Falling from Grace: A Billionaire Romantic Suspense series (The Filth Monger Series Book 1) (11 page)

I felt awkward and just stood there, sipping at my beer. The citrusy sharpness of it was so refreshing, and the alcohol hit me right away. It went straight to my arms, then my thighs, making them buzz and tingle. I realised I’d barely drunk anything all day, apart from the tea at Liv’s. I was so thirsty, suddenly. I took another sip, then tipped my head back and gulped the rest down.

I needed another one, right away. I pushed in behind Gav and ordered two more. Liv would need another one before she went on stage, after all, I told myself. It was the least I could do. I was so busy fluttering my twenty pound note at the bar staff, trying to grab their attention, that I didn’t even notice when Gav left the bar. More people had arrived since Liv had got our first drinks and the bar was three-deep now. I was being pushed and jostled from all sides, and I had to grab onto the bar to keep my place.

Finally, I got served. A young guy, with spiky black hair and a ring through his nose saw me and came over. He got me two more beers and took my money, but by the time I’d got my change and pushed my way back through the throng, Liv and the others had gone.

I stood there for a moment, looking around for them, then the music died, and the lights with it. The only ones left, apart from behind the bar, were shining on the stage. Gav was up there, doing something to his guitar. Every now and again, he’d play a few notes, then look off stage, to the side of him, and do it again. He looked a lot more at ease, under those spotlights, than he’d appeared a few minutes earlier. For the first time, I could kind of see what Liv saw in him. He had a definite presence on stage, even just doing a sound-check.

I looked around for somewhere to stand that was out of the way. I still felt uncomfortable, but I was starting to unbend a little, after the beer. I took a gulp of one of the beers in my hand, wishing I knew where Liv had gone. To cope with being on my own, I was going to need to unbend a whole lot more.

I spied a pillar in the middle of the bar area, where no one was standing, and made my way over there, careful to avoid spilling my beers. When I reached it, I leant up against it and tipped my head back again, gulping down the beer. I was so thirsty. Anyway, I needed to get rid of it. I looked ridiculous, standing there with two beers. I needed to lose one, and fast. I made short work of the rest of it, and put the glass down in the sawdust at my feet. Now I could concentrate.

I looked towards the stage. Liv was out there now, and Celeste, as well as the drummer. Some guy with long brown hair and a beard. I’d never seen him before. They were still getting ready and, occasionally, Celeste would play a short burst on the keyboard, and Gav and Liv would chime in. Then one of them would say something, and they’d all grin or even laugh. It was showmanship all the way, and they hadn’t even started. If I hadn’t witnessed it, I’d never have believed the rift that divided them was even real.

I started on the next beer, hoping they’d start playing for real soon.
Then I’ll have something to focus on, instead of standing here all alone, feeling like an idiot.

‘You don’t
look
like an idiot,’ said a voice right in my ear. I jumped, and turned around. Had I actually said that aloud? I looked at my remaining beer. It was already half empty. Then I looked up at the guy that had spoken. He was young and tanned with curly blond hair, and crinkly eyes.

‘Well, I feel it,’ I said, taking another swig of beer.

‘Why are you all alone, anyway?’ he asked. His voice had a gentle Australian lilt to it which, in my slightly drunken haze, I found incredibly attractive. ‘Do you normally hang around bars on your own?’

‘Not normally, no,’ I said, trying to sound dignified. ‘It’s a new thing.’

‘Well, why do it?’ He looked genuinely puzzled. ‘I mean, a girl like you could have…’

‘Who’s this, Chris?’ Another voice came from behind me, cutting across him. I turned to see who’d spoken, and was confronted by another Aussie. This one was slightly taller than the first, and had rough dark hair, and stubble. The blond guy bridled, and put his hand on the pillar above me, as if staking his claim.

‘This is…’ He looked at me, questioningly.

‘Grace,’ I said, looking from one to the other, before taking another slug of beer.

‘G’day, Grace,’ said the dark guy. ‘Stef. Can I get you a drink?’

