by J. D. Chase
Isla stared him down. ‘Really? You want to do that? How low are you willing to stoop, Dean? I’ve thrown my heart and soul into this place since I started here. Do you think a few drinks here and there make up for the amount of overtime I’ve put in and not claimed?’
Dean stared back, a vein in his neck pulsing. ‘What about fucking the staff? Are you saying that’s part of your staff perks too? I wonder how he’d view that. Maybe I should tell him just what you get up to when he’s not around.’
Oh fuck. No way, Xander has enough to contend with finding out he’s a father. I need to put Dean off that idea.
Isla laughed. ‘Since Xander bought this place, he’s viewed me as his property. If another man so much as looked at me, he’d probably knock fifty shades of shit out of them. So you’re going to tell him that we fucked . . . are you going to tell him that you took advantage of me while I was completely pissed?’
Shrugging, he replied, ‘I’ve seen the way he looks at you, like you’re perfect. He’s dying to get you into bed, everyone around here has said so. Maybe he should know you’re a freak in bed.’
‘Maybe he likes that, Dean. Maybe he’d get so turned on that he’d get me pissed and then take advantage. Oh no, sorry. That wouldn’t happen because Xander’s a gentleman and I get the feeling that he likes his women to be fully alert and responsive . . . not to mention fully consenting and sober.’
He snickered nastily. ‘Oh yeah, I’ll bet he’s a Neanderthal . . . clubbing women over the head and dragging them back to his cave.’
If only you knew the truth.
Smiling sweetly, Isla countered, ‘Oh no, Dean. I can assure you that’s not necessary. When you’re Xander Rhodes, with those looks, that body and that confident persona . . . you don’t have to stoop to any desperate measures to get a woman into bed. They go willingly.’
His eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘You sound awfully sure of yourself,’ he sneered. ‘Don’t tell me you were stupid enough to fall for the “I’m your boss, fuck me and I’ll promote you” routine. Ha! You did, didn’t you? That’s how you know. Well, I wonder if his wife knows about that. I think it’s only fair that she’s informed that her husband can’t keep his dick in his pants.’
Oh fuck, fuck, fuck! My big mouth is making it worse . . .
Isla lifted her chin. ‘His soon-to-be ex-wife? Oh, didn’t you know they’re in the middle of a divorce? Assuming you’re right and I had fucked him, I doubt she’d be that interested, especially since she’s been fucking someone else too.’
That should do it.
He smirked. ‘Nice try. I heard Jones talking to Smith. His wife’s pregnant . . . I think she’d be very interested to know what her husband has been up to.’
Jones, if I see you again, you’re dead. Think Isla, think . . . Dean doesn’t actually know he’s right . . . and he’s scared of Xander when he comes face to face with him. He’s only all talk when Xander’s not around.
Shrugging, Isla gave him a confident smile. ‘Assuming you’re right, of course. Where’s your proof? Feel free to make an idiot of yourself but hear this, Dean. In doing so, you will lose any chance of working here again or getting a reference from Xander . . . that’s if you’re still capable of working, once he catches up with you. I doubt he’d be too happy to find that you’ve been feeding his wife a load of unsubstantiated crap.’
He looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘So if I don’t tell her, I have a chance of keeping my job? Blackmail is it? Sounds like a guilty conscience to me.’
Bugger! Offer him a compromise, not a blatant bribe.
‘No, Dean. You said you can’t afford your therapist if you don’t have a job. You clearly need therapy. You take advantage of an inebriated woman and then blame her when you can’t give her what she needs. Then, when you think she’s been fucking her married boss, you threaten to tell his wife. You’re not the man I thought you were. I thought you were better than that. And I thought we were friends. Here’s what I’m proposing: you take the weekend to get your head straight and then turn up for work on Monday. Arrive at four o’clock.’
‘Four? Why four?’ he spluttered.
