by Amelia Rose
The woman climbed off him and turned to lay on her back. Her delicate features formed into a look of surprise when she saw Elle standing in the doorway, then she shrugged and lay down, spreading her legs.
“Ryan, you did not tell me you invited a friend. She’s a bit bigger than I usually find attractive, but I love that you thought to bring me a surprise,” she purred, reaching down to stroke between her legs. “Tell her to come lick me while you use her, like we did last time.”
Ryan looked at Elle standing in the doorway and a mixture of emotions passed over his face. She saw the shock there, but also anger and irritation at being interrupted.
“I’ll be right back, Katja. That one isn’t for you. That’s Elle.” He climbed from the bed, leaving the tanned blonde to start laughing as he wrapped a sheet around his waist.
“That is Elle?” The blonde continued laughing and sat up. “Oh, love, now I see why you hate your life so much. Well, hurry back. This pussy isn’t going to wait all day.” She fell back onto the bed and gave Elle a look of satisfaction as she once again spread her legs.
Ryan guided the stunned Elle from the bedroom and shut the door behind them, blocking Katja and her overexposed body from their view. Elle recoiled when he touched her and backed against the hallway wall. Her confusion had finally started to clear and she thought she might throw up.
“Elle, you weren’t supposed to be home until late. What are you doing here?” Ryan slipped back into his annoyed pose, trying to put her on the defensive.
Elle gaped at him, unable to speak, then shook her head and fled from the house.
*****
She drove aimlessly for what felt like hours, trying to sort out everything that had just occurred. Tears streamed down her face and an empty ache felt like it would tear her apart from inside. She pulled the car into what used to be a parking lot, but was now little more than a field of overgrown weeds, and climbed into the back seat, curling into a ball.
Katja’s words kept invading her mind, echoing over and over. “…now I see why you hate your life.” He had talked about her to that woman, had shared parts of his life with her. Elle thought that hurt even more than the physical act of betrayal. Ryan hadn’t talked to her about anything other than things he was forced to for a long time.
She realized she knew nothing about Ryan, that she had been living with a stranger. “…like we did last time.” The man she thought saw sex as a necessary chore had been having threesomes with that skinny blonde bitch, had tried to do things to please her sexually. Elle had shared some of her tamer fantasies with him in the past and he had seemed disgusted.
Anger started to fill her and she sat up, pounding at the back of the car seats with her fists. He had made her feel insecure and used her, and in response she had given him everything she could. The last six years of her life had been spent dedicated to the needs of a man who hated everything but the support she had provided.
Elle reached into the front seat and felt for her purse. She had to call Julien. He would be expecting her tonight and there was no way she could serve drinks to pampered rich assholes. She quickly located his stored contact and waited for him to answer.
“Elle, you should be napping. Don’t worry, I have everything taken care of here. The uniform is in your office,” Julien answered in his usual abrupt manner, knowing it was Elle on the other end.
Hearing the voice of her best friend brought on a fresh set of tears. She snuffled through a mangled version of the afternoon’s events while Julien listened, then told him she wouldn’t be in that evening and he would have to find someone else.
“Where are you, Elle. We’ll worry about tonight later. Right now, we need to take care of you.”
She looked out the window of the backseat and spotted road signs, then gave him the intersection where she was parked. He let out a low sigh, and she heard him typing in the background.
“I’m sending a driver for you. Leave your car there, we’ll have it picked up and delivered to the hotel later.” Julien had switched into the take control mode that had earned him his first promotion. His voice softened before he continued. “And Elle, it’s going to be okay. It really is.”
*****
Two months had passed since Elle had walked in on Ryan in the middle of proving he was an asshole. She had moved into a small suite at the Empyrean while she threw herself into work, doing anything she could to avoid focusing on what felt like a wasted six years.
I’ll get cats, she thought. Forty cats. I’m going to end up being a crazy cat lady anyway, so why not get a head start. The memory of her houseplants, with their wrinkled brown leaves and sad droopy stems made her wince. It wasn’t her fault they required so much work, like watering and sunlight. Well, maybe it was. So no cats. That would be bad. There, she thought. I just saved the lives of forty cats. I did something noble today.
She was still giggling to herself when Julien walked into her office. He smiled at seeing his friend looking happy for once, instead of being the mess she had been on and off over the last two months. Elle looked up at him from her desk and said, “I just saved forty imaginary cats from certain death, Julien.” She collapsed onto her desk in peals of laughter, while he shook his head and his smile broadened.
“You have no idea how happy I am to see you laugh,” he replied, then his face changed and Elle sat up from her desk, looking at him with concern.
“What’s wrong, Julien?”
“It’s nothing, Elle. I’ll take care of it.” Julien didn’t want anything to interrupt this rare display of silliness from his friend. She had gone through a lot, not even just the past two months, but the entire time she had been with Ryan.