I looked down at my glass. It was almost empty again. I went to speak, when Chris cut in. ‘Hey, mate. I’ll get it. This one’s mine. Go and find your own.’

‘I offered first.’ Stef took a step forward, the planes of his chest standing out against his tee-shirt. ‘D’you want one, babe?’

‘I…’

‘I’ll get you one,’ Chris told me firmly, then to Stef; ‘Fuck off, mate.’

They squared up to each other, chest to chest, and I shrank back against the pillar. I watched them argue and, suddenly, it occurred to me why I’d despised Gav’s weakness so much. I was weak. I’d been letting people push me around ever since this whole Leo business had begun. First Max, then Leo. Even Kitty and Liv had argued over me, as if I wasn’t there, and now it was happening again. Jeez, I wasn’t even interested in these guys…not really.

It was time I took charge. ‘Look, you can both get me one,’ I said. ‘You can both have me.’

It didn’t come out quite how I meant it to, but it seemed to mollify them. They flashed each other a grin, then headed off to the bar, nudging each other as they went. Almost as soon as they’d gone, the band started up and I forgot all about them.

‘After you.’ I showed Rick into my office, which was on the upper floor of the castle, well away from the parts he was more used to patrolling. He’d been a good security guard over the years, and I was grieved that it had come to this, but he’d picked his path and there was nothing either of us could do now.

He stood in front of my desk. He didn’t say anything. He thought he knew what this was about, I could tell, and it was about that in a way, but it was about so much else, too. It was essential I caught him off-guard.

‘You’ve always had a thing for prostitutes,’ I said. I had my back to him, and I was staring out the window at the avenue of lime trees. ‘I’ve never understood it myself.’

‘You either get it or you don’t,’ Rick said. ‘Sir. It’s the thrill of it.’

‘And yet you have a wife.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘And you claim to love her?’ I turned to him. He was standing at my desk, practically to attention.

‘You know I do, Sir.’

‘So how does that work, exactly?’

He didn’t speak at once. He was shuffling from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable with how the interview was progressing. I didn’t push him. In fact, I ignored him for a few moments, while I took the things out of my pocket I’d brought with me for safe keeping. The tape of Fliss for the vaults…the letters. I was going to go through them after this, see what information I could glean.

I looked up. ‘Well? How does your wife like the fact that you pay for sex?’

Rick obviously thought he’d risk a joke. ‘Well, if I paid her Sir, she’d probably do it more often.’

I didn’t crack a smile. ‘But it’s not her you pay.’

‘No.’

He was squirming, and I pinned him with a look, wondering how I could get through to him. He was such a contradiction. I didn’t understand him at all. The irony was that he really did love his wife. More than most men I’d known. He adored her, and yet still he screwed around behind her back.

‘Look,’ he said, finally. ‘She doesn’t know, you know that. She’d leave me. Sir.’

It was practically an appeal. I only stared back at him, unmoved. ‘So she doesn’t know about Charlotte, then?’

As the implications of the question sunk in, Rick paled visibly. By the time he attempted a reply, he was ashen, and he could barely get the words out. ‘N…now, Sir. I didn’t know anything about that. I…I thought she was just another call-girl.’

‘But you passed her for security clearance?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘For both Dominion and the Castle itself?’

‘Y…yes, Sir.’ His eyes were downcast, but then he looked up, desperation in his eyes. ‘She said she’d tell Sandy,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t have that.’

I shrugged. ‘You let it continue…let us all get sucked in,’ I said. ‘And you’ve still been using whores, knowing you could catch something and pass it on. What use are medical exams, if you go fucking around straight afterwards? Don’t you think about anything except your cock? You’ve put us all at risk and, last night, you disobeyed a direct order.’

‘I…’ He was wilting in front of me. He could see where this was going by now, and the fight had gone out of him. ‘I did it to get you off the hook,’ he said, but it was a lame excuse, and I could tell he knew it.

