The Maid: Mafia Romance (Series)

Are You My Jennifer?

Giovanni was furious, in a rage. As soon as she stepped out of the toilet, he snapped, “Did you wash your hands?”

“I did.”

“Good.” He turned on his heel, took two steps, and literally dragged her with him. His poor maid was screaming her head off. But at this point, he didn’t give a fuck. They needed to have a real conversation-one that definitely did not take place in front of the loo.

Giovanni eyed his surroundings, scanning for a safe but private space where they could talk without any interruption. And he found it. Way up high in the sky. The Ferris wheel.

He dragged Jay to one of the compartments, flicked a one-hundred-dollar note to the ticket collector, and locked the door behind him.

Jay was trapped. And that was where he liked her to be. Close, enclosed, and right next to him. Now it was time for the interrogation. No more kisses.

But he couldn’t help feeling that dark emotion curling up his throat. Steam was coming out of his ears. He looked at his maid, in bunny ears. He just couldn’t take her seriously like this.

“Take those damned bunny ears off your head, Jay,” Giovanni snapped, snatching the ears off her head. “I can’t talk to you seriously when you look like a cartoon character out of Disneyland.”

“That’s the whole point, isn’t it?” she grouched. “I’m supposed to be a cute bunny, giving out balloons and fly-”

“The fuck you going around giving balloons and flyers for?” He cut her off. “Who gave you permission to work in this amusement park? Did I say you could work here, Jay? You don’t even have time to study and brew my coffee. Now you have time to dress up like some Playboy bunny and give out love balloons. Jay, you-”

“That’s enough.” She cut him off. “I can’t tolerate you talking down at me. I’m a human, Giovanni, not a Playboy bunny. I don’t like it when you talk shit to me. Oops. I swore.” Her eyes immediately glared at him. “See, it’s because of you. That’s why I’ve turned out like this. Living with you as your maid for two months, now I’m talking like you. Shit this, shit that. Ahhh! I’m going crazy.” His maid messed up her hair in frustration.

Giovanni just blinked. No one had ever defied him before. Not since he’d been named mafia boss after Giuseppe. But this maid of his made him laugh, so hard that his taut abs trembled and he fell back into his seat.

Jay just stared at him blankly as he laughed manically. Maybe he was a maniac after all. Maybe he had turned crazy, just like Jay. Two crazy people in a container, two peas in a pod. Fuck, it was hilarious. He’d never laughed that hard before. Not since he was with his little friend Jennifer.

After his laughter died down, he smirked, shoved the bunny ears into the pocket of his grey suit, and straightened his cufflinks. He roughly ran his fingers through his sleek black hair, resurrecting his façade, personifying the ruthless billionaire mafia boss, before asking her the ultimate question that had been haunting him since the day she’d left Cory Mansion. “Why did you leave? Did you want to die? Did you plan to steal my three million dollars like your old man did?”

“Because I was told to. No, and no, for the other two questions.”

Such simple, straightforward answers. But Giovanni was still confused. “What are you on about? Explain.”

“You said you let me go. So I went.”

Giovanni scoffed. “I said no such thing.”

“You have short-term memory,” his maid pointed out.

“I have an excellent memory,” he taunted back.

“Well, why don’t you refresh my memory of that night then?”

She was testing him, and he knew it. He hated it, being put on the spot.

“What night?” Giovanni raked his brain for what had happened that night, but he couldn’t remember saying anything along the line of kicking her out of the house. Shit, this guessing game was doing his head in. “For fuck’s sake, Jay. Just tell me. My mind is in a soup blender here.”

“The night you kissed me,” Jay emphasized.

The information snuck in. A slow smile stretched his lips, as the memory of that night came rushing back in. Oh, yes, the kiss. Hot. Delicious. Making his dick stand proud and tall.

Giovanni moved seats so he snuggled closer to her. “So, you just want me to kiss you again, right? Were you reminding me so I could kiss you again? Was that kiss near the restroom not enough?”

