Forever Scarred (Scarred Series Book 3)

by Jackie Williams

  He was about to push the huge front door open and slide out into the night when there was a small cough from inside the office and he knew that he had been rumbled.

  “You rushing off Joe? We’ll walk with you part of the way. Give us a second to close down the computer and we’ll be right with you.”

  Joe stopped by the door and waited as Ellen walked out into the hall.

  “Patrick won’t be a moment. He just told me about that Freeman guy. Is he some kind of control freak or something?” She yawned as she moved across the floor.

  Joe gave a grim smile.

  “The something I think. I wonder why he’s pushing us like this? They are just a telephone sales company from what I gather. Lucy seems to think the workforce don’t really know what they are coming here for. Freeman told them it was a more desk based experience. I have the feeling that there are going to be a few unhappy faces by the end of the week unless I can work out something that’s not too strenuous. Maybe we’ll get them map reading around the forest or something.”

  Ellen yawned again and looked back to the office as she spoke.

  “You’ll find something suitable Joe, you always do.”

  Patrick came out and closed the door quietly behind him. He walked over to his wife and pulled her into his side, gathering her gently and supporting her as they turned towards the front door.

  “You said to Lucy to help herself to anything from the kitchen?” He asked Joe quietly and Joe nodded.

  “She’ll buzz David or me if she has any problems, but she was pretty tired from the drive. She’ll probably sleep right through.”

  Ellen smiled softly.

  “I don’t think she’ll be calling on David to help her with anything.”

  Patrick snorted a laugh as he pulled the door closed behind him and grinned at Joe.

  “You got that right. The way she was looking at you mate, I’m almost willing to bet there are going to be wedding bells before the end of the week.”

  Joe let out a quiet groan.

  “Oh, be quiet the two of you. Just because you lot are all loved up you think that the rest of us want to be. I like being on my own. I don’t need anyone.” It was only after he had spoken the words that he heard a small creak above him. He glanced upwards, just in time to catch Lucy staring back down at him from her bedroom window. He held her gaze for one long moment and then her shoulders slumped and she turned and disappeared from his view.

  Chapter Five

  “Sixty thousand Euros! You have to be completely off your head!” The voice echoed loudly enough to be heard all around the huge entrance hall. There was some nervous shuffling of feet and some murmured agreements from the gathered company waiting to hear their fate.

  A deep voice rumbled in response.

  “You have put us to considerable inconvenience Freeman. Extra staff had to be engaged as I had given everyone three days off. We have had to work overtime to get the place ready since our previous clients only left yesterday morning and you forced one of your staff to stay overnight last night. There are expenses incurred when you try to change our way of operating. We can do it of course, but it comes at a price and sixty thousand euros is my price. This is a luxury chateau experience. We are offering you a full board service and all of our in house facilities will be available for you to enjoy each evening. For twenty two of you it’s an excellent package. You can take it or get yourself and your staff out of my wife’s chateau.” Patrick pushed back his chair and stood up.

  Freeman leaned back in his chair and kept his eyes on his fingernails. Having once seen the vile looking man standing in front of him, he wasn’t keen on doing it again. He wondered how on earth he had ever found a wife in the first place but then realized that Reeves had probably been married before whatever had happened to him had ruined his looks. Freeman was a master at getting his own way and how this twisted lump of garbage could hold the shots over him at this stage he didn’t quite know but it seemed that with twenty tired staff waiting at the door, this man had him by the balls. He cleared his throat.

  “I never said I wouldn’t pay it, especially as you are offering an extra day. I was just curious to know why the price had tripled. I was expecting double but this amount seems fantastic.” He watched the tall man slowly sit back down in his chair.

  Patrick hid a moment’s satisfaction at Joe’s idea of upping the price even more before he took a deep calming breath and began to explain.

  “The course is set up a certain way for you and your staff to get the most out of it in the shortest space of time. Many of the resources that we use are not just things that we can keep from one course to another. It takes time to prepare and set up. Even as we speak my course expert is out preparing events for you and your staff, but whereas he may have been able to accomplish everything by himself in three or four days, your early arrival has meant that we have had to employ casual staff too. That doesn’t come cheap. We have also had to bring in extra catering and cleaning staff at short notice. The problems are not insurmountable but you are the one who has to pay for them seeing as it was you that moved the goalposts. To be frank with you Freeman, I have a very pregnant wife and as much stress as I can manage at the moment so if you don’t want to take this deal then I really don’t care. Your ten thousand pound deposit is non-refundable so I’m really not worried what you do.”

  Freeman sat silently for a few seconds and then reached into his pocket for his business credit card. He threw it on the desk and unfolded himself from the chair.

  “I’ll leave that for you to sort out. Is there anyone around who can show me and my staff to our rooms?” His tone was icily calm but Patrick recognized defeat when he saw it. He smiled inwardly before remarking in a friendly tone as the two of them moved towards the door.

  “Geraldine will be down in one moment. She’s just making sure all the arrangements for your rooms are adequate. It’s actually made it slightly easier with Miss Collins already being here. She’s been a vast help.” Patrick held the door open and waited until Freeman walked through.

