by Tara Bond
“Who’s that with him?” I asked, hating myself for being interested.
“London’s bluebloods,” Jas said, tossing her hair in a theatrical gesture. I raised an eyebrow, looking for a fuller explanation. “You know the type. They’ve all grown up in Kensington or Chelsea, with wealthy parents, and gone to the same schools and ski resorts, and now they hang out in the same clubs.”
“But it’s a weekday. Don’t they have jobs?”
She laughed. “Yeah, well, that doesn’t seem to stop them.”
I looked at her, waiting for a fuller answer.
She sighed. “The girls tend to work in PR or art galleries or fashion. They’re employed for their contacts, so no one cares if they turn up bleary-eyed. The guys who work in finance just do a line as a pick-me-up. And then there’s the trust-fund kids, like Alex Noble. The likes of him don’t need to work.”
Her answer had just intrigued me more. But before I could pursue the conversation any further, raven-haired Mel materialised in front of us.
“Is there a problem here, girls?” Neither of us said anything. “I thought not. So why don’t you do a little less talking and a bit more work. After all, those glasses aren’t going to collect themselves.”
* * *
The rest of the night passed quickly enough. Just before closing time, I was walking by the bar, when a loud, drunken banker stumbled off a bar stool and managed to spill beer all down my tunic.
Jas wrinkled her nose as she examined the damage. “That stinks. You’d better go and change. You’ll find a spare top in your locker.”
I hurried to the staff changing room. I hadn’t expected anyone to be there, so I was already pulling my tunic up as I walked in, looking to save time.
“Don’t mind me,” an amused male voice said.
I hastily pulled my top back down, and drew up short as I saw Alexander Noble before me. He was sitting astride the bench that dissected the room, looking like he’d stepped out of a photo shoot with his perfectly symmetrical bone structure and mussed-up black hair.
I wondered for a second what he was doing there. Then, as if to answer my question, he bent over, his silky dark hair falling across his face, and snorted a line of coke.
This wasn’t an area of expertise of mine, but I’d seen enough TV programmes to have a rough idea of what was going on. He flipped his head back, and I watched as the high hit him. Then he wiped his nostrils and looked over at me, his ice-blue eyes extra bright.
Part of me was tempted to tell him he shouldn’t be there—it was meant to be staff only—but then I reminded myself that he was the owner’s son. I guessed he could be wherever he wanted.
He was regarding me expectantly, and I realised I was still just standing there, staring at him.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I just needed to change my top.”
“Well, go right ahead. No one’s stopping you.”
He seemed to be showing no signs of leaving, so I had no choice but to go to my locker. I kept the door open to shield my body from him as I changed.
As I closed it, I saw that he was frowning up at me, those wolf eyes studying me intently. When I went to walk by him, he rose, moving in front of me, his huge frame blocking my way.
“Now where do I know you from?” His voice was like honey—posh, yes, but also low and husky, in a way that jarred with his rugged appearance. I was about to tell him where he’d seen me, but a second later his expression cleared. “That’s it. I saw you yesterday. Over at the Wharf. You’re the chauffeur’s daughter, right?”
There was something mocking about the way he said it that immediately put me on my guard. “That’s right. I’m Nina. Nina Baxter.”
“Miss Baxter.” He gave a little bow of his head, his long dark hair falling across his sharp cheekbones. “Lovely to meet you. My father told me all about you.” He held out his hand. “I’m Alex, by the way. Alex Noble.”
I hesitated for a second, and then took the hand that he’d offered. His cool fingers closed around my slightly clammy ones. Everything about him seemed so calm and in control, whereas I felt like I’d been wrong-footed from the start of this exchange, and that I was out of my depth.
“Duncan Noble’s son,” he added, probably mistaking my silence for confusion. “In case you were wondering.”
“I know who you are.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth I felt myself flush, realising that it sounded like I’d been specifically asking after him.
Any hope I had that he might not have picked up on it was quashed as he raised an eyebrow. “Really?” he drawled. “Been doing our homework, have we?”
“One of the other staff was telling me who all the customers were . . . that’s all.”
“Hmm,” he said, in a way that made it clear he didn’t believe me. “Whatever you say.”
His eyes drifted over me again, appraising me in a blatantly sexual way. I was aware that he was too close, too much in my personal space. I swallowed hard, conscious that I should be putting an end to whatever this was, but not able to do it quite yet. But then he seemed to be moving closer, his hand reaching out behind me. It took me a split second to realise that he was trying to grab my bottom.
That was too much. Instinctively I took a step back, trying to put some distance between us.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I’d assumed my outraged tone would shame him, but he looked unperturbed. He cocked his head to one side, studying me through heavily lidded eyes. “What exactly do you think I was doing?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “It seems pretty obvious.”
“Really?” An amused smile played on his lips. “Because I get the feeling you thought I was trying to touch you up. When actually all I was going to do was this—”
Before I could stop him, he reached out again, exactly as he had done before. I felt his hand graze the back of my trousers, and then draw away. I had no idea what he’d done, until he held up a round orange sticker that read: Ten per cent discount on bulk orders.
