I went to bed earlier than I intended to last night, unable to deal with knowing he could turn up with
some random slut and I wanted to be asleep before he did. I downed two sleeping pills to make sure I
was oblivious to any sexual moaning or appearance of his playthings and woke up groggy before
getting down here as fast as I could. I had no intention of awkward morning greetings either and even
though I am tired and feeling listless, I submerge myself into sorting the club out.
It’s cleaner and the brewery is restocking the basement as we speak. I have cases of foreign booze
being shipped in and the kitchen is being filled with fresh ingredients to feed the staff. Joanne had
stopped that service the second I was out the door, meaning no food was supplied at any point from
the girls coming on or leaving twelve hours later.
It’s a gruelling shift and not exactly convenient to pop out for takeout, and she should have thought
about that before she started having escorts passing out mid-shift from exertion and lack of food. They
have a very physical job and our clients expect more than a half-arsed fuck before they want to call it
quits. Food may not seem important to someone who has never worked on her back for long hours, but
I have the sense to know differently. Keep the Toms happy and you keep the men smiling. It’s hardly
rocket science.
Joanne is hiding in the downstairs office at this moment in time. She has been cancelling client lists for
the past couple of days and having to grovel and explain to childish rich men why they cannot come to
their favourite hangout while I turn my nightmare back into a palace.
I found she had fired five of our seven cleaning staff, fired two of the bar staff and four of our servers in
a bid to save money and scrimped on the booze to hide the fact she was losing him customers.
Memberships dropping off, and to top it off one of his high rollers had an overdose here two months
back because she was failing to limit the product flow to each member. Fuckwit could have screwed
everything up had he died here. I doubt Alexi even knows about this yet and I am not hiding it from him.
Let her see his demon side when he’s in a rage. I’m sure she is ill-equipped to handle him if someone
like me can’t.
I have the electrician coming back at the end of the week to replace all switches, and it’s not too soon
as one of the sockets at the bar sparked at me this morning when I tried to plug in the neon sign over
the cocktail counter. I have had to stick a sign over it which says ‘Do not use’ before one of our staff kill
themselves.
I also located and had my oval club logo rehung in pride of place after finding it in storage in the
basement, and personally took a match to that shitty piece of artwork she had used instead. She stood
gawping when my ‘Club Carrero’ sign went back up, all polished and gleaming and signalling my return
as Queen of MY club!
It’s one thing after another and it’s only now I find out the new sprinkler system, which was the cause of
all the mayhem, doesn’t even work and had to be unplumbed to stop the leak. She never had it
resolved, wasted thousands installing it, and now it’s off because she couldn’t figure out how it was
leaking. Which is in complete violation to city code and could get us shut down until it’s rectified
anyway.
So that’s plumbers, electricians and decorators all coming down this week with a view to causing more
disruption before this building gets better.
We still have to abide by certain fire and safety codes even if this place isn’t exactly above board. It’s
run like a legit business, with payrolls, regulations and things in place to keep the City authorities
happy. Joanne has failed to answer notices and inspections in the last month and I have a pile of
paperwork a mile high. To top it off there’s a huge mountain of receipts that have never made it to the
accountant, and the books are a total mess. Alexi didn’t just avoid coming here; it seems he washed
his hands of the whole fucking place while I was gone. There are no hints that he even checked in on it
sporadically.
I’m in a rage, throwing papers across the desk in the office, which is now shared again, while scraping
my fingers through my hair against my scalp in agitation, and getting more and more furious as I try to
sort it out. My temper is simmering between an all-out tantrum and complete frustration; kicking my foot
against the wooden leg from its crossed position, and fingernails tapping on the surface as I try and
decipher more jumbled chaos.
Alexi comes swanning in around ten a.m. looking shower fresh and perky in sweats and a workout top,
whistling to himself merrily, which is weird. He has on a hoody with no sleeves that’s cut out around his
shoulders in a very flattering way. It showcases the sheer size and strength of those toned, muscled
biceps and the way his tattoos curl all the way down to the backs of his hands, up both arms and sneak
behind them under the fabric.
I have to drag my eyes from lingering on them. He looks hot, even I can admit that it gets warm in the
panty area at the mere sight of him like this.
By the looks of it he has added a new addition to his left hand … where the tattoo used to stop at the
wrist it now matches his right in meeting his knuckles. It’s looking glossy, meaning it has some sort of
barrier cream on it as it heals, so I am guessing this was done yesterday at some point after he left
here. I am pretty sure I never saw it before.
