Love in the House

By an odd chance of reading fate, I happened to read two housekeeper/house owner romances last week, one right after the other: Diane Hernandez's contemporary erotic, The Naked Chef, and Grace Burrowes' historical, Worth: Lord of Reckoning. Workplace romances, particularly when one member of the romantic pair is higher up in the power hierarchy than the other, are particularly difficult to pull off. A writer has to walk a narrow line, creating sexual tension and fizz while avoiding anything that smacks of coercion or harassment. Reading these two books, one of which I found appealing, the other of which I found quite troubling, made me think harder about what works, and doesn't work, in a workplace romance, particularly one in a domestic rather than an office setting.

The first difference that I noticed between Burrowes' historical and Hernandez's contemporary was how each positions her heroine in terms of personal and job power. When we're first introduced to Burrowes' heroine, Jacaranda Wyeth, she has already spent five years in her post as housekeeper on the country estate of solicitor Worth Kettering. She is more than well-regarded there; the butler, cook, groundskeeper, and stablemaster all consult with her, and more often than not are directed by her ideas and wishes. Even though she is the housekeeper, Jacaranada has power at the Kettering estate, especially since its city-dwelling owner hasn't ever visited in all the time she's worked there.

In contrast, we are introduced to chef Reggie Morales at the nadir of her professional life: in the midst of closing down her less-than-prosperous Studio City CA restaurant, what was once a starry dream now an all-too-real failure. Her lawyer, rather than Reggie, has used his contacts to find her a new job, cooking for Tracy Thompson, a high-powered Hollywood agent and his ne'er-do-well famous actor brother Tanner. Oh, and by the way, would she live in their house 24/7 to keep an eye on Tanner? And do the chores the housekeeper he just fired for being an illegal immigrant used to do, Tracy asks? Reggie's a chef—"I really don't want to clean toilets and do laundry. I have a bachelor's in dietetics," she protests (Kindle LOC 150)—but ends up capitulating to Tracy and apologizing for her touchiness: "I can clean and do laundry. It's not a big deal, I'm just overly sensitive today" (164). Unlike Jacaranda, Reggie is positioned in a subservient position, both professionally and personally. That Reggie is Latina, and her employer is white, only complicates the power dynamics of this employee/employer relationship.

Both Worth and Tracy are attracted to their employees, and push their housekeepers to engage in amorous relations with them, even after both women say no. Why, then, did one protagonist's actions seem more palatable than the other's? I think it has to do with the point of view through which each author chooses to tell her story. Hernandez uses the first person, with the entire story told from Reggie's POV, while Burrowes uses the third person, switching back and forth between Jacaranda and Worth, the book's male lead. In Worth, we are allowed inside Worth's head, and are reassured by his thoughts about Jacaranda. He's attracted to her, yes, even wants to make her his mistress. But he expresses no desire to harm her, to force her to succumb to his sexual advances. Nor does he ever consider threatening her job to persuade her to consent. The switching point of view acts as reassurance against the doubts Worth's actions in pursuing Jacaranda, in teasing and flirting even after Jacaranda tells him no, might have raised if we had only seen them through her eyes.

Reggie's first-person narration offers us no such reassurance. In a scene where Reggie returns from her high-school reunion with her escort, Tanner, older brother Tracy expresses his jealousy through actions, actions that we see only through Reggie's eyes: "He forced me into the casita and shut the door" (1059); "I tried to push him away, but he wouldn't budge"(1069); "he captured my head in his hands and pushed me up against the door" (1069); "he found it effortless to remove my clothes" (1069). Where is the line here between forceful seduction and assault? Ultimately, Reggie welcomes Tracy's advances in this scene, but in its opening moments, without knowing Tracy's thoughts or intentions, it was difficult for me to feel entirely comfortable that Tracy understands the line between sexy forcefulness and just plain force.

