Diego's alarm went off, another wonderful day at Grayson Manor. Despite having to sometimes work several hours of back breaking labor, he felt like he was almost in heaven. Now that he's settled into the groove of his job and learned how to use the more advanced gardening equipment, it's been a breeze.
Mrs. Grayson even hired a full team of people to help him so all he had to do was that one patch of land that he was tested on. He did note that it was weird that the rest of the team that were hired were female, but it made his job easier.
Much, much easier. To the point were he even wondered if he was even doing any work at all. It's like he got paid just to be there. Yup, this was almost heaven. But I bet you're asking yourself, "Why was it almost heaven?"
Well, after that hot tub incident he kind of had difficulty looking both Gracie and her mom in the eye. I mean, they both saw him naked for one thing so that was pretty awkward. This was of course a fact that Gracie in particular would not let him live down.
She was the one who got him out of the tub after all so his small secret was absolutely noticed by her. Sometimes she'd even giggle and subtly wiggle her pinky whenever she saw him out and about. While Mrs. Grayson would tell her to stop it if she caught her doing it, he'd also notice that she too would chuckle from time to time.
Gracie seeing it was embarrassing enough, but idiotically standing up and letting his towel fall in front of a beautiful woman like Mrs.Grayson was down right humiliating. This of course was on top of that dream he had while he was passed out from hyperthermia. Stranded naked in a hot tub while a beautiful woman was watching him like a hawk and then forcing herself onto him was something that was so vivid he could've sworn it actually happened.
Luckily, Mrs. Grayson would never be that perverted, right? Gracie on the other hand was what worried him. He had heard horror stories about what she's done to some of the other staff. She apparently was quite the prankster and loved to mess with everyone.
Some of them were mostly harmless, like the time she mixed in several pink articles of clothing in with all the maid uniforms while they were being cleaned, leaving them with pink maid outfits for about a week. Or the time she stole all the Valet's underwear so she had to go commando. She pansted her just as one of Mrs. Grayson's male guests arrived on the the scene. Those, while embarrassing, were also kind of funny. Majority of her pranks, however, were actually quite malicious.
Like the time she mixed in chocolate laxatives into a cake that was going to be served to a guest of honor for their birthday. When everyone started to feel the effects of that (Mrs. Grayson didn't partake in the cake luckily. She tried to keep away from sweets to keep her figure.), the poor chef was blamed and fired on the spot.
Or the time she took a picture of one of the maids looking through a drawer and photoshopped it to look like she was stealing valuables from the mansion, then planted said valuables on her person. The police were called! Thankfully when the truth came out both lawsuits were settled out of court.
The common thread between all the victims, was the fact that they annoyed her in some way. While Mrs. Grayson felt awful about those firings once the truth came to light, for some reason, those two weren't exactly eager to come back to those jobs once she offered them back.
She had a high turnover rate, and Gracie was the cause of it. Gracie was punished for sure, but being stuck in a mansion all day with everything she ever wanted with people who waited on her hand and foot didn't exactly send the message that she should behave more. To put it simply, Gracie was a spoiled brat of a woman and Diego made sure to try and stay on her good side. This was hard, mainly because she annoyed the hell out of him and wouldn't leave him alone for some reason.
He always assumed that Gracie got out of most things due to both her status as the heiress to the Grayson fortune and her good looks. With all that money to throw around you really could do anything you wanted. Plus she looked like a younger version of her mother, which given Mrs. Grayson's beauty made her look like a dream come true. All the beauty of her mother, but much closer to his own age.
Unfortunately, the many other differences between her and her mother, included her lack of empathy for anyone less rich than her, a complete lack of financial knowledge, which meant that Gracie was on a rather tight budget as she would probably have blown it all on various things she wanted and of course she knew very little about how life in polite society worked.
She was usually seen wearing a purple floral dress with purple heels. Her hair was brown, unlike Mrs. Grayson's naturally black hair, which Diego assumed was either dyed, or her father was a brunette. It was styled into this strange combination of twin ponytails and one big spiky ponytail. Diego assumed, much like her personality, it was fake.
On the surface she seemed like a nice, if very hyperactive woman who never quite matured past high school. But she used that as a façade to get people to let their guard down to hit them where it hurt. Usually their ego, but if she was truly mad, she could be quite cunning and ruthless in her "pranks". Which is why Diego wanted to spend as little time as possible in her company.
