by Shae Banks
Thinking I’d caught movement by the lounge window, I turned and headed for home. I was already running late for lunch with my parents and had god knows how many messages to catch up on.
My heart sank. I still had Johnathan to deal with. He would hound me, I knew it, but I meant what I’d said. I was done waiting. He wasn’t leaving his wife. He didn’t want me. He just wanted someone to fuck.
Well, it wouldn’t be me. Not anymore.
With a week left of the year, I was making a change. I was ready for something more. I was worth more.
That’s what I kept telling myself as I made my way home. I walked fast, knowing I’d have to change and get to my parents’ house quickly. I didn’t expect to see his car in the space belonging to my flat.
Not on Boxing Day.
That was a family day, not a make-up with the bit on the side day. And I wasn’t making up.
He was leaning against the door when I stepped into the lobby with a remorseful look on his face.
“Save your breath, I’m not interested,” I said before he could utter a word.
I looked him up and down, closing the external door. He was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved tee. I hadn’t seen him in anything other than a work suit for months, a sign of how little time he spent with me at weekends or in the evenings. That had stopped by spring.
He didn’t say anything.
“I suppose I should be grateful you haven’t let yourself in,” I said, selecting my door key and sliding it into the lock.
He stepped back. “Bekah, please.”
“Please, what? Please, let you keep fucking me on Fridays when your wife has turned you down all week? Please, forgive you for fucking strangling me? Please, let me come in and talk myself out of this? Please, let me prove I’m not lying to your face every time I open my mouth? One of those, or have I missed something?”
He glanced to the flat opposite. “Not here, Be—”
“Piss off, Jonathan,” I said, turning the key and opening my door.
I stepped inside and turned to close it behind me, but he stuck his foot in the way. “Bekah. Let me in.”
“No.”
I pushed, trying to close it. He pushed back.
“Don’t do this, Bex. Let me in, let’s sort this out.”
Sighing, I let it go and turned away, leaving him to please himself. Of course, he followed, slamming the door behind him. “Where have you been? I was worried.”
“That’s none of your damn business,” I snapped, dumping my bag on the sofa and shrugging out of my coat. “A friend put me up if you must know.”
“Female?”
“No.”
His face slackened.
“We can both spend the night in other people’s beds, Johnathan.”
I didn’t know where that was coming from, but I didn’t correct myself. No. He could feel it for a change. Bastard.
“I can forgive you if you can forgive me my mistakes,” he said quietly, reaching out a hand to touch my face.
I stepped back. “I don’t need your forgiveness. I didn’t do anything wrong. You’re the married man having the affair.”
The anger was back. I recognised it, being sober. That look of cold fury in his eyes. “Be careful...”
I screwed up my face. “Or what? I don’t fucking want you, Johnathan. I’m done with this. We’re finished. So, get your arse out of my flat and go back home to your fucking wife. Poor bitch has no fucking idea what she married, has she?”
“My flat.”
I was dumbfounded. I’d forgotten that little detail.
He was my landlord. That was his talking point when he first charmed me into bed. He recognised me, and once it became a regular thing, he charged a fraction of the rent because I was his... I felt sick. I could feel it rising in my throat. “You wouldn’t.”
He cocked his head. “Wouldn’t I?”
I shook my head.
He stepped closer, cupping my cheek in his hand.
Swallowing hard I met his gaze as he bent to kiss me. “I knew you’d see it my way.”
Chapter Four
Callum called early on the thirty first. One of the waiting staff had called in sick and he practically begged me to help. Not really wanting to spend the night in alone, I accepted.
I arrived at the hotel early, and Callum was back to his usual self.
After my shift on Christmas Day, he’d shown a side to himself none of us had ever seen, offering me a room upstairs so I didn’t have to walk home in the pouring rain in the middle of the night and even seeing me out the next morning.
The first thing he did when I walked into the kitchen was look me over from head to toe. His eyes focused on my arms.
“I’d rather you didn’t wear that cardigan, Bekah.”
I tugged at the cuffs. “I’m cold.”
“Bare below the elbow, you know I don’t push too many rules, but this is a big one. Get it off and help Lucy with the tables. We had a last-minute change and table six is now a party of eight.”
“Yes, Mr. Lowell,” I said, trying not to sigh and turned back to the staff room.
He didn’t look up from what he was doing to check as I walked through the kitchen and out to the restaurant.
“Oh, thank god you’re here,” Lucy said as I arrived in the dining room. She was struggling to add a table to the arrangement, adding four more seats.
I took the other end of the table she was shuffling around and asked, “Why? Where’s Danny?”
“Running late. I suspect a killer hangover. Chef is on one, Lee is quiet. I think tonight is going to be hard work.”
I smiled. “They’re all hard work. Let’s make the best of it, shall we?”
She smiled back and nodded her head, and we set to work setting the table.
The first guests arrived at six thirty, and by eight the restaurant was full. There were supposed to be twenty-five covers, but with the last-minute amendment to table six we had twenty-nine. The additional diners were my responsibility, and they arrived last.
“Good evening Mr. Grantham. Mrs. Grantham. Can I take your coats?” I asked, greeting them at their table.