Jay backed into her seat. Her cheeks held a lovely tinge of pink. It looked beautiful on her.

“It was a horrible kiss that night. You even said so yourself. That I kissed like a dog.”

Giovanni frowned again. Did he really say that? He wasn’t sure. Maybe it was during the heat of the moment. He couldn’t remember. But she looked so upset, like a little wounded ginger kitten, her lips trembling as she sat there huddled in that small corner. He closed their space even more.

“Really? You were that upset because I said you kissed like a dog?” He traced her lower lip, the pad of his finger lingering on that soft texture of her skin. He wanted to bite that lip, until it bled, and then devour her whole. That was how much he wanted her. And his dick was thinking the same.

Giovanni calmed himself down and diverted his attention to her eyes. Those large green eyes enchanted him, and he was sucked in by some unknown force. He whispered huskily into her ear, “Jay, maybe you just need to practice more.”

Giovanni tilted her chin until her eyes locked with his. Green eyes, so large, like emerald, like his little Jennifer. A distant memory. A distant love.

“Jay.” Something weird coursed through him. A sudden idea, a sudden thought emerged in his mind, and now he couldn’t stop it. “Say something for me.”

His maid blinked again, lost as to what his intentions were. “Is that an order, boss?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Say, ‘Gio, handsome boy,'” he mouthed.

“Gio, handsome boy,” Jay said unenthusiastically.

“Put some emotion into it.” Giovanni pinched her chin as punishment.

“Ouch. Okay, okay. Let go of my chin, boss. It hurts.” Jay struggled to break free of his grasp, but he didn’t let go.

“If you had just said it the first time, I wouldn’t have had to punish you.” He drummed into her. “Now say it.”

Those emerald eyes came alive, sparking green flames. His maid might look confused, but she was also pissed off. However, she knew her place. When one got trapped with a black panther, one obeyed the word of the black panther.

“Gio, handsome boy,” she said more seductively, like that time at the Gentleman’s Club.

Giovanni closed his eyes, remembering that time from long ago when he was sitting underneath that beech tree, face grazed with wounds from that fight with his classmates. His little Jennifer had said those very same words.

“Jay, say it again,” he prompted, eyes still closed, trying to imagine what his current Jennifer would look like, using his maid’s voice as a trigger point.

“Gio, handsome boy,” came that voice. “Gio, handsome boy. Gio, handsome boy.”

Soft. Subtle. Sweet.

Fuck! Oh fuck! He saw her, Jennifer, in his head. The little girl in those plain boring brown pigtails, with half a licorice hanging from her mouth.

He opened his eyes, and sucked in his breath. There she was, right in front of him, chewing licorice like that time from many years ago.

Oh, God! Oh, fuck! Licorice. Now why hadn’t he thought about the licorice? He’d seen Jay chewing licorice a few times when she was making him coffee. And now here she was, chewing licorice again.

He snatched her jaw, halting her in mid chewing. Could it be? Could Jay be his Jennifer?

“Jay, do you like eating licorice?”

Jay looked floored, jerking her chin out of his grasp. After swallowing the last piece, she replied, “Why do you even need to ask, boss? I love licorice. It’s my all-time favorite sweet, especially the black ones. Pa said I’ve eaten them since I was a wee child. I’m really hungry. This is my snack.” She showed him another long black piece hidden in the compartment of the bunny costume. “Do you want some? If you do, I could share half. But I’m getting the bigger half. So, do you want-”

“I don’t want any.” He cut her off again. He only wanted one simple answer, but what he got from his maid was a lifelong speech of why she loved licorice. He asked, “Jay, how old are you?” He needed to know. God, the need to know was eating at his core.

“I’m almost nineteen.” She smiled cheerfully. “In fact, another month, it’ll be my birthday.”

Was Jennifer five or six back then? He couldn’t remember.