It seemed to be going well. Until today, when he was trimming one of the bushes, trying his hardest to get it into the shape of a cat as he wanted to surprise Mrs. Grayson with some topiary. But then as he was putting the finishing touches on the tail..."HEY GROUNDSKEEPER!"
This startled him, causing him to cut the tail off. "Damn it, Gracie!" He sighed and then thought to himself, "
Well maybe I can pass it off as a manx cat.
"
He then asked, "Did you need something?"
"I just wanted to see how my favorite little peon is doing today."
"I'm doing just fine, thanks for asking." he said, trying to bite his tongue and not tell her off for patronizing him like this.
"I need to tell you something, in private."
"Whatever it is, could it wait until after I'm done for the day? This is a delicate process and I almost had it!"
She giggled and said, "I can see you've been practicing at least." noting the row of vaguely cat shaped hedges. Some of them barely definable as cats.
"I'm beginning to think you aren't a professional groundskeeper."
"I'm learning as I go, Gracie. Your mom thinks I'm doing just fine. Why else would she have hired me?"
"Cause she thinks you're hot."
As she said this, he accidentally cut off one of the cat's ears. He blushed red as he thought of the possibility of Mrs. Grayson actually liking him as more than just an employee. He then screamed and hastily took out his phone and started to google if there were any cat breeds without tails or ears.
"I don't think I'm her type, Gracie. Even if I was, she's married. It wouldn't work out."
"I mean, she hasn't talked to Mr. Grayson in years. You have a shot."
..."What happened to him?"
"Hehe. Why do you want to know?"
"Uh...b-because I...want to get to know your father of course. I would love to know were he was when you were messing with all the other employees here."
"Oh, he's not my dad. I have no clue who my father is. Mr. Grayson is just some guy my mom married."
"So she is married then."
"Maybe she is, maybe she isn't. Maybe my mom did something silly like, say, change her legal name to Mrs. so she wouldn't have to deal with perverts like you hitting on her."
Diego stammered a bit before saying, "I know that's false cause her name is Grace."
"That doesn't change the fact that you clearly have it bad for her!"
"No I don't!"
"You were moaning her name while you were out cold or should I say....out hot."
"I-I....wuh...no, I-"
"Oh! MrS gRaYsOn! No, MrS. gRaYsOn! PlEaSe DoN't JeRk Me OfF iN tHe TuB. iT's SoOoOoOo EmBaRaSsInG!"
Diego angrily stammered a bit before correcting her. "SHE DIDN'T JERK ME OFF IN THE TUB!"
"Well, what did she do then?"
"She...uh...
THAT'S BESIDES THE POINT!"
Gracie giggled at that outburst, until Diego added, "Need I remind you by the way that you apparently tried to give me CPR, with your tongue."
"W-what!? I didn't use my tongue."
"That's not what the maids told me." he chuckled as it was her turn to blush.
She stomped angrily like a small child and said, "Whatever. Just come meet me at my room after your done with your stupid cat hedge."
He sighed and then said, "Fine, just leave me alone. Maybe I'll go, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll even kiss you again, now that I'm awake. Hahaha!"
"You'd love that wouldn't you!?"
..."What?"
"You bring it up so often that I assume it's all you're thinking about."
"Yeah and you keep bringing up that time in the hot tub. So maybe we should both just shut up about it!"
"Oh don't pretend you don't want to give me "CPR", you nasty pervert, you!"
"OH BELIEVE ME, THAT'S THE LAST THING I WANT FROM YOU!"
"WELL THEN, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"
He sighed with annoyance at her still talking to him and then said, "Gracie. What I want from you is to stop bugging me! If you keep bothering me, I will tell your mom and maybe this time she'd actually punish you!"
"Heh, good luck with that. See you later, "Mr. Grayson"!" she said while giggling her head off as she walked back to the mansion.
As he angrily tried to salvage what was left of the cat, he wondered why she kept teasing him in particular. Some of the other staff even thanked him, due to the fact that she focused more on him than them. For the past week, she'd just been annoying him and no one else.
As it became clear that this cat hedge was the closest it would ever get to looking good, he decided that this would do for today. So he went back to his room to rest up for the next day.
After taking a shower and changing into some other clothes, he sat down to play some video games. He had arranged for some personal items to be brought from his house to here, among them being his game systems. Mrs. Grayson did give him the option to live back at his house and commute to and fro when he needed to work, but the commute was too much of a hassle.
