“So, I’m senior management now it suits you, am I? I thought I was a nobody, that I’d best fuck off back to fucking Italy.”
“Flight’s still booked.” He scowled at me. “If you stay here, Faye, you won’t be staying to make a fucking twat out of me. You want to fuck the clientele, you do it out of hours. I don’t want to see a shitty display like that again in this club, are we fucking clear?”
I caught the flash in his eyes, a fraction of a heartbeat and it was gone. Jealousy. It twisted around my stomach, hit me hard between my bruised thighs. “You don’t want me to fuck them? Fine. I won’t fuck them. Just as long as I can stay.”
He tried to hide the relief, but I saw it anyway. “Go home, wherever that even is, get cleaned up. I’ll see you in the morning, unless by some miracle of God you’ve thought better of it and flown back to Italy.”
“And what then? We work out our roles like adults?”
“Don’t fucking push your luck, Faye. I’ve still a mind to send you packing, regardless of what any lawyers have to say about it.”
I didn’t have energy left to argue with him.
I let him call me a taxi, watched him write the hotel address down on his notepad and lock it away in his drawer. His eyes were shifty once he caught me staring. Guilty. He locked the drawer up tight and slipped the key in his pocket. Top right. A drawer full of secrets, no doubt.
He could keep them there. I had enough of my own.
***
Andy
The clock struck eleven and there was no sign of her. Nerves twitched around my gut. Maybe she’d taken the bait and flown back to Italy. I should have felt relief, but all I felt was dread.
She’d always been intoxicating. Like alcohol fumes, in your bloodstream before you even knew about it.
When she finally burst into my office at quarter past, it was in a cloud of elaborate hand gestures and expensive perfume. Overslept, it was a long day yesterday, Andy, a really long day.
I made sure she didn’t sense my relief, burying it under a veil of hostility.
“Not exactly the best start, Faye. If you insist on being here you could at least show up on time.”
I expected more excuse and bluster, but she dropped into the chair opposite without argument. “Sorry. It won’t happen again.”
“Cleaners get in at nine sharp on the weekends. Someone has to be here to open up.”
“We can take it in turns,” she said. “Work out a rota.”
I slid a timetable across the desk. “I’ve already worked out a rota.”
I watched her lips purse as she scanned the chart. “What’s this?”
“The bar shifts. You can shadow Topaz until you learn the ropes.”
“You want me on bar? Seriously?” Her eyes were challenging but not hostile. I liked this contrite, amiable Faye.
I kept my tone clipped. “You want in, you work the bar.”
“If that’s how you insist on playing it.”
“I’m not playing.”
“Neither am I.”
The air crackled with tension. Her dark eyes were fiery under sculpted brows, the dark cascade of her hair pulled tight into a bun. It suited her, showed off the classic angles of her cheekbones. She should have been born in the 40s, in the era of black and white Hollywood movies. She’d have made a fucking fortune.
Her eyes returned to the rota. “So, I’m on bar tonight. What can I do in the meantime?”
I leant back in my chair, tapped my pen against the desk. “Insurance forms. Cleaning. Restocking the bar.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not planning on making this easy, are you? How much longer are you going to keep this up?”
“As long as it takes for you to prove your value to this club. Maybe a little while longer. Depends on my mood, Faye, I could keep this up forever.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” She smiled, and for that one moment it was genuine, without the barbs. “Can’t you at least show me around the place in daylight? I haven’t had a decent tour yet.”
“Go exploring, knock yourself out.”
“I’d rather you showed me,” she said. “Please. If you can spare me the time.”
I made a mountain out of her request, tapping away at my laptop like I hadn’t already done everything on my to do list. “Five fucking minutes. Whistle stop tour. Like you don’t know the place already, it hasn’t changed that much, Faye. The rooms are still the rooms, same as they always were.”
“That’s not what I heard.” The glint in her eye gave me shivers up my spine. “I heard you installed a wet room.”
***
I showed Faye the boring shit first, expecting her to lose patience and call it quits, but she did an impeccable job of feigning interest. I showed her the pumps, and the casks, and the chiller settings. I showed her the stash of drinks signs, and cleaning supplies.