“Jay, do you have a twin dragon necklace? Someone in your past perhaps, a close friend maybe, someone who gave it to you to keep for them when you were a kid, about fourteen years ago.”

“Fourteen years ago? Necklace?” Jay scratched her head, thinking for a minute. Giovanni only leaned closer, waiting impatiently, wanting to hear this piece of information. Jay looked back at him blankly and shook her head. “No. I don’t have any necklace. Especially if it’s a twin dragon, I would have remembered it. I love dragons, you know. They’re such cool, mystical creatures.”

Fuck! That blew his hypothesis straight out the window.

But he wasn’t convinced yet. Jay sounded, looked, and acted just like his Jennifer. There wasn’t a single cell in his body that refused to acknowledge this. So, the grip on her shoulder grew tighter as Giovanni tugged her into his embrace.

“Wow, boss. What’s gotten into you? Just chill, boss, chill.” Jay shoved him back, quickly jumping out of his arms again, creating as much space as possible between them in the tight little container.

“To tell you the truth…” Jay carried on with her speech from where she sat; her eyes cast off to a faraway place. “I lost my memory when I was young. Ma and I were in a car accident. I must have hit my head during the crash because I couldn’t remember an inch of my childhood. It’s like my memory from when I was born until then was deleted. It’s pretty weird and terrifying waking up in the hospital all alone, not having a clue who you are or where you’re from. So, I guess I don’t know what I did or who my friends were back then.”

Jay turned to him, eyes a bit misty. She quickly wiped them away and gave him a forced but pathetic smile. Something inside him just died.

Suddenly, she grinned, “Of course, you don’t want to hear my sappy story, boss. No good billionaire would want to hear any sad story. They’re all lies anyway, right? Especially coming from a girl like me, who’s head over heels in debt. Who knows? We poor girls might band together to create some sob story just to snatch a bit of your billion-dollar pie.”

“Jay, shut up and get back to your story,” he barked back, irritated that she should speak in such way.

No woman had ever managed to snatch a piece of his billion-dollar pie. He was smart enough not to fuck any woman who tried. He made sure of it. So Jay didn’t need to worry about his finances. What was more important, though, was her life story. He had a strong intuition the key to finding Jennifer lay with Jay’s lost memory.

“Really? You want to listen to my story, boss? Are you interested in my life?” She teased him.

“You have ten seconds, Jay, or you’ll be dead meat.”

“Is that a threat?” Jay smiled, and suddenly his heart was less constricted. “You know, I’m starting to think you’re threatening me just to pass the time. You don’t mean it, do you?”

“Don’t push me, Jay,” he attempted to sound authoritative.

“Okay, all right. I’ll continue. Now, where was I?”

“You woke up in the hospital and didn’t know what the hell had happened.”

“That’s not quite true, boss. I do know what happened. I woke up. Alone. After three months in a coma. Ma was gone. She went up to heaven. I was so small back then. I don’t remember much else. Pa told me all this, by the way. And that was it. No necklace. Just nice, lovely licorice.”

Giovanni let out a breath of air through his mouth. He sank into his seat, arms folded across his chest, one leg across the other, eyes fixed on his maid. Everything was starting to come together. But he needed to ask one final question to confirm his suspicion. “Jay, where did you learn to make your coffee?”

“You love my coffee, don’t you? You can’t live without my coffee right… right? I knew it. I knew you’d be addicted to my coffee like cocaine,” she harped enthusiastically.Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

Shit! Couldn’t the girl get serious for once? First she almost cried, and now she was laughing away, teasing him about his coffee addiction.

“Jay, who taught you how to make coffee?” he asked again, voice coming sterner than he thought. He toned it down at the end by asking, “I want to know. So tell me.”

“My ma,” Jay said quietly, hands suddenly clamping together. “Pa said she used to own a café. He said I would go there often and just hang out. I guessed I must have learned the skill from her. She was a professional barista.”

