured it out less than ten minutes later.

  Holding her cellphone in my hand, I slumped into the comfortable cushions of the couch and stared up at the ceiling.

  She’d left her phone and I had no idea where she could have gone.

  I’d slept with her twice now, had lived with her for weeks, and yet I knew so little about her. I knew the way her body responded to my touch. The way mine tightened every time she walked into the room. But I didn't know her.

  What did she like to do?

  Where would she go when she was upset?

  I knew her friend’s name was Molly and I knew where Molly worked, but…what else did I know?

  Aleena was from Iowa.

  The first and only other guy she’d slept with was a piece of shit.

  And I’d hurt her.

  None of that would help me find her.

  Chapter 3

  Aleena

  My situation called for drastic measures. It happens that way sometimes. Like yesterday, the situation had called for wine and whining on the phone with Molly.

  This situation called for a different sort of coping.

  The ice cream kind.

  I spent most of Saturday curled up on Molly’s couch and slowly eating my way through a pint of ice cream. No, that was a lie. It was two pints.

  It’s a good thing I didn’t get in this state often because I’d be as big as a house. By the time evening r
olled around, my stomach ached and I was just as miserable as I had been earlier. Molly came in from work, took one look at me and shook her head.

  She sat down across from me and fixed me with a determined look. “Girl, you are going to talk and you are going to talk now.”

  “I don’t want to talk.” I glared at her sullenly.

  Molly leaned back and stared right back.

  She still wore her work uniform.

  I sighed. That uniform meant only one thing. She was serious. One thing we both had in common was as soon as we got home, we liked to change out of work clothes. It was an odd sort of way of shedding the stress of the day.

  She was giving up that habitual routine in favor of girl talk.

  “You might as well talk,” she said. “You know I’m going to win this.”

  The thing was, I did know that. But I felt foolish and I felt stupid and I felt miserable and I hurt. Talking about it wouldn’t help.

  In fact, talking about it would make everything worse.

  As though she was reading my mind, Molly leaned forward and took my hand.

  “Whatever it is,” she said. “Hiding from it can’t help.”

  The knot in my throat made it hard to breathe. Molly shifted over to sit down beside me and she reached up to brush my hair back. “What is it? Did you find out he’s engaged? For crying out loud, is it worse? Is he a total douchebag? He’s not married, is he?”

  “No.” I looked away. My voice broke halfway through and I had to take a deep breath and wait for my voice to steady before I could say anything else. Flexing my hands in my lap, I lifted my gaze to the ceiling and willed away the tears. Then I looked at her. “I slept with him, Molly. Again. Last night.”

  “Okay.” She drew the word out slowly, but she shook her head. “You’ve already done that once and we established it might not have been the best idea, but you weren’t reacting like this yesterday so what’s the problem?”

  Unable to sit still, I stood up and started to pace. “I told you about that guy in high school, right?”

  I wasn’t looking at her, but the dismissive sneer in her voice came through loud and clear. “That asshole? Yeah, you told me about him. Racist piece of scum. What’s that got to do with…?” Her voice trailed away.