Going Up

by A. E. Radley

  A.E. Radley had no desire to be a writer but accidentally turned into an award-winning, best-selling author.

  She has recently given up her marketing career and position as Managing Director in order to make stuff up for a living instead. She claims the similarities are startling.

  She describes herself as a Wife. Traveller. Tea Drinker. Biscuit Eater. Animal Lover. Master Pragmatist. Annoying Procrastinator. Theme Park Fan. Movie Buff.

  Connect with A.E. Radley

  www.aeradley.com

  Also by A.E. Radley

  Bring Holly Home

  She's lost everything. Can one woman bring her home?

  Leading fashion magazine editor Victoria Hastings always thought that her trusted assistant quit her job and abandoned her in Paris.

  A year later, she discovers that Holly Carter was injured in an accident. Brain trauma led to amnesia and Holly cannot remember anything about her life.

  Guilt causes Victoria to bring Holly home and into her life to aid her in recovery. But when guilt turns into something else, what will she do?

  Bring Holly Home | Preview

  By A.E. Radley

  Louise took a deep breath and quickly started to recite the schedule to her boss.

  “So, as you know, the gala is tonight. The table plan is in your room for final approval as you requested. Your car arrives tomorrow at ten o'clock to take you to Charles de Gaulle. I'll be checking out of the hotel earlier to get the Guerlain samples that you requested for your sister, so I'll meet you at the airport at quarter to eleven.”

  Louise knew this was an exercise in futility. Her boss knew the schedule back to front, and yet she felt the urgent need to fill the awkward silence that permeated the back of the limousine. She subtly turned her wrist in her lap to look at her watch.

  “Hm,” Victoria murmured.

  Louise looked up to see if her boss would say anything else.

  Victoria continued to look over the top of her glasses at the passing Parisian scenery.

  Louise debated if she should say something else. Maybe give another rundown on the first-class menu on offer on-board the flight from Paris to New York. Maybe attempt to get a tiny amount of kudos for having changed the red meat option from lamb for the entire cabin, simply because Victoria couldn’t abide the smell of lamb.

  Not that Victoria would ever acknowledge any of the backbreaking, soul-destroying work that Louise did on a daily basis for the impossible-to-please woman. But she lived in hope that a nugget of gratitude would work its way into Victoria’s conscience.

  Maybe enough to promote her from her role of assistant. Being an assistant to Victoria Hastings was certainly prestigious. Sadly, it didn’t pay the therapy bills that Louise would need if she managed to survive the role.

  Louise’s mobile phone rang, and she answered immediately. “Yes?”

  It was that awful French man from the gazette again. Blathering on about something or other and making little sense.

  “Look, I’ve told you before, Victoria will not be doing any interviews. If you wanted to speak to her then you should have called before she arrived in Paris for Fashion Week. Do you have any idea how busy she is? Of course you don’t.”

  The man continued talking hurriedly. Louise just shook her head, not even bothering to listen to what he was saying. She couldn’t believe the audacity of the man. Thinking that Victoria Hastings of all people would be able to drop everything and speak to some nobody. Did he have any idea who she was?

  “Absolutely not, and don’t call this number again!”

  Louise huffed, hung up the phone, and tossed it into her bag.

  “Damn French,” she mumbled under her breath.

  “Problem?”

  Louise looked up and realised that Victoria had turned to glance at her. Louise took pride in her appearance, checking her reflection at least every twenty minutes to ensure she was looking her best. But the second Victoria looked at her, she felt certain that she must appear a wreck.

  Victoria was the kind of woman who always looked perfect. She must have had a long conversation with Mother Nature in which she put her foot down and insisted she wasn’t going to age another minute. And so, forty-seven-year-old Victoria Hastings looked like a perfectly turned-out woman in her mid-thirties. Not a hair was out of place in her fashionable blonde bob. Her makeup was light but always on point, just enough to rouge her cheeks, plump her lips, and accentuate her steely green eyes. Nothing less could be expected of the editor of one of the world’s leading fashion magazines.

  Louise realised that she had been silent for too long. Her panic at potentially not looking her best under Victoria’s frosty glare had thrown her.

  “Um. No, no problem, Victoria. Just a journalist, some awful little French man. You know what journalists are like. I don’t even know why I bother sending out press guidelines. He has been calling me here and Claudia back in New York every single day… I… He…” Louise swallowed nervously.

  She’d said too much, she’d bothered Victoria with details that were of no interest to her.

  Victoria simply stared at her in silence. Slowly, she rolled her eyes. Louise was sure that Victoria was internally questioning the incompetence she was surrounded by. She usually did. Now it was just a matter of whether Victoria would deliver a softly spoken, but scathing, remark, or if she would ignore her. Louise held her breath while she waited for judgement to be passed.

  After a few more frosty seconds, Victoria turned and looked out of the car window again. The conversation was over.

  Louise released the breath she had been holding. Silently.

  Paris Fashion Week was everything she’d hoped it would be. The shows, the designers, the clothes, the city. But now it was drawing to a close. Three months of doing nothing but planning Victoria’s schedule had paid off. It had been a success. Not that anyone would know it from Victoria’s expression.