Elle sobered. “No really, Julien. I need to get fully back into work. It helps. Let me deal with whatever it is.”
He thought for a moment, then nodded to himself. “There was a bit of an incident in the Platinum Lounge. Sara did something to make one of the whales angry, and now his host is calling me demanding that we fire her.”
“What did she do that was so bad?” Elle had been around enough to expect spilled drinks and mixed up orders. It happened, and it could usually be smoothed over by gifting the angry gambler with an expensive bottle of whiskey and groveling apologies.
Julien cleared his throat, and Elle waited.
“She um.. she propositioned him,” Julien said uncomfortably.
Elle blinked at few times. All of the servers knew about the casino policies on interacting with guests. They were never to approach a guest for anything, aside from taking drink orders. She couldn’t believe Sara would have done such a thing. She had been one of Elle’s top servers, quickly earning the coveted Platinum Lounge shifts.
“You can’t be serious. He probably invited her to his room and got turned down,” Elle fumed. The rich men who frequented the Empyrean casino often had an extreme sense of entitlement, which was encouraged by the way their hosts gave them anything they wanted.
“I saw the note, Elle. She passed it to him with his drink.”
Julien remained silent while Elle processed what he had just told her. She knew they would have to take care of the situation quickly or risk being held responsible for the loss of potential millions for the company.
“Where are they now?” She asked, hoping it hadn’t been escalated up further than the two of them yet.
“Sara was sent home, so we can figure out what to do about her later. Mr. Magnusson and his assistant are in David’s office, which is where we should be heading now. I’ll do the talking, but I need you there as well since you are her direct manager.”
Elle nodded. David was one of the top hosts and a close friend of Julien. They were lucky in that respect. Many of the other casino hosts would have immediately escalated something like this up the chain, hoping to impress the client.
The two entered the small office David maintained just off the casino floor. Elle nodded thankfully to the host, then composed her face into a look of grave seriou
sness before turning to the others in the room. It was important to show the clients that their concerns weren’t taken lightly.
“Elle, Julien, thank you for coming so quickly. This is Mr. Anders Magnusson and his assistant, Finn. Mr. Magnusson, Elle and Julien are here as representatives of the Empyrean beverage staff to assure you that this matter will be resolved to your satisfaction,” David said smoothly, rising from his desk to usher Elle and Julien to seats.
Elle heard his words, but was too enthralled by the large man sitting across the room to register them. He looked like he could have been some sort of Norse god. He was lean, with broad shoulders and powerful arms encased in a blue cashmere sweater that matched his deep blue eyes. His golden blonde hair was cropped close to his head in the back, but left in layers on top that brushed over one of his eyes as he turned to regard the room’s new occupants.
If this was the man Sara had been waiting on, there’s no wonder she propositioned him, Elle thought. Hell, I might proposition him myself. Her eyes scanned over a face that somehow combined boyish charm with the rugged, masculine intensity of a man who knew he commanded attention.
Julien cleared his throat, snapping Elle out of her reverie. She realized that he had already taken his seat, and David was awkwardly waiting for her to take her own. The man she had been staring at raised an eyebrow at her as she nearly tripped over David when she moved to sit. She felt a blush rise furiously into her face, and focused all of her attention on maintaining a mask of studied concern.
Stop it, she chided herself. That kind of man dates supermodels, not crazy beverage managers who daydream about becoming cat ladies. Julien gave her an unreadable look before he turned back to the two men and began speaking.
“Gentlemen, we take this matter to be of utmost concern and would like to offer our sincerest apologies. We understand that one of our staff offered a grave insult to Mr. Magnusson, and assure you that it will be dealt with swiftly and severely.” Julien was in his element, playing up the French accent as he tried to reassure the men seated across from them.
A man in a tailored business suit leaned forward in his chair. “I don’t think you understand just how serious this matter is, or you wouldn’t be offering such useless words. Mr. Magnusson came to your casino to get away from his very stressful life, then finds himself subjected to the unwelcomed advanced of one of your staff.”
Elle realized that Mr. Magnusson’s assistant was probably the one who made the complaint, as she noticed that the other man seemed somewhat disinterested as he continued.
“We expect a full accounting of her termination, and in addition to that, we…”
Anders Magnusson put a hand on his assistant’s shoulder, stopping him from continuing what seemed to be the beginning of a long list of demands. He motioned his assistant to lean toward him, and spoke in a low voice. They seemed to go back and forth for a few moments before the other man sat back up and shot a look toward her.
“It seems that Mr. Magnusson does not wish to pursue the matter, provided that the lady here would join him for dinner this evening,” he said, giving Elle a look of disbelief.
Elle looked around the room, thinking one of the showgirls must have come in without her noticing, but saw no one else besides Julien and David.
