Rachel's Accident (4 page)

Warning! Eyes are in danger of popping out of head! Warning! Please close mouth and proceed to bl
ink!

I could almost hear the alarm in my brain's headquarters
blaring
. Man, those little guys up there sure had a lot of stress and pressure to deal with these days.

I looked between Ethan and the car. Ethan.
The car.
Ethan.
The car.
Finally I turned back to Ethan. "That is your car?" I asked him disbelievingly
, just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

"Yes," he answered with sincerity. "A different one than I hit you with, though.
As you can see."

"Do you mean to tell me you own more than one car?"

"Yes, seven actually.
Well, now six. Let's see if the wreck turns out to be reparable."

‘
Warning!
Eyes fallen out of sockets! Warning! Put eyes back as soon as possible to prevent further damage!
’ my mind piped in cheerfully.

This guy was unbelievable. Well, no matter. He had a Porsche. I really couldn't
stay mad at him.

"Shotgun!"
I shouted as I threw my hands in the air and ran toward the passenger side. Scrambling in I thought I hear
d
a low chuckle, but I could have imagined that.

Ethan got in beside me and was just finished buckling himself in when I was already playing with all the colorful buttons on the dashboard. The radio flared to life and almost blasted my eardrums to kingdom come. He quickly turned the music down and shit me beseeching look.

"You can't expect me to be in a car like this and sit still the whole time. I want to explore every little detail about it," I told him giddily, grinning from ear to ear. Ah, this was the life.

Did he just roll his eyes at me? Who does he think he is? I'm not a child you know.
Although I may act like one right now.
I never got the chance to otherwise. I always had to look out for myself. Now I had him for that job.

I turned back to exploring the dashboard, turning the AC on and off, testing the heating and cooling degrees. This was awesome. (Note: I may or may not have sung that. Do not tell anyone.)

The music playing on the radio was nice, too. I really could get used to this.
No, bad.
Dangerous thought. Out.
Now.
Go away. Shoo.

“H
ey, I heard
you were a wild one.
Ooohhoohh
,
” I loudly sang along with the lyrics of one of my favorite songs running on the radio
. When I looked up I saw
Ethan sho
oting
an amused smirk my way.

“What?
What’s that look
for? I like Flo
Rida
, okay? He may not be the hottest cookie in the cookie jar, but damn, that man knows how to make music.”

“I’m not saying anything against it.
Just glad to see you having fun.”

I made a funny grimace at him and to my astonishment he laughed. The last few hours (or
had it been
days?)
h
e
had been far too serious. I knew firsthand that life was never any fun, so you had to be the one to find a little amusement yourself here and there to lighten up your depressing streak of bad luck.
But this level of seriousness had really been out of the ordinary. So, I was glad, too, that he was laughing again.

We were on our way out of the hospital and…where were we going anyway?
I looked out of the window. Well, we were now nowhere near the hospital anymore. I think we were somewhere on the outskirts of the city.

He hadn’t said anything before and I hadn’t had the state of mind to ask
where he was taking me
. I had been way preoccupied with other things. And maybe one of those things had been how incredibly tight and sexy his ass was when he was walking in front of me, but who could really blame a girl for that? Approximately fifty other women in the vicinity had been staring as well. She had been lucky she hadn’t run into any walls with that level of distraction.

Despite his
unkempt look
I could attest that
he did have money. Boy, did he have money. He had paid
my
medical bills without even batting an eye. Not to mention that guy had a
freaking sports car.
A Porsche!
I know I’m repeating myself, but
‘I’m
lovin
’
it
’
. Or maybe it’s just the pain meds that were still coursing through my system that made me so euphoric.

Whatever, the cause I was having the time of my life and I wasn’t even in the backseat. Well, not that this little car actually had a backseat, but you know what I mean. For once I didn’t need to worry about anything. I could just enjoy myself for a little bit.

Of course, this time would be over soon enough, but until then I was hell bent on staying on my fun trip.

“Oh, let’s go to
McD
onald’s
and get something to eat. I’m famished.” As if to agree with me my stomach let out a very unladylike growl.

He laughed again, but agreed that I needed to feed the monster under my clothes before it started to eat me.
We seemed way out of
place as
we lined up
with his Porsche
at the next Drive Thru and got something to appease the
little
monster
in my belly
. He didn’t seem to mind eating the greasy food in his car. Well, he probably got someone to clean it for him if it should get dirty.

We ate as he drove farther out of town.
Maybe I should start doubting this man’s good will and question if he wasn’t actually kidnapping me right now.

“Where are we going?” I tried to ask in my most soothing voice.

“My place.”

“Why?” Damn, there was a little too much panic laced into that one word. I hoped he hadn’t picked up on it. I needed an escape plan if worse came to worst.

“I want to discuss some things with you.”
Things?
      

“Couldn’t we have done that at the
McDonald’s
or even at the hospital?”

“No, I want to discuss this in private. I know this makes you feel a little uncomfortable, but please bear with it. It’s really important.”