Giovanni clamored back. Words were lost in his throat. He could only look. Jay was his Jennifer? Jay, his annoying but oh so captivating maid was really his Jennifer? Fucking hell, no wonder he could never find her-she’d lost her memory.

Fuck, Giovanni, how could you be so fucking stupid? Jennifer was always right in front of you. Why didn’t you see it until now?

So, to rectify all the time he’d missed, he attacked her, blocking off her exit with his large chest, kissing her hard with his lips, squeezing her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. His need to express his desire was strong. And the only way he could show her that was through this kiss.

He molded his lips against Jay’s, hungrily trapping her tongue against his, slowly lighting the flames that burned through his loins.

Damn, his dick was hard. He was so turned on by that kiss. But she didn’t respond, just like all the other times he’d kissed her.

“Jay, I think you seriously need to learn how to kiss properly. How about some practice? I could teach you,” he whispered hoarsely beside her ear.

Suddenly, she woke up from her trance-like state. “No, I’m fine. I can practice with the person I love.” She gazed wildly at him, palms pushing hard against his chest.

That boy. That lanky, brown-haired boy. Her boyfriend?

Fuck! Images of that boy wrapping his arms around Jay made him see red. He growled, veering his thoughts to something else, so his damned dick could behave, “I don’t want to talk about your damned love life. Right now, what I’m interested in is my three million dollars. How are you going to pay for it?”

“Are we back to talking about the three million now?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll have thirty dollars by the time I finish my shift today. You can have that.”

Giovanni roared with laughter. “Three million Jay. Three million. What the fuck do I want with a measly thirty dollars.”

“I’ll pay you back through my coffee and cleaning service then; that is, if you’ll still have me as your maid.”

Giovanni moved a bit closer, and pulled her onto his lap.

“Wow, boss. Not again. Let me go. Please keep your hands to yourself.” Jay slapped his arm, but he wouldn’t let go. He held her tight, restraining her on his lap.

“Sit still, Jay. Or I’ll shove you out of this compartment.”

That did it. Jay didn’t move an inch. Maybe she was also scared of heights. All the better for him, since he needed her under his thumb.

“Good girl. Now, let’s talk business. Jay, have you any idea how much three million is?”

“It’s a lot of money,” she replied simply, without moving an inch of muscle.

“Damned right it’s a lot of money.” He spun her around, squeezing her face between his palms. He looked straight into her emerald irises. “It’s a fucking shit load of money, Jay. Even if you spent three lifetimes working as my maid, you still wouldn’t be able to pay it off.”

“Then what do you propose I should do?” Her heart sank in despair. “It’s Pa’s fault that he left me behind to pay for this mess. My life is already ruined because of him. Can’t you just cut me some slack. Give me twenty percent off or something. I make really good coffee.”

“Jay, Jay, Jay.” He shook his head and laughed devilishly. “Even if I gave you twenty percent off, that would still be two lifetimes for you. And don’t tell me your coffee costs more than a thousand dollar a cup?”

It was a rhetorical question. He didn’t expect her to answer him. Thank God she was smart enough not to. But under thick eyelashes, she quickly asked, “Then what should I do?”

Her head was down. Giovanni knew now was the perfect time to strike.

He gently ran his fingers through her soft brown locks. They were so smooth. They sparkled with a hint of gold under the bright sunlight. He stroked them again then curled the strands around his finger. Jay immediately became suspicious. She snapped her eyes up at him.

“What are you doing, boss?”

Giovanni chuckled and closed the distance between their lips. “Jay, Jay, Jay,” he said huskily, with one finger brushing her cheek. “I have a great proposal for you, one where you’re guaranteed to live freely, without having to work hard as my maid ever again.”

Jay became curious and sat up straighter. “You do, boss?”

Giovanni smiled roguishly. Caressing her supple cheek with his nose, he slowly said, “Jay, why don’t you be my-”

And his phone chose that moment to ring, cutting off his proposal. Fucking hell!