‘Because instead of firing you as Xander insisted, I’m willing to give you one last chance. However, after your unprofessional conduct, you have broken my trust and therefore cannot hold a position of responsibility, such as head barman. Therefore, you will be demoted to barman and will work under the direction of a new head barman/woman whom I shall be appointing forthwith.’
‘What? You’ve got to be kidding me!’
‘That’s the best I can do, Dean. Take it or leave it. Oh and if you’re still thinking of some act of revenge for what you think happened between Xander and me, I’d caution you to think long and hard about that. I’ve overruled Xander in keeping you on here. That isn’t going to go down well. You start making unsubstantiated allegations . . . well, I think we both know how that will end up.’
Please take it. And then please leave. I can’t face any more animosity today. My fucking head’s banging. I don’t know where Xander is, what he’s doing . . . hell, I don’t even know where I’m sleeping tonight. Dean, you’re a class A fucktard. Just take my offer, fuck off and leave me in peace.
‘I’ll think about it,’ he muttered.
She nodded but barely noticed him standing up and saying goodbye. Her thoughts had drifted back to Xander. Her stomach was churning after the confrontation with Dean. She hoped that she’d done enough to put him off trying to contact Janine. But what if she hadn’t? What if Xander’s intention was to go back home and play happy families now that he’d been proven to be the baby’s father? Then Dean calls Janine and . . .
Isla forced herself to snap out of it. She’d done her best damage limitation exercise and now it was up to Dean. Of course, she had no idea whether Xander and Janine would reconcile. Crossing to the drinks cupboard, she flinched at the sight of the bottle of Bombay Sapphire. She almost didn’t take it but then reconsidered. She needed to get Xander Rhodes out of her head. What better way to obliterate all thoughts of him than to drink their gin until she was incapable of thought at all?
As the rest of the staff partied into the night, Isla slowly drank herself into oblivion in her dimly lit office. Her final conscious thought was Xander who? before she laughed almost hysterically and fell into a deep sleep. As she slept, tears crept silently down her face. In sleep, her mind was free to express the agonizing pain she felt deep down in her soul.
The next morning, she walked back into her little flat and groaned at the state of it. She’d been somewhat rudely awakened by Alberto, the manager of Xander’s other hotel, when he’d barged into her office. He’d been most apologetic and was clearly as surprised to find her sprawled on the sofa as she was to wake up to the sound of a band of pipers marching through her office. Okay, so it was only him whistling cheerfully as he came through the door, but to her delicate head, that’s what it sounded like.
He’d hastily attempted to leave but she knew he was there to work and that she really should . . .
Do what exactly? Spend the day lounging in the suite that I’ve shared with Xander for the past few nights? Collapse on the bed to sleep off this hangover and smell his scent on the sheets? Take a shower to help me feel human again and see his toiletries littered around me?
No, I need to go home.
She’d told him to stay, that she had places to be. Wordlessly, he’d picked up the discarded bottle of gin and the glass from where they’d fallen on the floor. Then he’d taken the bottle of Scotch and the empty tumbler that Xander had left on the desk and had left the room, presumably to take them to the kitchen. Isla had quickly put on her shoes and grabbed her handbag. As she’d walked through the lobby, the sound of her footsteps echoing inside her head, she’d returned Nadine’s cheery greeting automatically. When she’d stepped out of the revolving door, there was the Holden, just sitting there. The keys were in her bag and the thought of taking the tube with such a debi
litating hangover had made her feel nauseous. But it was Xander’s car and, owing to his newfound father status, she’d felt she had no right to use it. So she’d reluctantly walked to the nearby underground station and had endured the weekend’s shoppers and their excited chatter until she’d alighted at her home station.
She pulled a face at the slight mustiness in the air as she walked into the kitchen, dumping her handbag on the worktop. She badly needed a caffeine fix. She’d tackle the mess later, caused by the untidy manner in which Jamie had left the place when he’d hastily gathered her belongings, which were still in the suite at Rouge Passion, she realised with a scowl. She filled the kettle and put some instant coffee into a mug. She didn’t have time to faff about with the coffee machine; she needed caffeine like yesterday. She flung open the fridge and the smell that assaulted her nostrils made her retch.