A little uncomfortable?
There
was
an understatement. I didn’t want to end up as one of those girls who are reported missing and never heard of again.
Or sometimes they turn up decades later either terribly abused and psychologically on the deep end or they turn up as horribly disfigured corpses. And I didn’t want either one of those options. Hell, no.

As if he could read my thoughts he tried to reassure me, “I promise I don’t mean you any harm. We’ll just sit down and talk this through properly. I won’t touch you nor will anyone else. I swear.”

He did sound sincere, but maybe he was just the world’s best liar. It didn’t seem like I had much of a choice anyway. Let’s see how this played out. With my luck he was probably a slave trader or worse.

He drove up a long winding road and stopped in front a house that could only be described as a mansion or maybe even a castle. This thing was huge. Then the long road could only be the driveway.

A little bit of disdain could be allowed toward this disgustingly rich guy, couldn’t it? Even though he was kind of my savior and hospital benefactor he still pissed me off with his rich ass. Grrrr. Damn, rich kid.

“You okay?” This
was
just
so
un-fucking-believable.
Every time.
Every god damn time I tr
ied
to find an ounce of hate for this guy he destroy
ed
it by bei
ng nice again. It’s like he could sense it or read my thoughts somehow. Well, that was some uncomfortable thinking.

I scrutinized him from head to toe
, looking for a kind of sign that would give away his reading of my thoughts
.
“Fine.”
Asshole.

“Good. Then let’s go.” With that he turned the engine off and got out of the car.
Of course.
Like the gentleman and generally nice person that he was he came around the car before I even had the chance to react and opened my door for me. Something had to be wrong for him to act so nice. This just wasn’t normal.

“Thanks,” I said as I got out as well.
He didn’t seem to be able to read my thoughts. It had been a silly idea anyway. But still, how did he know then? Had it just been a simple coincidence?

He just nodded at me and closed the door behind me. Then he led me up the wide staircase that led to the huge front doors.
This place was really beyond huge.

I still had no idea why he would bring me here and what he wanted to talk to me about, but I somehow trusted him to not harm me in any way. Usually I was a pretty bad judge of character, but with I had the strongest feeling that he was trustworthy. It was strange really. I would still be on guard just in case.

He led me into a library and offered me a seat
as well as
a drink. I gladly took the seat, but refrained from the second since I wanted to stay sober for this conversation.

“So…What did you want to talk about that was so important?” I questioned him, getting right to the point.

“I see you don’t beat around the bush
.” He smiled slightly at her as he paused for a beat. “I want you to work for me.” He paused again as if let his statement sink into her consciousness.

All I could muster up as a reaction was a puzzled frown. My mouth gaped open, trying to get out words, but they didn’t want to come out. He waited patiently until I finally utter
ed
something coherent.

“That’s
the oh
so important thing you wanted to talk about?” I asked disbelievingly.

“Yes, from what I could conclude seeing and hearing from and about you
,
you seem to be a hard working woman.”
He talked about
me
as if he knew
me
, but what could he possibly know.
We
had
barely gotten to know each other over the past few days in the hospital. Mostly due to
my
regular unconsciousness from which
I
was only brought out of to ask
me
about
my
recent level of pain.

All this time he had been sitting by
my
bedside like a doting husband worried about his wife.
Or had he?

“And you know that how?”

“I talked briefly to your roommate when you were sleeping from the pain meds.
She was the only emergency contact listed in your cell’s memory card.
She rushed over here when she got off of work and
I told her what had happened and that I was taking care of you since she said she
didn’t have the time because of work and school.

“
So I talked to her for a little bit and she told me about you and your work. Oh, and I also called both your workplaces as well as your school to tell them you had an accident and wouldn’t be ab
le to come in the next few weeks. But that’s probably not true anymore since you healed unexpectedly, fast.

“So I have been thinking and trying to come up with a way to make amends with you. And this was the only solution I could think of. I need a housekeeper and cook. You would get very flexible hours for school and a great pay so you don’t have to take a second job. I know I may seem a little suspicious to you and again I’m really sorry for what happened. I just want to make it up to you.”

As he finally shut up again and let her ponder what he told him the room seemed almost eerily quiet.

“Talk a little longer and you can make it a novel.”
My sarcastic comment was taken a little too seriously.

“I’m sorry.” He seemed genuinely contrite. “I always talk too much and too fast when I’m excited and nervous.

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing.” I smiled slightly at him. “
I’ll
need time to think about it, but if Jess thinks you’re okay then I have no qualms against it. And I already know that you’re kind enough to not make a hit and run.”

“I don’t know if I should be insulted or flattered by that comment.” Despite his words I his shoul
ders visibly sagged with relief
and he directed a beaming smile her way.

Oh my, this was going to be a difficu
lt working relationship to keep, but it was that smile t
hat made me agree to it anyway
without any time to consider whether
this was a wise choice to make or not.

“You know, we still could have discussed this at the hospital, right?” She regarded him with a raised brow.