“Mr. Magnusson, I can’t give you that. I would be more than happy to provide anything else, but we cannot just give you a person,” David said, flustered.
Julien held up a hand, stopping the conversation before it could go any further.
“She’ll do it.”
*****
“What were you thinking in there, Julien?” Elle hissed, following him into his office.
He gave her an amused look as she paced around his desk. “You haven’t done anything but work in the last two months. I was thinking you need some fun.”
“With him?! That kind of man doesn’t have fun. That kind of man has assistants to have fun for him.”
“You’re going to hyperventilate, Elle. Calm down. It’s just a dinner, and besides, I saw how you looked at him. He’s pretty hot,” Julien admitted, catching his friend as she paced by the front of his desk once again and directing her into a chair.
“That’s the problem, Julien. Don’t you get it? He’s more than pretty hot, he’s devastatingly gorgeous. Men like that don’t have dinner with me,” she wailed. “He probably just wants to humiliate me in some way to make up for one of my staff embarrassing him.”
“I don’t think he’s that kind of person. David gave me some background on him before I came to your office, and Anders owns a holding company that he started fresh out of college. He’s had a lot of chances to profit from destroying other companies, but didn’t take them. Instead, he grew his own company through a lot of hard work and determination.” Julien looked suitably impressed, which was a hard thing to do.
“Okay, so he’s a good businessman. He’s also more than probably rich and definitely sexy as hell. None of those things help here, Julien. I’m a beverage manager with uncontrollable frizzy hair who was just abandoned by a man not even a quarter of Anders’ quality. This won’t go well,” she promised.
Julien watched her rant with dismay. “Elle, you have no idea how beautiful you are because Ryan never let you see it. He kept you in a constant state of insecurity so you wouldn’t realize what an asshole he was himself. Just quit over thinking this and go to dinner with him.”
Elle nodded feebly, trying to come up with another excuse. “I have nothing to wear.”
Her friend reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope, handing it to her.
“Finn, Mr. Magnusson’s assistant, had David give me that as we were wrapping things up in there. He requested that you go shopping and pick out something elegant.”
She held the envelope as if it were a snake about to bite her, then opened it and looked inside. It held a credit slip for the hotel’s high end women’s clothing store, Luxuré. She saw the amount on the slip and her eyes went wide. Okay, so definitely rich instead of more than probably.
“Go spend it. While you’re shopping, I’ll have David use his connections to send someone up to do your hair and makeup. Just promise to tell me all the details tomorrow.” Julien grinned, then leaned down to give Elle a hug before scooting her out of his office.
*****
Elle had never been in Luxuré before, even though she had worked in the same building for years. She felt underdressed in its ornate interior of cream and gold marble with hand carved scrollwork covering the walls. Looking around at the racks of dresses, she had absolutely no idea where to begin.
“Can I help you with something?” A woman that looked like she had just stepped off the cover of a high fashion magazine approached her, giving her an appraising glance that seemed to measure every inch of her body.
“Hi,” Elle said, feeling like an intruder in the store. “I have a credit slip, can I use it here?” She handed it to the woman, who looked at it, then looked back up at Elle with a friendly smile that seemed out of place on her face.
“I’m afraid we don’t have many things in your size, but I have no doubt that we can find something that will meet your needs,” she said, not realizing how condescending she sounded.
Elle sighed and waved her off, then started flipping through the racks of dresses. She was used to being treated like that when she was shopping. It was like other women became offended if she thought to shop in the same store as them.
She started pulling out all the various earth toned dresses she could find and checked for her size. With her shade of red hair and fair complexion, she tended toward muted colors so that she didn’t feel like a circus clown. She quickly sorted through them, finding nothing that both would fit her and meet some arbitrary standard of elegant she had fixed in her mind, so she moved on to the next rack.
Her eyes immediately strayed to a muted bronze dress, so she pulled it off the rack and held it up. The color remained muted until she lifted it into the li
ght, then it seemed to shimmer softly. It was a rich shade of bronze and the light shimmering gave it warmth. Elle quickly checked the size before she got too attached to it, and realized it should probably fit her.
She carried the dress into the sumptuous fitting room, hanging it on a hook while she discarded her normal business suit onto the deep red chaise that sat off to the side. Taking a deep breath, she gently removed the dress from the hanger and slipped it over her head, then turned to look in the full length mirror.
The dress had long, tight sleeves that reached to her wrists. The neckline was off the shoulder and draped to reveal the top half of her breasts. She self consciously tried to pull the neck up to cover herself more, but the dress slid immediately back into place. It continued down her body, clinging to her curves in soft folds of fabric. The dress had just enough stretch that it didn’t need any sort of zipper or buttons, so it fell in one continuous piece to just above her knees.