The Grantham’s were regular diners and knew me by name. He was a willowy man, almost sixty with a generous smile and receding hairline. His wife was easily fifteen years his junior. She was petite with mid length brown hair she kept in a neat French braid, and they brought their daughter. She entered the room hand in hand with a lad about her age. He was tall, looked as though he frequented the rugby pitch, and looked vaguely familiar.
“Thank you, Rebecca,” Mrs. Grantham said, handing me her coat.
Okay, almost by name. It was a mistake I was used to and had given up correcting people long ago.
“You know Sophie. And our guests,” Mr. Grantham said, handing me his coat and gesturing to their daughter. It was so long it was an effort to keep hold of it while I turned to welcome the additional members of his party. “Johnathan and Sharon Pierce and their children. Sophie insisted she bring in the new year with her boyfriend. It was good of Callum to extend our booking on such short notice.”
My head emptied. Johnathan and his entire family? He knew I was working tonight. Did he know about the booking while he was fucking me the night before? Pulling myself together, I tried to remember what Mr. Lowell had said.
No, he hadn’t known. It was a last-minute amendment. He wouldn’t put me and his wife together in a room unless he had to.
I smiled and nodded, taking the coats of the couple who had entered the room.
Johnathan didn’t make eye contact with me, dumping his coat in my outstretched arms and turning to pull out a chair for his wife, kissing her cheek as she sat down. Their younger children followed. A boy of around nine, and a girl I guessed to be in her early teens, but it was difficult to tell with her perfectly applied makeup and carefully styled hair.
“If you would like to get comfortable Danny will be right along with the wine list and to take yo
ur drinks orders,” I said, turning to take the coats to the cloakroom.
“Thank you, Rebecca,” Mr. Grantham said as they took their seats.
It was an effort not to run from the room but I managed, my stomach churning with anxiety and tears pricking my eyes.
It was too late to change tables with Lucy, she’d already introduced herself to the guests she was looking after. The only thing Mr. Lowell insisted on was a seamless guest experience. I was stuck with them all evening.
I stayed in the cloakroom for a couple of minutes steadying my rattling nerves. I considered running out the front door as I went back into the restaurant, but that would only lose me my job and that wasn’t an option. If I wanted to be free of Johnathan, I had to pay my full rent with an increase, I suspected. I couldn’t do that with what I earned at the gas station.
Breaking it off with Johnathan hadn’t gone well.
It hadn’t happened at all. He had visited me twice since I’d told him to leave, even going so far as to sleep over the previous night.
I hadn’t wanted him to.
He ignored me and fucked me anyway. He wasn’t gentle.
He made me feel dirty. Like his personal whore. I didn’t have a choice anymore.
I tried to pretend nothing had happened, but it wasn’t the same. He wasn’t the same. I knew he would hurt me if I challenged him. Everything had changed.
I needed to get out, and to do that I needed my job.
Entering the room, I took a left and went straight into the kitchen. It was almost time for service and the starter would have to go out quickly.
The door swung shut behind me, and I glanced over to Lee, the sous-chef.
“All okay?”
He nodded as Callum said, “Get these out quickly. Start with the tables furthest back and work in. The broth is very hot, so watch your hands. Two at a time. No balancing acts.”
Lucy took the first two plates, and I moved to take the next when Callum grabbed my wrist. “What’s this?”
I looked down at the bruising and shrugged. “Caught myself on a doorframe. It’s fine. No sprains or anything.”
Something in his eyes suggested he knew I was lying, but he wasn’t likely to press the issue in the middle of service. I took my two plates and hurried out of the kitchen.
Four tables later I was serving table six. As usual I served the women first, starting with Mrs. Grantham and turning to serve Mrs. Pierce.
With shaking hands, I lowered the plate, just as she raised her hand in gesture while talking to Johnathan.
It’s happened in slow motion, and there was nothing I could do to stop the hot broth spilling down her front.
She shrieked, standing up and pulling the fabric of her dress away from her skin, her chair toppling over. “You stupid little—”
Mortified, I put down the plate and said, “I’m so sorry. Let me—”
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped as I took the white towel from the apron at my waist and tried to clean some of the soup from her front. “Clumsy, useless cretin. This is what happens when you pay peanuts. Bloody monkeys.”
Her voice was getting louder, and my heart was beating faster as I fought my rising panic and tried to help.
I hadn’t realised that chef was present until his voice came low in my ear. “Kitchen.”
I froze. Chef leaving the kitchen meant I was in trouble.
“I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Pierce,” he said, taking me by the arm. “Lucy will bring you a fresh towel and help you clear this up. Danny, a fresh plate. Bekah, come with me, please.”
That was when I glanced at Johnathan. He looked furious, but not at what I’d done. He was staring at Callum’s hand where it held my arm, his jaw clenched.
“I don’t want towels,” Mrs. Pierce hissed. “This dress is worth more than she makes in a month. I want her—”
“That’s enough, Sharon. It was an accident,” Johnathan said, his voice low. “Sit down and stop fussing.”