‘Fuck,’ she cursed, gripping the worktop for support. ‘Rancid milk. Eughh.’
She slammed the door shut hastily and then clutched her head as pain shot through it.
‘Black coffee it is then,’ she muttered. ‘With loads of sugar.’
The rest of the day passed slowly. She spent most of it lounging on the sofa, napping when she wasn’t wondering where Xander was and what he was doing. She heard nothing from him and that both irked and pleased her. She didn’t want to speak to him if he was back with Janine, playing the role of the doting father but he could at least have the decency to try to speak with her – even if it was only to give her the satisfaction of hanging up on him.
She didn’t sleep well that night. It was as though all the emotional trauma of the past week had finally caught up with her. She tossed and turned in a bed that was suddenly far too big. At about four in the morning she heard an alert, notifying her of a text message. She threw the covers off and grabbed her phone, then spent the next ten minutes cursing her network provider for daring to text her at stupid o’clock to offer her an upgrade deal.
Eventually, she slept. Mid-morning she awoke and shuffled into the kitchen to make coffee, feeling like death. She’d purposely not touched a drop of alcohol the night before so that she’d get a good night’s sleep and not wake with a hangover. She scowled as she reached for a mug, thinking how that plan couldn’t have gone more awry. When she opened the fridge and was hit by the unmistakable stench of sour milk, she was grateful though. There was no way she’d be in a fit state to deal with that if she did have a hangover.
As the coagulated liquid pooled in the bottom of the sink, Isla couldn’t help but think that it was symbolic of her life over the last year or so. It felt like everything she touched lately went sour. First Jamie, then giving up her hard-won stockbroker position, then Xander. Now it looked like a second job would have to go, and over a man yet again. She knew she couldn’t continue to work for him. Not now.
Turning on the tap to wash away the mess, she wished that washing away the mess in her private life was as simple. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She needed to kick herself out of this funk. There was no jet of water to clean up her mess. A mess of her own making, at that. And only she could sort it out. She needed to put it behind her and get on with her life. And that would begin with a nice mug of steaming hot coffee.
White coffee . . . not that watery, brown crap.
She showered and dressed, cursing that most of her toiletries and make-up were still at the hotel. The few items of make-up that she kept in her handbag helped to make her feel somewhat human before she set off to acquire some milk. As she walked, the summer sunshine warmed her skin. It was a beautiful day; a day too nice to be spent indoors drinking coffee, she reasoned.
Before she knew it, she was on a bus. She didn’t know where she was headed but sometime later, she found herself in her old stamping ground. When she’d been a stockbroker, she’d worked in the heart of London’s Square Mile. She stood at the entrance to the grounds of St Paul’s Cathedral. She remembered the café inside and the rumbling in her stomach urged her forward. A ploughman’s lunch later, not to mention two coffees, made her feel much more able to take on the world.
She decided to explore the gardens, something she’d never really had time to do. When she worked in the area, work was always manic and drinks after work were usually in trendy bars and clubs. She’d rarely had time to venture outside in the middle of the day. So she began to stroll around, pausing to admire the memorial to the poet, John Donne, and the fountains. The sound of young children shrieking as they splashed in the water made her smile . . . until she thought of Xander and his son.
She firmly pushed any unwelcome images from her mind and turned to continue exploring. The sight of the Young Lovers’ statue made her gasp. The sculpture of the young couple embracing below the dome of the cathedral was a sight to behold for most people. For Isla, it was like two hands had entered her chest and were wringing out her heart. She turned away hastily but then, everywhere she looked, couples were strolling hand-in-hand or sitting sharing a romantic picnic.
Fuck them. Fuck them all.
She hurried to the exit, admonishing herself for letting such trivial things upset her. But deep down, she just wanted to curl up on the sofa and mourn the fact that she could never be one of those couples that now seemed to be mocking her.
