Interlocking Hearts (2 page)

Chapter One

Eyeliner was the least of her worries. Paisley smudged the remnants of last night’s smoky eye and it darkened her water line enough to look like she’d done it on purpose. Her uniform was wrinkled, but with a bit of water and a blast under the hand dryer at the gas station, it didn’t look like she’d pulled it off a hotel floor.

Walking through the doors and into work, Paisley heard the whispers start again. Although they weren’t really whispers any longer. Paisley Compton was a hot topic yet again. She usually didn’t mind it all that much, but ever since her robotic bestie had found love and humanity and all that jazz, it was a little more difficult to deal with the palace staff’s constant chatter.

Paisley had never thought she’d end up working as a maid. She’d known as a little girl that she was destined to be something fabulous. A singer, a dancer—really, anything that paid millions and allowed her a rock-star boyfriend or two would have worked. Then she’d had to pay for a car and a place to live, and school and it had all gone to hell.

Without any money, it was really damn difficult to be fabulous. Ten years ago, Paisley’d had this idea that she would get a job at the palace, then follow her dreams. Perhaps catching the eye of some handsome prince while she was at it. Maybe she would marry him. Of course, she would probably have divorced his stuffy ass a few years later, because there was no way in hell Paisley Compton was royalty material. She would have gotten a cramp smiling and waving that much.

But…she would have been famous, and traveled to swanky clubs in big hats and large scarves and sunglasses to hide who she was. Everyone would still know, because they always knew, and that would be the best part.

Paisley could rock a fall from grace. Too bad she was already living in the gutter. There wasn’t anywhere to fall to when you lived like she did.

The world had determined a long time ago that women like Paisley weren’t worth the ink to print stories about. At least not stories someone under eighteen could read.

Every time she arrived back at the palace with only an hour or two before her shift, Paisley told herself she was wild and reckless and free. Really, she just didn’t want to sleep alone in her empty maid’s quarters.

It was amazing how a piece of mechanics like the Coral-600 could be the best friend she’d ever had. Paisley missed the way the room smelled like lilacs when Coral talked. It wasn’t even strange that her hot humanoid best friend had breath that smelled like flowers. Paisley would be damned if she would bow to anyone else’s perception of normal, and she’d developed her own definition of happy living with Coral.

Miss Matilda snapped her out of her melancholy with chores. That was one thing she could depend on. Her boss kept her busy.

“You’ve got clouds up your ass again.”

“I think the expression is ‘head in the clouds’,” Paisley offered.

“You’re short. Your head isn’t anywhere near the atmosphere.”

Paisley smiled. She didn’t have her mechanical bestie to educate on slang, but she could always enjoy her time with Miss Matilda. Her boss was cranky and old, but Paisley knew helping annoy the rest of the staff gave her the gold star. Driving everyone else crazy cleared up a lot of Miss Matilda’s schedule.

Paisley winked as she did an exaggerated curtsey. “Did you need me to do something?”

“I need you to take a few pieces of mechanics into the shop. The grout scrubber is going after the seals on the windows. A few more malfunctions like that and the glass is going to fall right out of the building.” Miss Matilda handed her two boxes that rattled and watched Paisley struggle under their weight. “You’ve also got the iron maiden.”

Paisley snorted. The “iron maiden” was the bot in charge of ironing the clothes. Paisley had suggested that name for the piece of mechanics and still laughed every time her boss referenced the machine.

“I’ll take them into town. Should I wait for them?”

“You mean, should you go to the coffee bar across the street and consume fatty sugar-infested caffeine?”

“Pretty much.”

“Bring me back the one with the sprinkles I like.”

Paisley adjusted her load of boxes, looking around the edges to navigate the stairs. She made sure to ease the cardboard carrier down on the travertine tiles in the grand entry.

The tiles were pretty and all, but she was always scared she was going to end up damaging them and having the repair cost deducted from her salary. When you worked with a predominately robot staff, they didn’t miss anything. She couldn’t even drink a cup of coffee without the brew master tattling on her.