‘You know I’m going to have to let you go, don’t you?’ I said, turning again to stare out the window. I didn’t want to look at him. I hated this kind of thing, but he’d brought it on himself.

‘Oh, no, Sir.’ He spoke quickly now, the words tumbling out on top of each other. ‘Please, Sir. Where am I going to find another job like this? With pay like this?’

‘It’s not my concern.’ I shrugged and turned to him, trying to suppress my anger. ‘My only concern at the moment is protecting the people you’ve put at risk. Look,’ I relented slightly. ‘I’ll give you some cash to tide you over. After that, it’s up to you.’

I went into the room next door. I always had a decent amount of cash in the safe, for emergencies. It took a few minutes to get the combination lined up correctly. It was an old safe – it had been my father’s – but it was solid and dependable enough for the amount I kept in it.

Finally, I got it open, and counted out enough cash to give him a few months’ breathing space. I shut the safe quickly, and went back into my office.

Rick was gone. As I looked out the window, I saw his car hurtling away up the driveway, past the avenue of lime trees and out on the darkening roads of Berkshire. I wondered why he hadn’t waited…why he was leaving empty-handed and in such a hurry.

It was only when I turned back to my desk to sort out the rest of my business, that I found the answer. Rick hadn’t left empty-handed at all. He’d taken the tape, and the letters, with him.

As the first strains of music crept out across the audience, people were still laughing and shouting, but as soon as Liv began to sing, the room fell silent. Her voice, though low, was rich and melodic, and it stopped the audience in its tracks.

I recognised the song straight away. It was one Leo and I had danced to when we’d first met, and the memory brought back the hurt all over again. We’d been happy then. He’d been a youth team player, and I was at college. He’d come to our student prom with a friend and we’d fallen in love almost at once. He was awkward and shy, and it had taken him the whole evening to get up the courage to ask me out. From the moment he had, we’d been inseparable.

The song brought it all flooding back but, after the initial shock of hearing it, the pain began to dwindle. I was too interested in the way Liv sang it. For such a dainty creature, she could sure kick out a tune. She’d put her own twist on it, taken a light love song to another plane entirely…dragged it kicking and screaming into a power ballad. She’d destroyed the original for me forever, and I was glad. There was a gothic edge to this version, too, which gave it a haunting quality. The audience loved it and, as she sobbed out the final notes, they yelled and cheered for more.

I put my empty glass down on the sawdust-strewn floor and clapped, feeling almost as proud as if it were me up there, drinking in the applause. Liv was loving it, beaming out at the audience and squinting against the bright lights. She spotted me and waved excitedly. Then her smile faded. She seemed to be looking behind me, and worry was etched into her face.

I turned to see what she’d been looking at. Chris and Stef were standing either side of me, drinks in their hands. I smiled at them both, relieved to have some company to take my mind off Leo.

‘Come with us,’ Stef said, handing me a beer. ‘Meet our mates.’

I followed them to the farthest corner of the room. There was a cluster of young guys there, sitting on benches. They all had surfer-dude hairstyles and tight tee-shirts that strained across their chests, and they laughed and cheered as we walked over to them. I felt awkward and shy.

‘Here she is.’ Stef pushed me forward. ‘This is Grace, and she’s on her own.’

‘Not anymore,’ one of the guys said. ‘Come and sit with us, babe.’

The benches were full, but Chris stepped forward and ducked down onto the end of one of them. He pushed the guys along and held out his hand to me. ‘Here, Grace. Sit on my lap.’

‘I…’ I hesitated and then, suddenly, it hit me. What the hell. I was single. I wasn’t looking for love. I might as well have some fun. ‘Okay,’ I said, and sank down onto his knee. All the guys laughed, and I smiled around at them, no longer caring what they thought of me. I guzzled down another half glass of beer, before putting both glasses on the table.

The rest of the guys introduced themselves. I didn’t catch their names…there were too many of them, and Liv had just started another song, so I couldn’t hear very well. It didn’t matter, anyway. It wasn’t like I was going to see them again.