It’s another gothic skull, entwined with barbs and snakes that melt into all his other black ink like a
mosaic. He has a thing for dark themed images.
He is clearly going to the gym this morning and I glare at him when he throws a boyish smile my way,
that cheeky twinkly look in his eye which suggests a great mood. Meanwhile, I am stressed to the max
clearing up the mess he let happen.
I wonder if it’s sex induced and scowl all the more.
‘You look happy,’ He says drily giving me the once over, joking obviously, and I just cast another furious
look his way.
‘This place is a shambles; I hope your accountant isn’t busy because I am sending them four boxes of
shit to decipher.’ I rage at him, unamused and with sarcasm, miffed that he seems lax about the
pandemonium of his nightclub.
‘Tell them it’s from me and they will prioritise it.’ He shrugs with one shoulder, a hint of a half-smile at
me. He just doesn’t seem to care at all about the surface of strewn paperwork or his extremely
harassed hostess and I lose the last of my frayed mood.
‘How could you let it go this way? This was half a year of my fucking life in the making, Alexi. It’s been
left to drown in shit and fall apart like it never mattered. How is that good business?’
I am completely frustrated at him and toss papers his way in agitation. They fall off the end of the desk
in a slippery sweep and land around his feet on the floor like scattered leaves as he gets to the edge.
Looking down at them he steps back and bends to start picking them up slowly. No more annoyed than
he was on entering and I wonder what gives—he’s never this cheerful.
‘I was busy.’ He responds nonchalantly as though it’s a reasonable answer that takes away all the sin
of letting my baby die; an annoyingly bland and repetitive answer that enrages me.
‘Busy? Too busy to care that you were haemorrhaging money, and your whole set up to wine and
manipulate clients was turning to ashes? What in the hell was more important and took four months of
ignoring this place?’ I snap at him and toss a pen on top of the pile of sheets in front of me.
Alexi straightens up and slides the papers on the table on top of mine, so they spread back in my
direction, and hits me with an intensely serious look.
‘Looking for you!’ He retorts; a spark of slight annoyance in his tone now, and as much as I wish it was
true, I know better. Always trying to turn an edge on me and make me yield to him emotionally.
Not a chance.
‘Funny. Seriously though, what the hell did you think would happen if you left it to rot? Joanne has as
much business sense as the goon you leave to watch the car park. Hardly high in the IQ department,
so I am guessing she was a vixen in the sack to be left with all this responsibility.’ I sound bitter, but I
don’t care. I’m pissed off, elbow deep in this stress of paperwork that is going to take the accountant
days to work through, and as it stands, I don’t even have a current members list of who exactly is still
paying to come here and who left. She seems to have been prioritising the same thirty clients over and
over and not varying them … Seems like some of them have waited the last four months for just one
night here. No wonder a lot of them cancelled.
Alexi trying to be smart isn’t making me rage less, his sense of humour is dickish.
He sighs and perches on the end of the desk as I bury my fingers in my hair at the temple once more
and slump over the file I have open. Half covered in what he threw and roll my eyes as they land back
on the point of my misery. I can’t even begin to figure out where to start when it comes to his client list,
she has post-it notes everywhere and half of them have fallen off and stuck to unrelated pieces of
paper.
‘Move over, let me see how bad it is.’ His tone softens noticeably and the heavy exhale he exudes
calms my own anger at him. He comes around the table and I lean away as he towers over my right
shoulder to bend down and look at what’s in front of me. Smelling heavily of body spray and shower gel
and I can see this close his hair is still damp. I try and ignore the obvious effects he has on me
physically, as my insides clench and tingle and tell myself that a sexual attraction is fine. I know that’s
what these recurring sensations are—the longer I am around him.
It’s the acting on it that’s dangerous, and I am aware of a sizzle of tension between us. It doesn’t mean
a damn thing; just a chemical reaction from my overly hormonal body when faced with a devilishly sexy
male. He oozes testosterone so it’s no wonder.
He leans one palm on the desk to curl over me, the other hand on the back of my chair to steady
himself, and it has the instant effect of caging me in and putting us dangerously close. My heart rate
spikes and I squirm in my seat to move out of his way.
I wonder what happened to the girl he probably, most definitely, brought home if he is up and about this
early. I can’t help it running through my head as I am assaulted with his familiar smell and proximity,
like a long slow heat travelling through me to end up on my cheekbones.