  From the moment they had landed in Paris, her boss has been quiet and detached. More so than usual. At the best of times, no one would ever accuse Victoria of being friendly or talkative. In fact, Victoria was famously known for destroying careers with a simple look.

  But the last few days had been worse than usual.

  Louise reminded herself that there was just one more night between her and her comfy bed back home in New York. And the next morning she would be getting to the airport bright and early and thankfully not travelling with Victoria.

  The elevator doors slid open, and Victoria put on her oversized Gucci sunglasses. She walked through the lobby of the Shangri-La Hotel, her heels tapping loudly on the marble flooring.

  She could sense the receptionists discreetly looking at her as she walked past them. She imagined that they were breathing a sigh of relief at her departure.

  The doorman, dressed in a top hat and a knee-length, forest green overcoat, opened the door as she approached. She breezed through and down the steps.

  She let out an audible sigh at the fact that her limousine wasn’t in place. She looked up with annoyance to see that the vehicle was on its way down the hotel’s driveway, just passing through the wrought iron gates.

  “Apologies, Ms Hastings.”

  She turned to see the manager of the hotel rushing down the steps. He waved his arms frantically to hurry the black limousine up. The moment it came to a stop in front of the steps, he opened the back door and gestured into the car.

  “Thank you for your stay. I do hope you found everything to your liking?”

  Victoria hummed half-heartedly. While the Shangri-La was slightly above average in some respects, there had been some issues. For starters, the intolerable noise of the fan in her room and the maintenance imbecile who said he couldn’t even hear the noise when she had been positively deafened by it.

  She passed the grovelling man and got in the back of the limo.

  “We do hope to see you again next year,” the man continued, holding the door open and looking at her with a pleading expression
.

  Victoria felt that it was very unlikely that she’d ever come back should he continue to delay her. She wanted to get to the airport and take a few private moments to call her children to see how they were doing. She travelled a lot, but she never stopped missing them.

  She was about to instruct the driver to go, regardless of the position of the passenger door, when she noticed the manager looking up the driveway with a frown. She could hear some kind of commotion from behind the car.

  "Excusez-moi, Madame Hastings!"

  She glanced out of the back window. A scruffy-looking man was running towards the car. It looked like he had run through the gates as they were being closed. He held up a piece of paper and was running determinedly towards her. Two doormen and a security guard were chasing after him.

  She turned around and called out to the driver in a bored tone, “Go.”

  The hotel manager closed the passenger door and the car slowly started to edge forward, the sharp turn of the driveway making a quicker departure impossible.

  She heard shouts behind the car and rolled her eyes. It seemed nothing was going to go right during this trip.

  There was a thump on the window. The scruffy man stood beside the car, holding up a Polaroid photograph. Victoria felt her mouth fall open in shock at the image.

  It was Holly Carter. Her former assistant. The one who had abandoned her without a word exactly one year ago. However, there were vast differences between the Holly she had known and the woman in the photograph.

  In contrast to Holly’s long locks, the photograph showed a woman with short hair. Victoria’s artistic sensibilities balked at the change. Long hair was finally back in fashion and the girl had chopped all of hers off. Not that Holly was ever one to toe the line when it came to fashion trends.

  But the real shock was the unresponsiveness in her eyes. They no longer sparkled, there was a dullness to them that Victoria had never seen before. And Holly’s already pale skin seemed paler, almost sickly in appearance. The forced smile failed to distract from the fact that she looked quite frightened.

  As quickly as the photograph had been slapped onto the glass, it was pulled away. Each doorman grabbed one of the scruffy man’s arms and dragged him away from the car.

  “Wait,” she instructed the driver.

  Victoria felt the brakes being applied, and the car came to a jolting stop. She opened the door and stepped out of the car.

  The man was now on the tarmac, the two burly doormen on top of him, trying to hold him down. He looked up at her.

  “You know her?” he asked, his voice thick with a French accent.

  “Let him go,” she commanded in a soft tone.

  The doormen looked in confusion at the manager who was standing helplessly by. He quickly waved his hands up to indicate that they should let him go.

  Slowly, the man climbed to his feet. He clutched the photo in his hand and looked at Victoria expectantly.

  She looked him up and down. She had no idea who he was or what he wanted, but he seemed to know Holly. And that was enough to grant him a few moments of her time. Even if she was running late.

  She pointed to the car.

  “Get in,” she instructed.

  Also by A.E. Radley

  The Road Ahead

  Two women from very different backgrounds. Forced to share a long journey home. Will they work together or pull each other apart?

  Rebecca is stuck in Portugal. All planes to England are grounded and it's only two days until Christmas.

  Desperate to get home but without money to hire a car; she's stuck. She sees an opportunity when she meets a snobby businesswoman with a broken leg, a platinum credit card, and a desire to get home. A tentative agreement is struck in order reach their destination before the festive deadline. Will they make it, or will they kill each other along the way?

  A heartwarming enemies to lovers romance with a twist. Discover The Road Ahead and make your own journey home today.