Working with robots should allow the human staff unlimited coffee. It only seemed fair to have a caffeine buzz so the inefficient humans stood a chance of keeping up.

Without getting into complex programming, it was easier to assign each robot its own specific job. With all the square footage in the joint, you couldn’t walk a hall without tripping over at least one piece of mechanics during maintenance hours. From the baseboard cleaning to the cobweb removal on the ceiling, there was a robot for most everything.

Paisley had taken over most of the repair trips for the mechanics since Coral left. The Coral-600, as she used to be known, was the obvious choice to care for the mechanics since she was comprised of so many robobits herself.

Now that Coral was out living her own certified human life, Paisley had jumped at the chance to get out of the palace during the day. It added to her job security, and after her nudist humanoid bud moved out, Paisley enjoyed the comfortable familiarity she felt in the repair shop.

She had just pressed the
end call
button on her phone when a sound comparable to nails on a chalk board pounded into her ear holes.

“I don’t see why we use so many machines that break down all the time when they could just give more hours to the women who need to support themselves,” Bridget called from the stairs. She was one of the part-time maids in the palace’s employ, and one whose uniform was never wrinkled.

Most of the staff had a fairly regular schedule, but not Bridget. She always had something going on with her. She was sick, or her mother’s sister’s husband’s kids were sick…girl had a crazy big family, and she switched shifts a lot.

Miss Matilda had brought in more mechanics since Coral left the palace, because it took a lot of robots to replace a self-sufficient artificial intelligence-based android person. The extra machines meant Paisley no longer had to scrub the toilets—there was a bot for that, and it pissed off Bridget. So it was a win-win.

“You still live with your mother.” Paisley rolled her eyes toward the irritant she was far too used to dealing with. “What about your life do you personally support?”

“I have expenses.”

Which is exactly what someone says when they blow their money on alcohol and tacky clothing. Paisley was jealous. She wanted more tacky clothing. She bought used. There was a good chance she’d bought some of the items that Bridget had put on consignment, but she tried not to think about that.

“Well, I am just doing what I am asked to do. Aren’t you supposed to be working on shutting down the west wing since Quinn has gone mountain man and moved into that cabin?”

Bridget grinned. “You are so jealous their majesties’ cousin took your little girlfriend away, aren’t you?”

Paisley looked out the front door to see if the driver had arrived yet. Nope. Bridget questioning her sexuality was what passed for an insult in the girl’s puny brain. Paisley didn’t bother to respond, because there was nothing wrong with being gay, and frankly her sexuality was none of this bitch’s business.

A horn honked out front and Paisley bent over to pick up the boxes. She made sure to break the universal rule of “lift with your knees” because she had her back to Bridget and her maid uniform wasn’t exactly made to bend all the way over in.

The gasp behind her told Paisley that her full panty-covered rear was exposed.

“That is disgusting.”

She grinned wide as she lifted the boxes. She’d had a really fun night last night and broke out her favorite pair of sassy undies. She was pretty sure Bridget got a full view of her “It’s not gonna kiss itself” underwear.

Watching Bridget standing there with her lip curled and hands on hips was better than the extra whipped cream she was going to order.

Paisley kicked open the door with her foot and spun out. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it, baby.”

At least she got to make Bridget’s face scrunch up. Paisley hoped the girl got wrinkles.

The drive to the repair shop wasn’t even long enough to get through two songs on the radio with all the ads for lawyers in between. Paisley thought again about staying in a few nights this week to try and save money and get herself some kind of music player or tablet.

Then she realized that would mean going to sleep alone and without some kind of noise to make the stone walls seem less cold.

It wasn’t going to happen.

The door to the repair shop swung open with a jingle of the big brass bells.

“Hey, Mr. Montgomery. Your brass balls are big and jangly today. How are you do…ing?” Paisley’s words stumbled along with her feet when she saw a first-class ass bent over the counter.

Well-tailored black pants were the first thing she noticed. The second was how the pockets on back pulled slightly at the button closure.
Poor buttons.
It must have been hard to contain that luscious butt.