I looked up and saw he was waiting for the moment when I worked out he’d actually been trying to do me a favour—not grope me, as I’d assumed.
I felt my cheeks heating up again. For once in my life, I was speechless.
“Oh, and trust me,” he said, making no effort to disguise the fact that he was enjoying my embarrassment. “I don’t need to go around molesting unsuspecting women. I have enough begging to be taken to my bed.”
He screwed up the sticker and tossed it into a nearby bin. If I’d tried that manoeuvre, it no doubt would have bounced off the basket and landed on the floor, but for him, it went in perfectly.
He gave another little bow of his head. “Lovely to meet you, Miss Nina Baxter.”
Then he turned and sauntered off.
It was only after he’d gone that I realised exactly what I’d done—not only had I humiliated myself, but I’d just insulted the owner’s son. He’d seemed to take it well enough, but what if he chose to complain? And suddenly alongside my acute embarrassment at having misread the situation, I felt an overwhelming terror that I was about to lose my job.
Chapter 6
I found it hard to sleep after my shift. Every time I closed my eyes, my run-in with Alexander Noble went through my head.
Eventually I must have managed to nod off, and when I woke a few hours later I resolved to put it from my mind. I had more pressing problems to deal with—like where I was going to live. It wasn’t fair to keep imposing on Doreen, but my other options were limited. As a single adult in London, I wasn’t exactly top of the priority list for housing.
Luckily our social worker, Maggie, had put in a word with her colleague in the housing department. He’d managed to find me a place in a bed-and-breakfast over in Wapping—where the council housed people while they looked into whether they deserved more permanent accommodation.
The manager of the B and B was a small, weasel-like man, with shifty eyes and a BO problem. He sh
owed me a tiny room, which had just enough space for a single bed and an ancient wooden wardrobe. Masking tape covered the gap between the skirting board and the carpet, apparently to keep the cockroaches out.
I knew I should be grateful, but as I looked around at the peeling paint it was hard to see how living there was something to be pleased about. I could hear a baby crying through the paper-thin walls, while its mother tried to hush it. That wasn’t going to make for a great night’s sleep. But it was this or the streets.
On the way out, he showed me the dingy bathroom I’d be sharing with eight other people. There were no kitchen facilities. Fifty people resided in the building, he informed me—there were five floors with ten rooms on each. Given the number of children I saw, I had a feeling the number of people was actually a lot higher.
As we walked back down, I tried to ignore the smell of piss in the stairwell.
“Breakfast is from seven until eight thirty,” he said. “You need to be out by nine, and then you can come back in at four.” I thought of the late nights I was going to be doing at Destination. I’d have to get up and out, and then nap later.
He looked at me expectantly. “First week’s money up front,” he prompted, when I hadn’t made a move.
I quickly handed over the cash. After paying for my mum’s rehab, I had just enough savings left over to see me through to my first paycheque from Destination.
“Oh,” he said, once he’d counted it. “I’m warning you now, don’t leave anything valuable in your room. Not if you want to hold on to it.”
Hearing that, I couldn’t wait to move in.
* * *
I left Wapping and headed over to the hospital. My mother was due to be discharged that day, and I’d arranged for her to be admitted into rehab. I took her straight there. It was a half-hour Tube ride away, in a leafy suburb in North London. She spent the whole journey talking about how the fire had been her wake-up call, and she was going to change her ways.
I listened with half an ear, and nodded along as I was expected to. But frankly I’d heard it all before, and had very little faith that anything would change. She’d let me down too many times in the past.
However, even at my most cynical, I couldn’t help being impressed as we arrived. The entrance was tucked discreetly away on a wide tree-lined road. The long gravel driveway was heavily guarded with security cameras. At the end, there was a stunning honey-coloured mansion. It was like one of those rehab centres that celebrities went to.
We were given a quick tour of the facilities, which came complete with indoor pool and well-equipped gymnasium. The restaurant looked like it had received Michelin stars. I settled my mother into her room—beautifully decked out, if austere. It was then, just as I was preparing to leave, that she dropped the bombshell.
“Nina?” I was putting on my jacket, but the nervous tone in her voice made me turn. My heart sank when I saw the way she was perched on the bed, nibbling at her lower lip. I knew the look well—it meant she’d done something I wasn’t going to be happy about.
“What is it now?”
She avoided my eyes. “There’s just one thing I need you to do for me . . .” I folded my arms and waited. “I was running short a few weeks ago, so I borrowed a bit of money—”
“How much?” I knew my mother well enough to guess that it was more than “a bit.” In addition to drinking, she was a dab hand at spending beyond her means.
“Nine grand,” she said sheepishly. “Eleven with the interest.”
“Jesus, Mum.”
“Some of it was for Dave—some business venture or other. He promised to pay me back, but . . .”
But my mum’s boyfriends were notoriously unreliable, and Dave had disappeared from the picture several weeks ago, triggering this current drinking binge. That meant the full debt was going to fall on us—or, more specifically, me.
“And who’s the lender?”
“Sergei.”