Lucy arrived with a fresh towel, Danny with a fresh plate of broth, as Mr. Lowell turned to Mr. Grantham and said, “I’m sorry about this, Henry.”
While he was busy apologising on my behalf, I took a step back. He released my arm, and I retreated to the kitchen with tears welling in my eyes.
Going directly over to the hand basin where we washed our hands, I bowed my head and took a deep breath.
“Fucking hell, Bekah.”
I would have flinched away if I had anywhere to go. But not from reprimand. It was the disappointment in his voice I wanted to escape.
“She knocked the plate. I’m sorry. I couldn’t catch it, there wasn’t anything I could do to stop it, and she lost it. Of course, she lost it, that dress is worth a fortune and the soup was boiling. I could have done her some real harm, but she knocked it and—”
“Take five and get yourself together,” he said in a calm, almost soothing voice. “I’ll deal with the mess out there while you do.”
“But the next course…”
“I’ll worry about that. Get some water and clear your head.”
I turned to look at him, to thank him, but he was already walking away.
The rest of the evening passed without incident, although Johnathan kept scowling at me while his wife refused to look at me at all.
We’d cleaned up, and I was on my way out of the staff door when Callum came into the back hall. “Can I have a word?”
My stomach felt heavy. I was exhausted and just wanted to go home and cry, but I was due a reprimand, and he seemed to want it out of the way sooner rather than later.
“Yeah… Umm…”
“The office,” he said, turning and leading the way.
I followed in silence and wasn’t surprised he didn’t hold any doors for me on the way through. When we reached the office, he sat in the large leather chair and waited while I closed the door and dropped my bag at my feet. “Mr. Lowell, I’m sorry. I made a mistake.”
“I spoke to Mrs. Pierce. She claims you were too busy staring at her husband to see you were tilting the plate.”
I looked down at the desk, fixing my eyes on the edge of the top. It was a beautiful piece of furniture, obviously antique like everything else in the building.
“Look at me when I’m speaking to you, Bekah.”
“I…” I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t been reprimanded before in either of my two jobs and had no idea how to conduct myself.
I looked up and met his gaze.
“Better.”
He was sitting in the chair quite comfortably, watching me. There was something different about his body language, but I didn’t know what it was. In the kitchen, he was fast. Efficient. After the shift on Christmas day he was relaxed and friendly. Now he was something else entirely.
“I’m sorry, Callum, I—”
“Mr. Lowell.”
I wet my lips. “Mr. Lowell. I didn’t mean to—”
“Were you paying Mr. Pierce an unusual amount of attention when you should have been serving his wife?” he asked.
If I didn’t know better, I’d have said he knew exactly what had been going on with Johnathan and I for the last year, but there was no way he could.
“No,” I answered, desperate to look away.
“Are you going to stand there and lie to me, Bekah?”
“No. Sir, I don’t know what happened. My hands were shaking, and I spilled the soup, but it wasn’t deliberate. I’d never…” I didn’t finish what I was saying. The way he was looking at me, his eyes slightly narrowed, head canted to one side, threw me off.
“What happened, Bekah, is you poured soup over Mrs. Pierce,” he said smoothly. “You cost me an entire cover’s takings and could have lost me a loyal customer. Why did you do that?”
“I didn’t… I don’t know what happened.”
“You wouldn’t be hiding something from me, would you?” he asked, his voice no more than a murmur.
Something squirmed in my stomach. I hated ly
ing, but I couldn’t tell him the truth. He’d fire me. I shook my head.
“Nothing at all?”
I lowered my head and closed my eyes. Memories of what I’d been doing for the last year flashed in my head and made me feel even dirtier.
Had Johnathan been bragging?
Did he know?
My immediate thought was fuck him, and fuck Johnathan for talking about me like I was some cheap whore. But he was watching me, waiting for an explanation. Trying not to grit my teeth as I spoke, I said, “It was an accident. My hand was shaking and the soup spilled. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, sir.”
He leaned back in the chair, the sound of the creaking leather sending a trail of tingles over my scalp and met my gaze. He held it, holding me captive for a few long moments, and despite my discomfort I couldn’t look away.
“Are you jealous of Mrs. Pierce, Bekah?”
Was I jealous of the woman my boyfriend of twelve months refused to leave, despite his promises to the contrary? Was I jealous of the woman he went home to after fucking me on a weekly basis? Was it any of his damn business?
“Go fuck yourself.” It was out of my mouth before I had a chance to think about it. The second it was said, I gasped and looked at him wide-eyed. “I’m sorry Mr. Lowell, I—”
He looked furious but said and did nothing for a few seconds. I thought I was going to vomit, the tension in the room building, when he finally said, “Are you aware of the severity of your actions tonight?”
I took a step back from the desk. Without that job, I couldn’t make the rent. I’d be forced to live in the house my sister’s husband assaulted me in. I could never sleep in that room again. I’d made sure he wouldn’t do it again, made it safe for my younger sister by telling them all what he’d done. It had been worth it, but I couldn’t go back. My visits were short and infrequent. I managed days like Boxing Day because they wouldn’t be there.
He didn’t say anything for a few moments, his eyes leaving my face and travelling to my wrists covered by my coat.