Now
this
was a man’s butt. Paisley’s jaw dropped as he stood and turned around. He was a good six inches taller than her, but not too tall as to be awkward when she rode him like the cowgirl Paisley wanted to be right then. Give her a little rope and she would yee all over his haw.

“I think his balls are rather loud, but that’s a man’s opinion,” the studmuffin in a suit said. “Here. Let me get those for you.”

He pulled the boxes from her arms and lifted them like they were nothing. He was strong. That meant sex against a wall was totally on board.

Paisley was formulating her next brilliant pick-up line when Mr. Montgomery came shuffling from the back room and totally killed her libido.

“Paisley. What did you break today?”

Normally, Paisley would have made some joke with the elderly repairman. She’d say at least she hadn’t broken her hip, but she was worried about him breaking his. Too bad her tongue was too busy sopping up the drool over the customer to form any smartass comments.

“I believe whatever she needs repaired are in these boxes, sir.”

Paisley nodded and bit down on her lips to try and snap herself out of it.

“Thank you, Benjamin. You should be good to go. Tell Coral I am happy to vouch for your friend.” Mr. Montgomery placed the boxes on a conveyer belt, then pressed a button to move them to the rear of the shop. “And I should have the quote on the repair later today after the estimates on the alternate parts arrive. The modification should be minor if the metal I need is at a good buy in the market.”

The Ben guy rebuttoned his suit jacket and pushed open the door. The sunlight hit his hair on the way out, and Paisley’s fingers itched to grab hold of his perfectly styled locks and shove her tongue down his throat.

She filed that away for later and leaned over the counter to get a better look at Mr. Montgomery in his workshop.

The counter was warm where Benjamin’s body had been, and smelled like cologne. Paisley was pretty sure she got a little wet just thinking about lying on top of other warm things he possessed.

“No, Paisley,” he said as he opened up her boxes.

Being talked to like a disobedient dog tended to snap a girl out of her fantasies pretty damn quick.

“What do you mean, ‘No, Paisley’?”

“I mean he is not one of your boy toys to be played with and tossed aside. Benjamin is a great man, and he is only in town to vouch for a startlingly advanced piece of mechanics in front of the DMA Humanity Committee.”

The old repairman ended the conversation and began hooking up the mechanics she’d brought for evaluation.

Or he thought he ended it.

Mr. Montgomery knew the hottie. She had an in.

“I’m waiting on these bots. How long do you think the repair will take?”

Mr. Montgomery had put on some of those weird square magnifying glasses and his eyes bugged as he considered.

“How long do you want them to take?” He cocked up a lip in what was supposed to be a smile.

“At least two hours. I want to enjoy my coffee.”

“If it’s going to take two hours, I am going to need a large black coffee to keep me going.” He looked up at the ceiling and thought for a second. “And probably a cake pop.”

“If I bring you back a cake pop and some coffee cake can I get three hours?”

“Only if you eat the coffee cake with me to keep me company.”

“Deal.”

Paisley had her phone to her ear before she made it out the door. She had a plan. Coral was working today too, and she had all the info that Paisley would need to get in touch with Mr. Benjamin Hot Pants. All she had to do was give Coral a rational reason why she should have access to this info.

The phone rang three times before she had the chance to work out that part of the plan. It didn’t matter. Paisley was more of a sink-or-swim type of person. She would just jump into the deep end and hope she didn’t drown.

“Paisley.”

Coral wasn’t one for pleasantries on the phone. Now that she had a certificate of humanity, Coral had decided that she would make her own decisions regarding common social cues. Phone greetings were a waste of Coral’s time, and the word “hello” was not an important part of conversation.

Coral wasn’t human in the normal sense of the word. Up until a year ago, Coral had been considered property of the palace, like any other machine. It took an upgraded military veteran and some serious sex education before Coral realized there was more to having a hot body than oiling it up to maintain its supple nature.

Paisley almost missed having to tell the humanoid to put on clothes. She was pretty sure Coral’s soon-to-be hubby-to-be, Quinn Briggs, didn’t mind her penchant for nudity.