Both Jacaranda and Reggie say "no" at different times to the seductions of their would-be partners. Even though he wants to have sex with her, Worth reassures Jacaranda on several occasions that he respects a woman's right to choose the degree of sexual intimacy with which she is comfortable: "I do not paw women, not any women, ever," he tells her when she upbraids (mistakenly) him for consorting with opera dancers" (page 86). Later, even though they are sleeping in the same bed (but without having sex), Worth reassures her: "I will never cross the lines you draw for us.... I'll push, I'll tease, I'll negotiate, and I'll dare, but you hold the reins, Jacaranda. You will always hold the reins" (220). Jacaranda knows this not only because of his words, but because of his actions: "He had the knack of asking permission with his mouth, of inviting with his tongue, and assuring with his big body" (91). Worth and Jacaranda discuss consent, not just once but at different points over the course of their relationship. And consent must be given by both partners in order for the taint of harassment or coercion to be avoided.

Consent is never a topic of discussion between Reggie and Tracy, only a demand. "I'm waiting, Reggie. Tell me what I need to hear," Tracy demands before the first time they have sex. But "I didn't have the strength to say no to the beautiful man. But I couldn't look at him, either" (1079). Tracy takes Reggie's sexual arousal as permission to forge further down the sexual path; only on the verge of penis entering vagina does Reggie finally grant overt consent: "I want to be inside you," says Tracy; "Yes, inside," Reggie answers (1088). Later, their sexual relationship edges in to BDSM territory, but without any talk of safe words or boundaries that we've grown accustomed to seeing in many erotic romances that include BDSM. Tracy spanks Reggie as punishment for being too bodily close to Tanner, not as part of a consensual game of pain. Reggie finds this a sexual turn-on, but it seems clear that Tracy was not doing it for that reason: "he groaned, surprised by my arousal," Reggie notes, after the slapping stops (1523).

How each writer constructs the relationship block—what keeps the lovers apart—also influenced my responses to each book. In Worth, Jacaranda is in some ways only masquerading as a housekeeper, and fears her lies of omission about her true family background make her unworthy (even as the reader realizes that it makes her only too worthy). Jacaranda thus has more social capital than her initial position as employee would suggest. Jacaranda's other reason for refusing Worth's offer to become his mistress, and later, to become his wife, is a gendered one—she feels a duty to that family she left behind. When her brothers, left in the lurch by a stepmother who has remarried, come and demand she return to the family abode, Jacaranda agrees. And again, Worth acknowledges that it is her decision, not his, to make. Luckily, though, with her competent managing ways, she has her birth family back in order in less than a chapter. Feminine duty to family is not to be shrugged off, the novel insists, but neither should it come second to a woman's happiness: "it is time I put my own house in order," Jacaranda informs her eldest brother when she's confident that all is on an even keel (349).

Reggie and Tracy's contretemps also stems from a family difficulty. When he hired her, Tracy had asked Reggie to try and find out why his brother Tanner was acting out. Reggie discovers Tanner's secret, but at Tanner's request, promises to keep the truth from Tracy. Eventually, Tanner's secret is outed, leaving Tracy more than a little enraged at both his brother and his lover (you have to read the book to find out why). In some of the most vile, sexist breakup language it's ever been my displeasure to read, Tracy reams Reggie out and then dumps her. That Tracy eventually repents, grovels, sneaks behind her back to contact her family members, and ultimately convinces Reggie to get back together seems less cause for celebration than for dismay, at least to this reader.

A heroine's degree of power; a narrative that gives a hero's POV, not just a heroine's; discussions between protagonists about consent; and a relationship block that can be resolved through mutual understanding rather than through manipulation and melodramatic plotting—these are the elements that made the troubling aspects of domestic workplace romance palatable in Burrowes' book, but deeply problematic in Hernandez's.

Office Romance, Feminist-style: Regina Hart's FAST BREAK

The boss/secretary romance has long been a staple of the category romance. In such books, a plot event leads the rich and powerful alpha male boss, formerly oblivious to the longstanding crush harbored by his hardworking female underling, to suddenly see the beauty behind the brains that have kept his office running at optimum speed. Inevitably, true love follows.  U.S. Department of Labor statistics report nearly 4 million Americans are employed as Secretaries or Administrative Assistants in the United States; I'm guessing that a large majority of them are women. So it's hardly surprising to discover that the boss/secretary romance continues to flourish, even in our post-feminist age. A woman dating her boss recasts the prince-marrying-the-commoner Cinderella fairy tale in modern dress, the tale of marrying up clothed not in ball gown and glass slippers, but in power suit and pumps.