‘Are these the current memberships?’ He seems oblivious to me as he moves in close, his free hand
behind me on the back of my chair slides around the headrest further, so my chair gets pulled in,
stopping me from getting away. I try not to react or show him how uncomfortable it suddenly makes me
and just focus on regulating my erratic breathing.
‘No idea. She has three lists with same names and different ones scored out on each, and then there’s
this.’ I duck under him to reach for the stray piece of paper with ten names written down I have never
seen before, and the word ‘Members’ in capitals at the top.
Very organised and efficient, Hoe-anne!
‘As you know the incoming payments are numbered, not named, so they could never be traced to
recipients by prying eyes and I have no idea where she even put the files with that information. I have a
list of payments and no clue how to allocate them to names.’ I sigh heavily, moving back and banging
my shoulder against Alexi’s peck as he gets a little too close while reading the papers strewn on the
table. I instinctively move further away, burning from the touch and aware that he’s now a little too
suffocating on top of me, without meaning to be. I try to wheel out from under him and the chair decides
to be a wanker and jam in the rug.
‘Jesus Christ,’ He mutters under his breath and flicks the sheet over to the next page, looking as
confused as I was when I first opened this. Focused on what he’s looking at and not on me acting like a
prize idiot and freaking out about touching him.
Get a grip Camilla. He’s hardly going to make your clothes fall off on command by touch alone.
‘Get her in to fix this shit. Make her start over and call every single name on the list to confirm a new
membership, and inform them that the club is being overhauled. Cancel everything and start from
scratch. Send the important stuff to Crawley over at accountancy and tell him it’s needed pronto.’ Alexi
sounds stern and mildly miffed.
‘You want her to start from scratch with a clean members list and cancel all payments just like that?
How do you know anyone will bother to come back?’ I blanch at him, shocked he would clear it
completely … Stupidity, right there.
‘Tell them I will be here. That was what attracted some of them in the first place and maybe have her
inform them that my redhead is back running things. How it was run was half the allure. You were
missed.’ He throws me a loaded look and a smile before he gets up and moves away, walking to the
long low cupboard we have for keeping paperwork and picking up a glass as he pours himself a
whisky.
What happened to staying away from here?!?!
Also, so much for a healthy start to his day and going to the gym.
I sit back and exhale loudly, flushed from being anxious over this stuff and from the weird heat that hit
the city today. It’s sunny out and the air-con is battling to keep up with it today, moisture collecting down
my spine under my thick tailored dress that is meant for cooler weather.
Or maybe just because I had a six-foot odd Carrero practically on top me seconds ago. The facial
bloom is definitely down to him.
I need to find ways to combat that if I am going to be near him from time to time. I can’t deny he still
looks good even if I do hate him. I am back to the celibate existence and my ‘BOB’ hasn’t seen daylight
in months. I should self-relieve some tension later and see if it helps my ansty behaviour when he gets
within two feet of me. My temperature rise because of this man is as annoying as he is.
‘I need some air. It’s stifling in here and I need to take a break from staring at this shit under artificial
lighting.’ I push back and get up, passing him at the end of the desk as his eyes follow me, intentions of
taking a walk downstairs and outside for a while to reset my brain. And to get away from him until my
hormones reset to normal.
‘Where you going?’ He queries, still hints of that better mood and it’s slightly infectious. I’m used to
cranky and sombre from him, so being happier is somehow atmosphere lifting.
‘Don’t worry … I’m only venturing to your very safe car park to get some real air and bask in the sun for
twenty minutes. I need a break and I’m getting a headache from that.’ I nod up at the ceiling, pointing
out the office lights in here, even though they are expensive and not the factory type which kills your
eyes. It’s not great sitting under them for hours on end. I need a change of scenery.
‘If you leave the car park, take Jackson. There’s no argument on that front.’ Alexi warns and I just
eyeroll his way.
‘Yes Sir, loud and clear.’ I reply with a heavy sigh. I am in no mood for a battle. I’m too wired and
uptight from the mess I am stuck in the midst of, and I still need to handle calling the stupid bitch to
come in and then let her sit and undo her mess while having to monitor her. Not my idea of a fun
afternoon.
‘I mean it Cam. If you leave and he’s not with you, I will rethink the punishment rules in a heartbeat.’
There’s a lightness as though he’s half joking but enough undertone to say he’s not.
‘Fuck off, Alexi.’ I throw back and walk out with an extra wiggle of attitude knowing full well if he bloody
dared, I would dump his arse faster than a hot coal.
I don’t wait around for his response and get in the lift before he can start another little Cam - Alexi war. I
am in no mood for it today.
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