If you already hate a man because he broke your heart, doing his laundry will not help his case.

Okay, I didn’t really know if these Egyptian cotton towels, mildewed and dried into stiff shapes at the door of the laundry room, had ever touched Rob Delaney’s chiseled body. It could have been any of the Delaney brothers visiting the family-mansion-turned-summer-house.

“Disgusting,” I said out loud. Even though none of them could hear me pronounce judgment. I was here to clean the house and open it before their next visit. I turned the washer onto hot and poured in a heaping cup of detergent.

I could probably just throw the towels out, but I balked at being so wasteful. With my sleeve pressed over my mouth and nose, I threw the towels into the steaming hot water and slammed the lid shut.

The Delaneys would probably never want these towels again if they knew what had happened to them. They would probably happily donate them to my kitten shelter for bedding.

If the Delaneys even liked kittens.

Well, I was almost out of here. The first two floors of the Delaney house were pristine. All I needed to do was run the vacuum across the basement floors and escape before whichever gorgeous, handsome, asshole Delaney showed up.

The floor above my head creaked.

“Dad?” I called hopefully. I’d taken over most of the family cleaning business, including taking personal care of the Delaney house. There was no point in hiring on extra staff when the Delaneys were never here for very long. And, as I always reminded myself, these terrible people paid us well for catering to their whims.

The footsteps overhead faded away. Oh, of course I could hear everything from the laundry room; it wasn’t insulated like the rest of the house. The Delaneys would never come down and use their fancy laundry room, with its two side-by-side silver high capacity washers and the long Corian counter for folding clothes. They couldn’t be arsed to do more than throw their towels in the general direction of the laundry room on their way from the hot tub.

I sighed. I really hoped it was my dad, not a burglar or worse, a Delaney.

I climbed the lushly carpeted stairs from the basement and emerged into the back hallway, between the kitchen and the garage. Everything up here was dark wood and Italian tile floors. Sunlight trickled down the hall from the expansive kitchen.

The garage door swung open, and I jumped, pressing my hand to my chest, even though I’d known someone was here.

Rob Delaney stepped into the house. He was even taller than he'd been as a teenager, broad-shouldered, and strikingly handsome: short black hair, piercing blue eyes, high cheekbones. It wasn't fair that someone so rich was so gorgeous, too. Did they use their money to buy better genes?

"I'm sorry I startled you," he said.

"It's you,” I blurted out. Then I bit my lip. Gosh, I sounded like an idiot.

No, worse. I sounded angry.

Rob gazed down at me with those tranquil, cool blue eyes. "Yes. It's me. Didn't your dad mention I was the one who asked for the house to be opened?"

I shook my head. "Doesn't matter to me. I just work here."

"Right," he said. "Well. I could have sworn the Suburban was an automatic. No? No auto in the garage?"

"No auto in the garage," I repeated. "I guess you should keep two unused cars on hand. In case you have a hankering to go for clam cakes, you wouldn't want a manual when you want auto, god forbid..."

He held up his hand as if waiting to be called on. There was a white cast on his wrist.

"I can't drive an auto," he said. "We might need to add chauffeur to your duties."

I smiled slightly at that, a smile of disbelief. After the accidental heat in my tone, he should have known what I thought of him – and his goddamn towels – but he was completely unaffected. He expected the help to hop to, whatever he needed.

"I came here to recuperate," he said. "Can't get much work done with a broken wrist. Might as well eat some clam cakes. If I can get there."

I crossed my arms over my chest. I would do his laundry and put his plates in the dishwasher, but being confined to an automobile with him? Just him standing there, with his big shoulders and his roguish little smirk, was too sexy for me to handle. I didn’t want to come any closer.

"I'm sure you can hire a driver in town."

"Naomi," he said, his voice suddenly soft and familiar. "I need you to help me. I don't want to have a bunch of people trekking in and out of here, waiting on me. I want one person here I can depend on."

"You don't want a bunch of people waiting on you, you just want me waiting on you?"

He smiled, white teeth flashing out of his handsome face. Oh, forget him and his perfect dental work and unnecessary gorgeousness. "When you say it like that, it sounds so inappropriate."

I took a deep breath. Think of the money. Think of the kittens. Don't think about being trapped in close proximity to your childhood crush who turned out to be a total dick, aka a typical billionaire. “Fine. It’ll be extra.”

“I’ll pay whatever you want,” he agreed.

I swung open the door to the basement stairs again. “Whatever. I have to finish cleaning your basement.”

"I wanted to go grab some lunch. I took a cab from the airport. Didn't stop. I'm starving."

I leaned against the doorway, gathering myself, because my heart was beginning to pound with irritation. I will not yell at the billionaire. I will not yell at the billionaire. My voice came out low and cool. "I stocked the fridge."

He leaned back against the wall, crossing his muscular arms across his chest. Slowly, it dawned on me that he was mimicking me. I straightened up, letting my hands fall to my sides.

"Clam cakes?" he asked.

I sighed and took an assenting step toward him and the garage. "How do you stay so thin, eating like that?"

"I burn a few calories, here and there," he said. "Being a SEAL."

He held the door open for me, and I passed in front of him into the three-bay garage. The garage was empty except for the Suburban parked in the far stall. He locked the door behind us as I walked down the garage steps and then strode past me towards the Suburban.

I couldn't help staring at the lean V of his waist. Those broad shoulders made me want to run my hand over his back, to feel the hardness of his muscle under that soft-washed t-shirt. It was just as intense and impossible a desire as the temptation to punch him in his smug, beautiful face.

"I'd heard you joined the Navy," I said. "Didn't hear much besides that."

"Really?" he asked, sliding into the passenger seat.

When I swung up into the driver's seat, I breathed in the scent of leather and the citrus air freshener Dad had tucked beneath my seat. Little touches, he had told me, while we stood in the garage to start the unused vehicle.

"Guess we don't run in the same circles." I twisted the key in the ignition. The engine turned right over.

Rob pulled his seat belt across his chest, leaning towards the window to clip in. He was so big. Besides his intimidating height, he had broad shoulders above that narrow waist and powerfully muscled arms. His knees bumped into the dashboard before he pushed his seat back.

Even in such an oversized SUV, he seemed to take up all the space. I couldn't sit far enough away from him. I breathed in a new scent besides the leather-and-air-freshener smell: the minty, soapy scent of his body.

"You've taken good care of it," he said, patting the dash.

"Yeah," I said. "Well, that's what we do."

We take good care of the Delaneys.

We don’t expect them to take care of us. We don’t expect them to even notice.