What happens, though, when the gender roles are inverted, the boss cast as a woman, the underling as a man? Rather than satisfying fantasies of upward mobility, stories such as Regina Hart's Fast Break, the first title in her Brooklyn Monarchs basketball series, instead explore the line between professional and personal identities, the power associated with gender roles, and the ability of couples to forge new ground rules when the old givens about work and and home are no longer in play.

Jaclyn Jones, famed as the WNBA's "Lady Assassin," has just returned from grieving the death of her grandfather to take a full-time role as General Manager of the Brooklyn Monarchs, the New York City pro basketball team she's inherited from him. She's not happy with the decisions the teams' two other co-owners have been making her in absence, particularly their decision to hire an inexperienced new coach. DeMarcus Guinn may have won NBA championships as a player, but nothing about him suggests that he knows how to transform a losing team into a winning one. In the opening scene of the novel, Jaclyn blazes into the former NBA star like a house afire, dissing his coaching ability and demanding his resignation. But even while he keeps his temper, DeMarcus refuses to give this cantankerous woman what she wants.

It's not Jaclyn's attraction to DeMarcus that leads her to change her mind about him. It's hearing that he's tendered his resignation to her partner, Gerald Bimm, after Gerald informed him he hired him to lose. A losing season will guarantee that the owners of the arena where the team plays will opt out of their contract with the Monarchs, freeing the team to move to another city. Realizing that DeMarcus wasn't in on Gerald's plan, Jaclyn urges him to come back, drawing on their shared love of their home city, Brooklyn, and the team's longstanding links to the community. He agrees, but that doesn't end the conflicts between them.

The two have very different ideas about how to run a team. Jaclyn believes a coach needs to get to know his players personally, so he can "make the best match of their personal ticks against [their] opponents" (112). DeMarcus has no intention of playing shrink to any of his players—"I'm a coach, not a priest" (113)—and suggests it's discipline, not touchy-feely stuff, that will bring the team out of its losing slump. Since DeMarcus is the coach, Jaclyn cedes his right to run the team his way, although over the course of the season, she challenges DeMarcus several times to reconsider his previous assumptions.

DeMarcus has a more difficult time allowing Jaclyn to make her own big decisions, particularly after the two add a romantic relationship to the professional one they already have. The arena's owners put up the arena for sale, and as no new owner is likely to want to keep the Monarchs as a tenant, Jackie knows she has to put up the money to purchase the arena herself. DeMarcus wants to offer his financial help, even knowing that the league would likely not approve a coach holding even partial ownership of a team's playing field. He also doesn't want to tell her about players disrespecting her or him because of their personal relationship. But she finds out anyway, and tells him never to keep information relevant to her job from her: "I need to know everything that involves this team, whether it's the condition of the training facilities or tension between players and coaches. As head coach, I expect you to tell me. Immediately. I don't want to hear about it from the media" (192). DeMarcus's reading of her words shows that he recognizes that, as her boss, she has every right to make such a demand: "She wasn't flexing her authority or exuding her charm. It was a matter-of-fact statement that nevertheless didn't leave room for negotiation. 'You're right. I'm sorry.'" (192).

But DeMarcus's protective instincts are hard to rein in, particularly when Gerald Bimm, the other team owner, threatens him: unless DeMarcus starts losing, Gerald will leak rumors to the press that DeMarcus is a secret drug user. Jaclyn has too much on her plate, Marc reasons; she doesn't need to cope with this mess on top of everything else. He can protect her from Gerald by handling it on his own.

Of course, Marc's decision blows up in his face, and he and Jackie are left struggling to deal with the aftermath of not living up to his promise to Jackie. What finally brings them back together is more symbolic than a model of an egalitarian relationship worked out in specific detail, but their agreement to merge the personal and the professional depends upon their recognition that love will not magically make their disagreements in their roles as owner and coach disappear. It will take continued work, and respect for each other's areas of expertise, to forge a relationship that allows each both the authority and the autonomy both need in order to find fulfillment, not only in their careers, but also in their personal lives.

What other romances have you read that invert the typically-gendered boss/employee dynamic? Do they do so to explore gender roles and the gendered dynamics of power? Or do they end up re-inscribing traditional gender patterns?


Photo credits:
I love my secretary/boss mugs: Dreamstime

Regina Hart

Fast Break

Book #1 in

The Brooklyn Monarchs series

Dafina, 2011