The Housemaid(55)

I leaked.

And I didn’t just leak—I squirted milk out like the office cow. There are two huge circles around each of my nipples, and a few droplets of milk are trickling down my blouse. I want to crawl under a desk and die.

“Nina!” Stewart cries. “Get yourself cleaned up!”

“Right,” I say quickly. “I… I’m so sorry. I…”

I drop the papers on Stewart’s desk and hurry out of the office as fast as I can. I grab my coat to hide my blouse, all the while blinking back tears. I’m not even sure what I’m more upset about. The fact that my boss’s boss’s boss saw me lactating or all the milk I just wasted.

I take my pump to the bathroom, plug it in, and relieve the pressure in my breasts. Despite my embarrassment, it feels so good to empty all that milk. Maybe better than sex. Not that I remember what sex feels like—the last time was that stupid, stupid one-night stand that got me into this situation to begin with. I fill two entire five-ounce bottles and stick them in my bag with an ice pack. I’ll put it in the refrigerator until it’s time to go home. Right now, I’ve got to get back to my desk. And leave my coat on for the rest of the afternoon, because I have recently discovered that even if it dries, milk leaves a stain.

When I crack open the door to the bathroom, I’m shocked to see someone standing there. And not just anyone. It’s Andrew Winchester. My boss’s boss’s boss. His fist is raised in the air, poised to knock on the door. His eyes widen when he sees me.

“Uh, hi?” I say. “The men’s room is, um, over there.”

I feel stupid saying that. I mean, this is his company. Also, there’s a stencil of a woman with a dress on the door to the bathroom. He should realize this is the women’s room.

“Actually,” he says, “I was looking for you.”

“For me?”

He nods. “I wanted to see if you were okay.”

“I’m fine.” I try to smile, hiding my humiliation from earlier. “It’s just milk.”

“I know, but…” He frowns. “Stewart was a jerk to you. That was unacceptable.”

“Yeah, well…” I’m tempted to tell him of a hundred other instances when Stewart was a jerk to me. But it’s a bad idea to talk shit about my boss. “It’s fine. Anyway, I was just about to grab some lunch, so…”

“Me too.” He arches an eyebrow. “Care to join me?”

Of course I say yes. Even if he wasn’t my boss’s boss’s boss, I would’ve said yes. He’s gorgeous, for starters. I love his smile—the crinkling around his eyes and the hint of a cleft in his chin. But it’s not like he’s asking me out on a date. He just feels bad because of what happened before in Stewart’s office. Probably someone from HR told him to do it to smooth things over.

I follow Andrew Winchester downstairs to the lobby of the building that he owns. I assume he’s going to take me to one of the many fancy restaurants in the neighborhood, so I’m shocked when he leads me over to the hotdog cart right outside the building and joins the line.

“Best hotdogs in the city.” He winks at me. “What do you like on yours?”

“Um… mustard, I guess?”

When we get to the front of the line, he orders two hotdogs, both with mustard, and two bottles of water. He hands me a hotdog and a bottle of water, and he leads me to a brownstone down the block. He sits on the steps and I join him. It’s almost comical—this handsome man sitting on the steps of the brownstone in his expensive suit, holding a hotdog covered in mustard.

“Thank you for the hotdog, Mr. Winchester,” I say.

“Andy,” he corrects me.

“Andy,” I repeat. I take a bite of my hotdog. It’s pretty good. Best in the city? I’m not so sure about that. I mean, it’s bread and mystery meat.

“How old is your baby?” he asks.

My face flushes with pleasure the way it always does when somebody asks me about my daughter. “Five months.”

“What’s her name?”

“Cecelia.”

“That’s nice.” He grins. “Like the song.”

Now he has scored big points because the Simon and Garfunkel song is why I named her that, although the spelling is different. It was my parents’ favorite song. It was their song before that plane crash took them from me. And it made me feel close to them again to honor them that way.

We sit there for the next twenty minutes, eating our hotdogs and talking. It surprises me how down-to-earth Andy Winchester is. I love the way he smiles at me. I love the way he asks me questions about myself, like he’s really interested. I’m not surprised he’s done so well with the company—he’s good with people. Whatever HR told him to do with me, he’s done a good job. I’m definitely not upset anymore about the incident in Stewart’s office.

“I better get back,” I tell him, when my watch reads half past one. “Stewart will kill me if I get back late from lunch.”

I don’t point out the fact that Stewart works for him.

He stands up and brushes crumbs off his hands. “I have a feeling hotdogs were not the lunch you were expecting from me.”

“It’s fine.” And it is. I had a great time eating hotdogs with Andy.