You can. It just won’t be you and Xander.
But I want it to be. We had so little time, we didn’t have the opportunity to do the things that most couples do . . . well, except sex. We always seemed to find time for that. But a relationship needs more than sex . . . what if . . .
What’s the point of what ifs? You need to get a grip and get over that man. He was never really yours and never will be. It’s time to move on. You have more to think about . . . like finding a new job, you know, to pay your mortgage . . .
Yeah, I know. It’s just . . .
I know. You miss him. It’s so unfair. Well, life’s unfair. You should be used to that by now. But life’s what you make it. Stop making shitty choices and life will get better.
Will it? Because my life has never felt better than those short, happy moments with Xander. I could have made him happy. He could have made me very happy. I’m sure of it. No, I’d have made sure of it.
Would you get over yourself? He’s married. He has a baby. Let him go.
She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn’t hear her name being called. A touch on her arm made her jump.
‘Oh my God! Joshua! Sorry, I was miles away. How are you? It’s so nice to see you.’
She grinned at her former colleague and was rewarded with a beaming grin in return. He looked well, his naturally curly hair kept impossibly short above his friendly face. He’d put on a few pounds since she’d last seen him, presumably the result of good living.
‘I’m good. Really good. Busy as hell at work, you remember how it is. I’m engaged to Francesca now. We’re tying the knot in the Seychelles next summer . . . well, as far as I know that’s still the plan. I’m keeping well out of the wedding planning. It’s taken over the house – there are lists and samples everywhere. We’re having a party when we return to London. You should come . . . oh, unless it’s awkward for you with Jamie and all. I’m sure he’ll be there.’
Isla shook her head. ‘No, we’re fine. I saw him a few days ago actually.’
A strange expression crossed his face. ‘You did? When?’
‘On Monday, why?’
Unless she was very mistaken, Joshua’s face fell slightly. ‘Oh, it’s nothing. It doesn’t matter.’ Breaking out into a huge grin, his tone changed to one of excitement. ‘So you’ll come? Oh, that’s fantastic. I’ll tell Fran as soon as I get back. You’ll have to let us know your address so we can send out the official invitation.’
‘I’m still at the flat. Jamie can give you the address if you’ve forgotten it, as I’m sure you have since you haven’t come to visit in ages.’
She put her hand on his arm when his face fell. ‘It’s okay, Joshua. I know it was awkward, the
way everything happened. I’m not having a dig.’
He shook his head. ‘Fran and I felt awful. The way you left so suddenly . . . the office was so quiet without you and we missed you. Parties weren’t the same. We vowed to let the dust settle and then get in touch with you but then Jamie was so down when it didn’t work out with his new woman. We didn’t want to upset anyone and then, you know, time went by and . . . I’m sorry, Isla. That’s no excuse. We should have kept in touch.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I know it wasn’t easy for everyone in the office. I did feel a little miffed at the time, I’ll admit but hey, that’s life.’
He pursed his lips for a second. ‘No, it was unforgivable of us. Let us make amends. Come around for dinner tonight . . . no, Fran would kill me, giving her no notice like that. You know how you women are.’ He winked and gave her a friendly nudge. ‘This evening we’re at her parents’ but I’m pretty sure tomorrow’s free. That’s settled then. You’ll come to us for dinner tomorrow. Fran will be delighted to see you. I’m glad I’ve seen you now and had you all to myself. There’s no way I’ll get a look in when Fran’s around. She’ll be so excited to catch up and share news. I apologise in advance for all the wedding talk . . . you’ll be bored rigid within minutes. I’ll do my best to shield you if she gets carried away. Oh, you can make it, can’t you?’
His face fell just a little as he considered the possibility that she couldn’t. Isla didn’t really feel in the mood for exchanging gossip . . . what would she say?
Go on . . . get out and socialise. You’ve bemoaned the lack of friends often enough. Don’t let your mistake with Xander hold you back.