Maid for the Rock Star(29)

The pool tapered to a trail that led back into the living area, so Audra followed it. Along the floor she couldn't be sure if it was blood or not, but when the meandering line crept up the wall, she doubted it. Blood wasn't that thick or that red. This looked more like ketchup.

The trail climbed up to the ceiling, and Audra couldn't look away as she followed it to its inevitable end. Audra let rip with every swear word she knew until she ran out of breath, then sucked in more air to repeat them.

"Go on, read it," Jay slurred. He lifted a beer to his lips and flashed a lazy grin.

Audra squinted at the ketchup letters smeared across the ceiling.

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and...what's that word?" Audra pointed at spot where the ketchup splatter obscured whatever the drunken dickhead had tried to spell out on the ceiling.

Jay looked irritated. "Women. It's women. Shit, fine. I'll read it to you." He cleared his throat dramatically.

"All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts..."

He held out his arm, the one with words tattooed down it. "It explains everything."

Audra repeated his words, tracing first the ketchup letters on the ceiling that continued down the wall until the sauce had run out, judging by the empty bottle on the floor. Jay was a bloody artist, all right – he'd dragged the lounge room rug up to the wall for the final, brown lettered lines, probably because the white weave made them stand out better than the terracotta floor tiles. Beside the last word was the empty fondue pot. Chocolate. The arsehole had smothered the rug in chocolate just to spite her.

Breathe, she told herself. Her head was pounding with fury and not pain, now, her heartbeat hammering in her ears. After Penny, she was going to demolish this dickhead.

"Why in God's name did you trash the place?"

"To get your attention. I missed you. It worked, too." He blew her a kiss and drained his beer.

"You wrote Shakespeare on the ceiling with ketchup because you missed me? Haven't you heard of giving a girl chocolates? Oh wait – yes, you have. When you ran out of ketchup, you finished the quote in chocolate on the carpet. What kind of crazy man does that?" Audra felt tears building, but she blinked them away. He didn't deserve to see her cry.

"The kind you kept waiting all day and half the night to see you. If you'd come earlier, I'd have poured you champagne instead of smashing the bottle. As for the chocolate..." He winked.

She was going to kill him if he didn't get out of here now. She ripped off her ID. "Take this. It'll get you into the villa next door. You can't stay here. It's not fit for human habitation. Go. Take it and go!" She threw the wristband at Jay and he caught it. Maybe he wasn't as drunk as he looked, though that only made this worse. If he'd done this sober... "I'll get you fresh towels in a moment, once I'm done assessing the damage here."

Jay rose and sauntered out of the house.

Audra waited until she couldn't hear his footsteps any more, then counted to ten. On eight, she dropped to her knees on the narrow, unsoiled section of the rug and burst into tears. Had Penny put him up to this? One final blow to make her life hell?

"Nope. You're coming with me."

Before Audra could protest, Jay lifted her up, slung her over his shoulder in a fireman's lift and carried her out of the villa.





FORTY-EIGHT



Audra wanted to shout at him, but all the blood rushing to her head as he held her partially upside down brought back her headache with a vengeance. She bit down hard on her lip to stop herself from screaming. Or maybe she should, not that anyone would hear her out here. Jay had threatened her with sexual assault before – who knew if he'd actually do it. As soon as he set her down, she'd bolt, faster than this drunken idiot could run, and she'd vanish into the dark before he could follow her. Just as soon as the world stopped spinning and got its colours back.

She fell on something soft and breathed a sigh of relief, trying to focus on what she knew was Jay's face in front of her.

"Wow, you have a black eye. I've never seen a chick with a black eye. Have you been fighting over me?" He grinned like it was one big joke.

"What?" Audra couldn't remember Penny landing a blow to her face. When had Penny managed that? While she was unconscious? Audra scrambled to her feet and stumbled for the bathroom. Shit. The bruise blooming on her face was going to be spectacular tomorrow. If Penny had laid into her while she'd been unconscious, no wonder Serge had joined in. The girl was so crazy he'd have had to break her arm to stop her, most likely. Shit. What a mess. And all because of Jay. Who'd just appeared in the bathroom doorway.

