I checked through my messages and emails, slogging through a myriad of inanities, while I munched on the lunch that Janice, my maid, had brought me. It was nothing fancy, just a small salad alongside leftovers from the previous night. But her meals were definitely tasty. I'd started eating at home a lot more since Renée and I had started getting serious, and I never failed to appreciate the woman's creativity and depth of cooking skills.
“Is everything okay with your lunch?” Janice asked as she began mopping the kitchen floor.
“It's great,” I said around a mouthful. “Just a shame that Renée couldn't be here to enjoy it as well.” I'd tried to convince her to blow off her class to stay for just a little longer, promising her a workout to rival the one she'd get at the gym, only far more pleasurable. But she'd laughed and untangled herself from my arms and gone to shower, locking the bathroom door behind her in case I got any ideas.
Janice snorted, bringing me back to our present conversation. “If you say so, sir.”
I grinned at her, knowing full well that Janice didn't share my love for my current girlfriend. “You think I should break up with her.”
“I never said that,” she said, pretending to focus on her mopping, even though I knew the woman liked to gossip.
“I know she can be haughty,” I mused as I continued to click through messages. “She rubs a lot of people the wrong way. But she and I get along well.”
“I can see that,” was all Janice said. “I'm glad she makes you happy.”
“She must be wonderful if I've been able to date her for a few months!” I said, chuckling. “That's a new record for me, you realize.” I frowned at one of the emails that I'd received. “Of course, it hasn't escaped Katherine's notice that it's a record for me either, and she's gone and invited us for a double-date on Friday night.”
“That could be fun,” Janice said.
I laughed. “In what universe would going on a double-date with one's younger sister and her husband-to-be, be considered 'fun'?” I asked. “It'll be torture. I love Katherine, but I just know she's going to go on and on about her wedding preparations, making subtle hints to me the whole time. And then she'll probably ask Renée to be one of her bridesmaids, meaning that I can't break up with the woman until after Katherine's wedding, which won't be for months, putting undue pressure on what is still very much a fledgling relationship.”
Janice failed to hide her grin. “Well, if you're enjoying yourself with Renée, does it matter that your relationship is still young?” she asked. “It's about time you settled down anyway. You're at a good age for it.”
“I'm still in my prime,” I argued.
“And it's not like you need to continue to work yourself so hard. You have plenty of money saved up to last you for the rest of your life. You don't need to grow your savings anymore.”
I burst out laughing at that. “Janice, do you honestly think that the only reason I go to work day in and day out is because I want to earn more money?” I asked. “I enjoy the work that I do. Anyway, things would fall apart if I weren't there to make sure everything was on track.”
“Then you need to delegate more,” Janice said simply.
The doorbell rang, startling both of us. I didn't have a fence around the property because I didn't like the aesthetic of it. All the same, everyone knew I, Andrew Goldwright, lived there, and no one seemed to want to bother me. I wasn't expecting anyone, and I didn't have any friends who would pop over unannounced. They would never know if I was home or not.
I remembered Lexi's long-ago comments about security and grinned a little. She'd been worried about me being robbed, but I hardly ever even got solicitors.
I nodded at Janice. “Would you get that for me, please?”
She put down her mopping and went to answer the door. I turned back to Katherine's email, trying to think of some way to respond to it. There was just no good way to say 'hell no' politely.
I clicked out of the message, resolving to come back to it later, and got back to my work emails, wondering absently why Katherine had sent a personal email to my work email anyway. Probably she thought I was more likely to check that one. Maybe she was hoping my secretary would see the thing and schedule the dinner for me, without telling me about it until it was too late to cancel.
Janice came back into the kitchen, looking uncertain.
“Who was it?” I asked. “Let me guess: it's a critical election year, and they want to have accurate polls of the area to pass on to my representative. Or else, I will absolutely die if I don't buy the latest in drone technology, or potato-peeling technology, or whatever the latest 'inventor' has thought up.”
“Actually, you may want to answer this one,” Janice said, looking and sounding almost as though she'd seen a ghost.
I frowned and closed my laptop, giving her my full attention. “Is something wrong? What have the neighbors done now?”
“It's not the neighbors,” Janice said, shaking her head. “You'd really better answer this one for yourself.”
“I'm in my sweatpants,” I pointed out. “I'm not even wearing a shirt yet.”
“I'll get you a shirt,” Janice said. “I just folded a load of laundry, but I was waiting until after I mopped the floors to bring it upstairs so that then I could get to work on dusting the upper floor.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, holding up my hands and wondering why she was so insistent about it. I wondered if whoever it was had given her lip when she'd tried to shoo them away. If they had, I was going to have to have a serious word with them. Janice might only be my maid, but I looked out for my loyal workers.
I grabbed a shirt off the aforementioned stack on top of the dryer and pulled it over my head, running a hand through my hair to get it back to some semblance of normal. Then, I went out to the front hall.