The Cleaning Lady Conquest

The Van Buren estate takes three days to clean properly.

Fourteen bedrooms, eight bathrooms, a kitchen the size of my apartment. I've been coming here every June for twelve years, preparing the house for summer.

The owner is never here.

Until this year.

Marcus Van Buren is not what I expected.

The family money goes back generations, but he looks... normal. Gray t-shirt, old jeans, no airs about him.

"Ms. Williams?"

"That's me." I set down my supply bucket. "I wasn't expecting anyone."

"Early flight from London." He looks around the foyer. "God, this place feels like a museum."

"It cleans like one too."

He laughs—surprised, genuine. "I like you already."

He doesn't leave while I work.

That's unusual. Most rich clients disappear, let the help be invisible. Marcus follows me from room to room, asking questions.

"How long does each room take?"

"Depends on the room."

"What's the hardest part?"

"The chandeliers. Crystal is unforgiving."

"What do you think about while you work?"

That one stops me. "No one's ever asked."

"I'm asking."

"I think about my life," I admit.

"What about it?"

"How I ended up here. Fifty-eight years old, cleaning houses for people who could buy my whole neighborhood."

"Does that bother you?"

"Sometimes." I keep polishing the silver. "Mostly I'm grateful for the work."

"You're too smart to just be grateful."

"Excuse me?"

"I've watched you work for three hours." He moves closer. "You're meticulous. Thoughtful. You solve problems before they exist. That's not just cleaning—that's intelligence."

"Mr. Van Buren—"

"Marcus."

"Mr. Van Buren." I set down the silver. "I don't know what you're doing, but I have a job to finish."

"I'm appreciating you." He doesn't back down. "When's the last time someone did that?"

The question sits in my chest all day.

I finish the estate in record time, trying to escape the weight of his attention. But when I go to leave, he's waiting.

"Dinner?"

"I'm the cleaning lady."

"And I'm asking you to dinner." He opens the door for me. "Class differences are for people who can't see past them. I see you, Loretta."

Dinner is at a place I could never afford.

He orders for us both—instinct, not dominance—and the food is extraordinary. But the conversation is better.

"Why are you really doing this?" I ask.

"Because I've spent fifty-five years surrounded by people who want my money or my name. You wanted neither. You just... worked."

"That's attractive to you?"

"Honesty is attractive to me." He reaches across the table. "Being seen is attractive."

We end up at the estate.

Not the main house—the guest cottage I've been cleaning all week. Smaller, more intimate, already prepared for occupation.

"I shouldn't be here," I say.

"Why not?"

"Because you're..." I gesture at everything. The house. The art. The life I could never touch.

"I'm a man who saw a woman and wanted her." He cups my face. "The rest is decoration."

He kisses me like money doesn't matter.

Slow, thorough, his hands finding curves that wealthy women diet away. He seems to like every one.

"You're not what I expected," I admit.

"Neither are you." He begins unbuttoning my work shirt. "May I?"

"Yes."

He undresses me in the cottage I cleaned that morning.

Lays me on sheets I pressed, worships a body that's worked hard for fifty-eight years.

"Beautiful," he breathes.

"I'm not—"

"Don't." He kisses my belly. "Don't diminish yourself. Not here."

His mouth moves lower.

Rich men shouldn't be this attentive—shouldn't take this much time. But Marcus works me with his tongue until I'm crying out, until I've forgotten where we are.

"That's it," he encourages. "Let go."

I let go. Completely.

When he enters me, we both still.

"Okay?" he asks.

"More than okay." I pull him closer. "Don't hold back."

"Never."

He makes love to me like I'm the valuable one.

Attentive to every response, adjusting, learning. By the time we finish—both breathless, both transformed—the class difference feels like a myth.

"Stay the summer," he says.

"I have other clients—"

"I'll pay your full season rate. For every house. Just stay."

"Marcus..."

"I know what I want, Loretta. I've always known. Just took sixty years to find it."

I stay the summer.

The other cleaners gossip—of course they do. But Marcus doesn't hide me. Takes me to parties, introduces me to neighbors, holds my hand like I'm precious.

"What will people think?" I ask once.

"That I'm the luckiest man in the Hamptons."

Summer ends.

I expect him to return to London, to his real life, to people who make more sense.

"Come with me," he says.

"To London?"

"To everywhere." He pulls me close. "I'm done living in empty houses. Fill them with me."

I fill them.

The London townhouse. The Paris apartment. The estate in the Hamptons where it all began.

My daughter thinks I'm crazy. My friends think I won the lottery.

I think I finally let myself be seen.

By a man who looked past the cleaning supplies.

And saw someone worth keeping.

The estate still needs cleaning every summer.

But now I supervise instead of scrub.

And every night, I sleep in the main house.

In the master bedroom.

In sheets someone else pressed.

With a man who chose me.

Class dismissed.