"It's your fault," Audra snapped, turning on him. "If you hadn't seduced that bitch yesterday and made her suck your dick in front of half the hotel, she wouldn't have lost her job and taken it out on me. You want to know why no one answered your oh-so-urgent call? It's because you fucked, as you so eloquently put it, the maid who was assigned to your villa, and she got fired. Then she tried to bash me to death with the gym equipment, and attacked anyone who came between her and her prey. Most of the senior staff are on the mainland, either in the police station or the hospital emergency department, while I was just left to lie there because somehow no one saw me on the gym floor when they broke up the fight between the psychopath and the personal trainer. So you want to know why I didn't come earlier? It's because your bitch-whore knocked me out and I was unconscious. I could've died. But hey, I'm not some rich rock star, so when someone like me might have a concussion, there's no hospital staff trying to seduce me. There's no police officer standing at my side to protect me. No helicopter on stand-by to take me to a fancy hotel to recuperate. There's no twenty-four-hour, on-call first aid officer watching over me to make sure I'm all right. Or even hand me a couple of paracetamol. Instead, I get paged to some arsehole's house, where he's decided to emulate Pro Hart and smear the contents of his fridge all over the ceiling so he can make fun of me while he watches me clean up the mess he's made. Well, fuck you, Jay Felix. You may be a rock star, but you're a failure as a human being."

With considerable satisfaction, Audra noted that she'd shocked Jay into silence. Well, that was a first.

"Now get out of my way." She elbowed her way past him.

"Where are you going?"

Audra didn't turn around. "To clean up the arsehole's house. If I'm lucky, I might've finished dealing with half the mess you've made by lunchtime tomorrow."

His strong arms caught her round the waist. "No, you're not."

Audra brought her foot up and kicked behind her. She heard a grunt and he let go. "I'd rather clean chocolate off the carpet than stay here and get raped by you, caveman."

"Audra, wait. Please. I'm not thinking. Too much to drink. I shouldn't've..."

"Fuck you, Jay." She kept walking, trotting up the stairs to Maxima as if every step didn't make her head pound. She lifted her arm to scan her ID, but nothing happened. Her wrist was bare.

Jay had her ID. Gritting her teeth, Audra returned to Pinctada, where she had to knock on the door. "Give it back!" she shouted.

The door slid open. "It's inside."

Of course it was. "So go get it for me."

"No." He sounded sad. "You're injured, Audra. You said it yourself. Someone should be taking care of you. I can't let you clean that house."

"You think I'd let you touch me? Watch me while I sleep?" she demanded. "I told you already, I'd rather – "

"Clean than get raped. Yeah, me, too. And everyone else in the world, I imagine." To his credit, he didn't crack a smile. "I bought the hotel, Audra. The owners accepted my offer this morning. I wanted you to share a bottle of champagne with me to celebrate. And I wanted to explain what you saw yesterday. It's not what you think."

Audra lowered her voice. "What I saw yesterday made me physically sick. You called her a prostitute the day before when you saw her giving the chef a blowjob, then yesterday you were happily thrusting down her throat. Like you keep saying, you're a rock star and that's what rock stars do. And like I keep saying, there are better men than rock stars."

"She begged me for it. Said she could give me the best blowjob I'd ever had and that you'd sent her over to give it to me. Bloody awful is what it was. Then when I saw you..." He swallowed. "My first thought was to stop, but you looked like you didn't care. She'd said you'd sent her and you said to keep going...so then I wanted to make sure you knew I appreciated your gift and I..."

Audra held up her hands. "Stop. Seriously, stop. Seeing it was bad enough. I don't want to hear all the gory details. Just give me my ID."

He shook his head. "I can't. It'd be criminal negligence if I let an injured staff member keep working. Not after you took such good care of me, Audra. Let me return the favour. And I promise...I promise to keep my pants on, unless you say otherwise."

The pounding in her head was starting to leach colour out of her vision. Audra rubbed her temples, trying to dislodge the pain. "In your dreams, Jay."

"Oh, you'd love my dreams. But not tonight, I think." He moved aside to allow her to slip past him into the house. "Pick a bedroom. Unless you want a drink first? I think I saw some booze in this fridge. Ice for that shiner, too."