Evelyn
Present Day
By 6:45the next morning, I arrived at the same luxurious hotel Jace had taken me to and was directed to the presidential suite on floor 50—a different room than where we had slept together, which made sense.
Jace probably had two rooms booked in this hotel: one he shared with his son, and the other he used as his fuck pad.
My stomach churned, and I had to force the thought away or I was going to dry-heave all over the nice plush red rug on the floor.
I was fifteen minutes early, but that didn’t matter. I had been so nervous about my first day on the job that I had barely gotten any sleep the night before.
I couldn’t believe I was doing this. I hadn’t even told Katie what had happened at the interview. I hadn’t told anyone—not Ethan, and not Emilia, whose flight was scheduled to be here tonight, hours after I was supposed to get off of work. Hopefully I could be there with my family to pick her up.
I watched as the private elevator climbed up the floors, feeling light-headed from the motion, before I was forced to close my eyes at the risk of passing out. I should have had more for breakfast than tea, but the thought of eating anything this morning was almost too much to bear. And it was too damn early for breakfast, anyhow—I was never up this early.
I was going to have to get used to the new schedule.
I had received an email last night detailing my salary, benefits, and whatnot, and it was twice the amount I was making now. I almost slammed my laptop shut in disbelief.
And now the presidential suite? I knew Jace was wealthy at first glance, but I didn’t realize he was this wealthy.
Even the thought that I would be moving to his house in New York in two mere weeks intimidated the hell out of me.
I didn’t feel like I belonged here.
I was a nobody.
Though my parents had done well while I was growing up, we were hit with a bit of financial hardship a few months before my mom passed away unexpectedly, and it was as Ethan had said, we went through some really awful times at the end, especially with my mom’s medical bills stacking up. But everything had been manageable at the time.
It was only when Ethan took out a second mortgage on the house that we came close to losing it, but that had been resolved, thanks to the thing I didn’t want to think about. Our childhood home stayed with our family. Dad could still live in the house he built with his one and only love, and things were okay.
At least, they would be.
When the doors opened, I moved to the furthest room from the elevator, a corner suite, the sign in the front looking intimidating as hell. I didn’t think I had ever been intimidated by a sign before, but I was.
Wiping my sweaty hand on my jeans, I raised my fist and knocked three times.
Two long minutes passed and no one came to the door. I checked my watch for the time.
It was two minutes past seven. I wondered if Jace forgot. But a man like him didn’t get to be where he was by being forgetful.
I raised my hand again to knock, only the door clicked open, startling me a little.
When the door opened fully, what I saw had my mouth going dry and my brain turning fuzzy.
Jace answered the door with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, droplets of water falling down his hard, magnificent body.
I watched as the droplets slowly made their way down from his broad shoulders to his defined pecs and to what was possibly the world’s sexiest six pack, then to his trim waist and that deeply defined V that I didn’t think I had ever noticed on any real-life man before. Only in pictures.
The men I dated before, as few as there had been, were all regular boys. Though they had nice bodies, they didn’t dedicate much of their time to the gym. Jace was something else—something we mere mortals couldn’t reach or touch.
I licked my lips at stared stupidly at him. He still had scruff on his face, and my hand twitched at my sides with the urge to reach out and see how perfect it would feel. I knew from memory that his scruff would feel rough against my palm.
My gaze traveled up to his damp hair, darker than normal and falling over his forehead in the most endearing way, making me want to reach my hand out and push the lock away.
I shook out the thought.
It wouldn’t do me well to think of Jace as endearing. He was my employer, and that was all he could be.