  Freeman grunted.

  “Yes, well if she has been that helpful maybe I should be charging a daily rate for her services. We could come to some arrangement with the bill at the end of our visit.”

  Patrick gave a grim laugh as he closed the office door behind him.

  “You can forget that Freeman. She’s taken the bridal suite so I’m afraid any of her back pay will be taken up in offsetting the room costs. Ah! Here’s Geraldine.” He smiled up at the dark haired beauty who stood by the rest of the guests. “Everything in order?” He asked and his sister in law answered in richly accented English.

  “Yes, of course, I’ll take our guests up in just a moment. Ellen was asking for you Patrick. She is in the salon. I made ‘er some tea but she is not very comfortable.”

  Patrick frowned immediately and turned to Freeman.

  “I beg your pardon, you will have to excuse me. I must go and check on my wife.” He walked away from the group without further ado or even a backwards glance.

  Freeman turned to Geraldine, a sickly smile pasted onto his face as he looked the beautiful woman up and down.

  “Yes, well I would much rather you show us to out rooms than Mr. Reeves. He seems more than a little tetchy about our early arrival.”

  Geraldine narrowed her eyes but then gave the man in front of her an expressive Gaelic shrug.

  “If you would like to follow me. I ‘ave given out keycards for each room so I will just see you all settled before I ‘ave to attend to other duties. Dinner with be in the dining room at seven thirty. You are welcome to wander the grounds and use the facilities in the chateau as you please. There is a swimming pool in the cellar along with a sauna and other treatment rooms. You might as well acquaint yourselves with them now as you will probably need them later in the week.” She turned towards the wide stairs but Freeman caught her arm and pulled her towards him as he spoke quietly.

  “I unders
tand that my secretary has taken the bridal suite. I wondered if we could put my things in there too. We have a sort of an arrangement.” He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head as if that explained exactly what he meant.

  Geraldine stared down at his hand where it grasped her forearm. She waited until he unwound his long fingers and then she shrugged again.

  “Miss Collins ‘as not mentioned anything to me about this. I will check the arrangement with ‘er first.”

  Freeman cleared his throat and walked beside Geraldine as the mounted the stairs.

  “It’s more of a surprise than an arrangement. She will be thrilled to see me.” He coughed into his hand.

  Geraldine rolled her eyes as she turned away from Lucy’s boss. There was no way she was going to let this arrogant fool anywhere near his secretary, especially after the way she had seen how Lucy and Joe reacted to one another but she decided not to say anything more to this horrible man. She had noticed the revolted sneer on his face as he spoke to Patrick and she hadn’t needed to see anything else to know her opinion of him.

  “I’m sure she will be delighted, but as you ‘ave just arrived and Miss Collins is already very busy with helping our grounds man, I think I will show you to our own room. She can decide later on if she wants you to share with ‘er. Don’t forget that we dine at seven thirty.” Geraldine opened the door at her left and showed her guest inside. She then dismissed him with a glance and carried on along the corridor assigning rooms to each of the guests in turn.

  Freeman stopped dead inside his room. What the fuck was Collins doing working with a grounds man?

  He stared round at the sumptuously appointed bedroom. Everything was in the best possible taste and of the finest quality. He wasn’t happy that Lucy wasn’t there with him but he was convinced that she would come around to his way of thinking within the next few days and even if she wasn’t that keen, he was absolutely sure he could change her mind with his new contract of employment. He shrugged off his jacket and hung it in the vast wardrobe that graced his room and then he wandered over towards the window, wondering what sort of view they had given him.

  But it wasn’t the view of the gardens or the forest that caught is attention as he parted the shimmeringly soft drapes that covered his windows. His eyes were at once riveted to the woman who stared up at the disgustingly disfigured man in front of her. For a single moment he thought he actually wanted to vomit at the sight of the man’s ruined face, but then he pulled himself together and raised the window a fraction in order to hear their conversation.

  “Looks as though your workmates have arrived.” The man’s voice was low but clear.

  Lucy looked back over her shoulder towards the front of the chateau.

  “Yes, I knew that they wouldn’t be late. It’s all part of Carter’s game plan. He loves wrong footing anyone.”

  The disfigured man raised his eyebrows as much as he could in his stiff face.

  “Does that man have any idea of whom he is dealing with on this course. Nothing puts us off our game plan and anyone that thinks they can is in for a huge surprise.” He looked up just in time to see some drapes in an open window above his head, wafting in the breeze. He steered Lucy along the gravel path towards the arboretum at the side of the chateau.

  She returned his gaze and then looked up through the trees to the sky above them.

  “I can see why you love it here. This alone would keep me from going home. It’s absolutely beautiful.”

  She felt the big man raise his face to the bloodshot evening sky.

  “Yeah. I love it here at all times of the year. It’s always changing. Never static. Some people don’t appreciate nature at its best.”

  Lucy returned her gaze to Joe.

  “So how long have you been here then? I know that the place belongs to Ellen and David, but they must have been here longer than you. David and Geraldine look pretty well established with Robbie and Patrick and Ellen…phew! Did you feel the heat coming from those two? They are positively disgusting in their own happiness.”