I closed my eyes. This just got better and better. I knew exactly who she meant—Sergei Grekov, a Russian emigrant and leader of a band of thugs, who counted money-lending at extortionate interest rates as one of his many less than legal activities.
We’d been forced to borrow from him before on occasion—Mum wasn’t the best at keeping a handle on finances. But it had always been small sums on a short-term basis—just to cover us for bills until I got my wages. This was more serious.
“And when are you due to pay?”
“This week.” Hearing that, I swore loudly again. “I thought maybe if you could talk to him,” she went on hurriedly. “Explain the situation . . .”
Yeah, because he was such a reasonable person.
“Don’t worry,” I said tightly. “I’ll deal with it.” Like I had to deal with everything else.
On the way out, I was handed a leaflet reminding me that she wouldn’t be allowed visitors for at least thirty days. It was the best news I’d had for some time. It would be a relief not to have to worry about her for a while.
* * *
The information about the debt weighed heavily on me as I got ready for work that evening. My plan was to contact Sergei and ask for additional time to pay off the money. But it had made me realise I needed this job at Destination now more than ever, and I was afraid I was going to lose it by having wrongly accused the owner’s son of trying to maul me.
Fortunately the evening passed uneventfully. Alex and his entourage didn’t make an appearance, and nothing was said about what had happened the previous night. My shift on Friday also went by without incident, and I began to relax. But then on Saturday, I was halfway through my shift when Mel came up to me and said that I was needed in Giles’s office. My mind immediately went to the incident with Alexander Noble. “How come?” I said uneasily.
She shrugged. “Why don’t you go and find out?”
There was no point putting off the inevitable, so I headed straight to Giles’s office. I’d just have to hope that if I offered to apologise to Alex, then Giles wouldn’t sack me. Because without this job, I had no idea what I was going to do.
I knocked tentatively at the door. There was no answer, so I carefully pushed it open. No one was inside.
I was about to leave and come back later, when something caught my eye. On the desk there was a steel petty cash box—like the ones we used at the petrol station. From where I was standing, I could see that the key was inside the lock.
I don’t know what made me do it, but I quickly checked the corridor. Once I was sure the coast was clear, I stepped into the room, and closed the door. Then I went over to the petty cash box, turned the key and lifted the lid.
Seeing the bundles of notes inside, I let out a gasp of surprise. At the petrol station, we kept about one hundred pounds in petty cash. But here there must have been thousands of pounds.
A wild thought occurred to me, one that must have been at the back of my mind when I first decided to walk into the room and look at the contents of the box. No one had seen me slip into the office. I could take the money now, leave quietly, and no one would be any the wiser.
I wasn’t the type to steal. I’d always been honest, and fastidious about money—at the petrol station, I’d been the only cashier whose till always balanced, right down to the penny.
But back then my situation hadn’t been so desperate. This would allow me to pay Sergei, or at least buy myself some time until I found another way to sort the situation out.
“Go ahead,” a husky, cultured voice said from behind me. “Help yourself. I won’t tell.”
I whirled round to see Alexander Noble leaning against the doorframe, watching me with a faintly amused look on his chiselled face. I could feel my cheeks flush red. He’d obviously been there for a while, and had guessed exactly what was going through my mind.
“I wasn’t going to—” I started, and then stopped. Lying just made it worse. “I was just looking,” I finished lamely.
“Of course you were.” He came in
to the room and sprawled in the leather chair across from Giles’s desk. He swivelled round to face me. “The first time I run into you here, you accuse me of sexually assaulting you.” He counted on his long fingers. “The second time, you’re caught stealing. Not one of my brother’s better hires.”
I didn’t know quite what to say to that. As much as I hated to admit it, he had a point.
“Is everything all right in here?” Giles said before I could respond. I looked up, and saw him standing in the doorway, frowning at us. My stomach flipped over; I was afraid that he’d overheard our exchange. But then I realised his eyes were firmly on Alex. And he didn’t look happy to see him. “You harassing my staff again?”
Alex looked unfazed as he answered, “Actually, I just dropped in to reclaim my coat.” He nodded over to the rack, where his black leather coat was hanging. “And I found Nina—” I felt my heart turn over as he paused meaningfully. “I found Nina here waiting for you,” he finished, his blue eyes dancing with wicked amusement that only I understood.
“Is that right?” Giles looked over at me for confirmation.
“Why are you asking her?” Alex said, a mocking tone in his voice. “Are you saying you don’t trust me?” He clutched a hand to his chest. “You wound me, brother.”
Giles didn’t bother to respond. I looked between the two men, unsure what all the tension was about. Even though they were brothers, the two of them couldn’t have been more different—there was clean-cut Giles, the epitome of the hard-working businessman in a smart grey-wool suit, and bad-boy Alex, who looked more like an indie rocker today in black jeans and a black T-shirt.
“Nina?” Giles looked at me for confirmation.
“Everything’s fine,” I said hastily, worried that Alex might get annoyed and start revealing what had actually happened.
“See?” he said. “As I told you, everything’s fine here.” He stood, and collected his coat. “So, as much fun as this has been, I’ll be on my way now, and leave you two to it.”