King of Me by Mimi Jean Pamfiloff Read Free Book Online Page B

for your evening. The helicopter leaves in thirty minutes.” He glanced at his watch. “Make that twenty-eight minutes.”
    There was no point in asking where I was going because King would have already told me if he wanted me to know. “Thank you, Stefanos.” I nodded. “I’ll be ready in forty.”
    The look in his eyes told me he was about to remind me of King’s punctuality obsession but decided against it. After all, it was my ass that would be chewed out by King for being late, not his.
    I passed Stefanos on the stairwell and was almost to the top when I stopped. “Stefanos?”
    He gazed up at me from the bottom of the stairs.
    “I’m sorry if my being here makes your family feel uncomfortable.”
    He gave me a cold look. “You won’t live forever.”
    I assumed he thought I’d want to live here until my last dying breath, even after King departed this world. I had no such intentions. “I’ll be out of your hair by next week, actually.”
    He gave me a peculiar look, then glanced at his watch. “Twenty-seven minutes.”
    I shook my head and continued on my way. When I got to the fairly large room with a balcony overlooking the side garden, Ypirétria, which was Greek for “maid,” sat in the corner with a pair of knitting needles and pink yarn.
    “Hi. I’m back,” I said, knowing she didn’t understand English (nor I her language), but saying nothing felt strange.
    She blurted out an exclamation I imagined meant, “Where the hell have you been, young lady?” But who knew?
    “I went for a long walk.” I made my fingers walk across my palm to illustrate.
    The elderly woman, who wore a black drapey dress and scarf, pointed to the bathroom and mimed that I needed to shave my legs.
    Err. Okay…thanks for the concern? “I’ll be ready in five minutes.” I held up five fingers, expecting she’d get the cue to leave.
    She mumbled something, shook her finger at me, and then pointed to my armpits, once again miming that I was to shave.
    I’m twenty-six years old and have a mother , I thought, but didn’t want to say something so rude, even if she couldn’t understand.
    She walked over to the enormous walk-in closet and emerged with a black satin strapless dress. She swept her hand over the front as if presenting me with a very nice gift, which I’m sure it was. King didn’t buy dresses off the clearance rack at Macy’s or Neiman’s—my usual hunting grounds. But with its ultrashort hem and scandalously plunging neckline, it was the sort of dress a woman wore when she didn’t intend to keep it on very long.
    My body involuntarily reacted to the thought of King selecting something so seductive for me.
    The woman then pointed right at my groin while making her other hand into scissors. “See-reez-ma,” she said slowly.
    I scratched my head. “You want me to groom the kitty?”
    “You make di lobe tonight,” she said in broken English. “Sex weet King.”
    My jaw dropped. Not because the woman could barely speak a lick of English and had managed to say something so shocking, but because it gave me a sick sort of sexual satisfaction imagining King telling her how he wanted me to look for him, right down to my naked body.
    Get it together, Mia. This is a mind game. The guy was probably in the room right now, watching me and enjoying the hell out of my reaction. Well, I wasn’t going to give him one.
    I cleared the sticky, indecent thoughts from my throat. “No. You tell King, no sex. No sex tonight.”
    The woman repeated her instructions.
    “Tell King if he wants sex, he can go fuck himself.”
    She stared.
    “You don’t understand me, do you?” I asked.
    She slapped her palms together, symbolizing a man and woman lying together. “You make di sex tonight.” She nodded happily as if she believed we’d come to some sort of understanding, and then walked from the room, leaving the dress laid out on the bed.
    Lord, help me.
    The entire time I showered—yes, and shaved—I kept