  Joe laughed beside her.

  “I know what you mean but they didn’t have an easy start.” He didn’t elaborate further but gave a smile as he carried on. “They are completely in love. I don’t think anything could ever tear them apart again now.” He sounded happy at their good fortune.

  There was a short and slightly uncomfortable silence before Lucy spoke again.

  “So is there anyone in your life Joe?” She sounded slightly strangled and he looked down at her through hooded eyes wondering why she was asking as she had obviously overheard him say not the previous night.

  “No.” His voice resonated around the grounds. “I have everything I need here, I haven’t wanted for anything since I began working for the two of them. I’m not going to start looking backwards now.” He lied as he turned to stare into the forest hoping that she wouldn’t ask him anything else about his personal life. He didn’t want to talk about being blown up or how it had affected his life and he certainly didn’t want to give her the opportunity of bringing anything like cosmetic surgery up. If he found out that she had been surgically enhanced when she didn’t need to be, he thought he might actually be sick.

  Lucy eyed his broad shoulders as he stood solidly in the middle of the path. She had heard the defensive tone in his voice and wondered for a few moments why he was so against having a relationship. But then she saw his shoulder give an involuntary dip and she realized immediately that his bravado was all just a show. Of course he wanted a relationship. He wanted everything that his friends had but clearly he couldn’t get over the huge hurdle of what people saw when they first met him. She gave a tiny snort of derision and he suddenly swung back to her.

  “You think I’m joking? Relationships are not for everyone you know.” His voice was hard and his eyes glinted dangerously.

  Lucy backed up a step.

  “No, of course not, I was just wondering, that’s all. As it happens I don’t want a relationship either. I’ve just managed to get myself out of a terrible one so I’m not likely to be looking for anyone else at the moment, but I wouldn’t like to stay that way forever. I would like a husband and children one day.” Her voice was soft, almost fragile and Joe took a sudden stride towards her.

  “Who hurt you Lucy?” He demanded as he growled out the words.

  She stared up into his gleaming blue eyes wondering at the fire that suddenly appeared in them. She almost stammered out her words.

  “He was just an idiot who fooled me for far too long. It’s over now though and I can start to look forward again, but I’m not interested in falling straight back into a relationship again. I’m looking forward to some alone time.” She bit back the bitterness at her situation. Mortgaged up to the hilt and paying nearly every penny of her wages over to clear the outstanding debts, alone time was all she could possibly afford. She lifted her chin defiantly though and turned back to the chateau. “I’d better get back there. Carter will want to see me and I might have to do some emailing or other work for him.”

  Joe grunted.

  “Huh, well get it all done today as I’m confiscating all forms of communications device first thing in the morning, laptops and tablets included.” He let out a laugh at her horrified expression. “It’s okay Lucy, there are plenty of static computers available in the chateau, you only need to ask and one will be made available to you. It’s the mobile devices that I am talking about. I don’t want anything getting damaged or anyone cheating during the course. You’d be surprised what lengths some of our clients go to, to win in any team competitions that I set, especially the map reading ones. Google Earth and a GPS on a mobile phone have a lot to answer for.”

  It was Lucy’s turn to laugh.

  “Well good luck with getting Carter’s phone from him. I think it’s glued to his ear most of the time.” She began heading back to the chateau. Joe walked along beside her.

  “Oh I’ll get it alright, don’t you worry about
that. I have a few tricks up my sleeve that normally work and within a few minutes I usually have about ten to fifteen secreted devices. Just make sure you don’t have one on you or I will be seriously disappointed now that I have gone to the trouble of telling you that you won’t get away with having one.”

  Lucy looked up at him. She was on the more immobile side of his face and she couldn’t see his exact expression, but his beautiful lips were curled up in the corner. She let out another light laugh.

  “Now do I look the sort of woman who cheats at anything?”

  Joe gave her quick glance. He took into her soft, doe like eyes and at her rosy apple cheeks.

  “Absolutely not, so let’s keep it that way.” He stopped as they came up to the chateau entrance and Joe glanced up at the tall man coming down the steps towards them. “I’m going to go and check the zip wire and the tree walk. We start at six in the morning and I don’t want to get up at four just to go over the things again. I’ll see you over dinner later.” And he turned away from the man’s revolted expression and quickly strode back towards the forest.

  Carter Freeman had only heard a snippet of their conversation but he had seen the pair of them walking towards the forest at the side of the chateau. He glowered as he ripped his suit from his body and lugged on jeans and a black t-shirt. He tensed the muscles in his arms a few times just to get the veins protruding and then walked out of the door to go and find his secretary.

  He jogged down the steps of the chateau just as Lucy and the hideously disfigured man walked around the corner. He recognised the man as the one he had seen with Lucy walking into the forest but he was surprised to find her laughing with him. It took all of his self-control not to vomit at the sight of him.

  He walked up to his secretary as the big man she had been laughing with suddenly strode away from the chateau.

  “Gawd, you would think they could find some staff that look a little more normal. It’s like an exhibition at a circus freak show.” He stared at the man’s disappearing back.