  The Road Ahead | Preview

  By A.E. Radley

  “Excuse me! Sorry!”

  Rebecca rushed past an elderly couple. She looked at her watch and started to run towards the terminal building. Time was running out. She had to catch her flight, she couldn’t afford to miss it. Around the corner, she almost collided with another elderly couple.

  Apparently, the Algarve was full of them. Slowly meandering around, not caring if they were in the way. Usually appearing to be in a world of their own. They eyed her with confusion, probably wondering what the fuss was about. The concept of time seemed to be lost on most of them.

  “Sorry!” she called over her shoulder as she sidestepped them and sprinted towards the airport entrance.

  She knew she shouldn’t have relied on the taxi service her hotel recommended. It seemed a little too much of a coincidence that the lazy receptionist shared a surname with the taxi driver. When he’d finally turned up, he seemed less interested in getting to the airport and more interested in his telephone call. So much so that they missed the turn to the airport, adding to the delay.

  The automatic doors parted, and she entered the building. She slowed her running to a jog, looking around in confusion. The departures terminal was packed with people standing around. Angry-looking people. Arms were folded, and a combined murmuring of displeasure filled the air. Something was definitely up.

  Rebecca took a few steps forward and looked up at the ceiling monitors. Her eyes widened. Each and every flight on the departure board was marked as delayed.

  “No, no, no,” she whispered to herself.

  A businessman was standing beside her, looking at his phone and shaking his head.

  Rebecca turned towards him. “Excuse me, do you know what’s happening?”

  He looked up. “Some massive computer failure. Knocked out air traffic control in all of Portugal and Spain. Everything is grounded.”

  Rebecca swallowed. “Everything?” She removed her heavy backpack and lowered it to the floor.

  He nodded. “Yeah, speak to a check-in assistant, but that’s what they told me.” He held up his phone for her to see the screen. “And that’s what the news says.”

  “Did they say how long it would be?” Rebecca felt cold fear grip at her. She had to get home, she didn’t have time for delays.

  “No idea, could be ten minutes, could be ten hours. Personally, I don’t think it will be that long. It can’t be.” He lowered his phone and gestured to the growing crowd. “This close to Christmas, they’ll be calling everyone in to get it sorted out.”

  Rebecca looked around at the people in the departure hall. In her mind, people and planes were like water and glasses. Water spilt from a glass always looked like so much more compared to water contained in one. It was the same with people. Sat on a plane, the number of people looked reasonable, but sprawled out in an airport, they seemed like enough to fill hundreds of flights.

  She turned back to the businessman. He looked authoritative, some kind of higher-up executive, she assumed. In her experience, people like that didn’t always have the best grasp on reality. They assumed that their personal assistant, faithful Marjorie, would fix everything in a jiffy. They didn’t know that Marjorie had sold her kidneys, killed a man, and bribed law officials to do what needed to be done because she had a large mortgage, three children, and a beagle, and needed her job whatever the cost.

  “Thanks,” she said. She picked up her bag and made her way through the crowds to the check-in desks.

  The long row of desks was manned by exhausted-looking staff who seemed to be struggling to maintain a customer-facing smile. Luckily, there were no queues. Most people had given up speaking to the airline staff and were now standing around looking discontent, delivering filthy looks to any staff member who made eye contact.

  Hoping against hope, Rebecca walked towards a free desk.

  “Hi, Rebecca Edwards,” she introduced herself to the woman. She took her passport and her boarding pass from her poc
ket and handed them over. “I’m due to fly to Heathrow, but I hear there is a delay?”

  “All flights are delayed at the moment. There is a computer problem and no flights can land or take off.” The woman didn’t even make a move to pick up her passport or boarding pass.

  “Right,” Rebecca said. She chewed her lip. “Any idea of time?”

  “As soon as we hear anything, it will be announced over the speaker and on the screens.” The woman pointed up towards the screens that hung from the ceiling.

  “Okay…” Rebecca knew that there was nothing more to be done, but she couldn’t bring herself to walk away from the desk. She lowered her heavy bag to the floor again, her mind racing as she wondered what to do next.

  The illogical part of her felt that standing around the check-in desk would somehow help her predicament. The desk was a critical part in the whole boarding process. Somehow, being there gave her hope. But in her heart, she knew it was futile.

  “I’m sorry, there really is nothing I can do.” The check-in assistant offered an apologetic smile.

  “I really need to get home,” Rebecca said. She leaned on the high check-in desk, pushing aside a stand-up marketing message regarding the airline’s award-winning customer service. “When do you think the next plane will leave?”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any information to give you.” The assistant, Beatriz if her nametag was to be believed, tapped some buttons on her keyboard while squinting at the screen.

  “I know it’s not your fault,” Rebecca added.

  She watched as an irate German woman yelled at the poor check-in assistant beside her. She’d never understand how someone could be so mean, especially to the people on the front line. Yes, the airport had a massive computer failure. Yes, planes were grounded. Yes, it was the twenty-third of December. But that was no reason to take it out on the minimum wage check-in assistants.