Miss South

by Kay Williams

  When Heronsgate didn’t reply I knew I would be in for it when he got back tonight, he was never going to let me get away with that pet name, but as long as he kept calling me ‘sweetheart’ that was going to be the return. How hard was it to switch to another endearment if he felt like calling me something special?

  Grabbing my notebook I abandoned the room and took the elevator up to the restaurant, a few more notes and plenty of calories would keep me occupied until Heronsgate got back to the hotel. I was waiting by the stand for a waiter and eyeing the afternoon tea menu when I heard someone say my name.

  Lucy and her brothers had all at one time or another tried to teach me how to defend myself, while at university and flat sharing with Lucy she had dragged me to kickboxing classes three times a week, and although I had enjoyed the exercise, the lessons had failed to make any kind of lasting impression. The best anyone had ever managed to get out of me was a dodge or a duck.

  So as I turned and saw a small fist flying at me getting out of its way was the easy part, it was harder to watch the woman who owned the fist miss as the swing failed to connect. Her own momentum took her off her feet to where she staggered into a waiter who had only been coming over to see me to a table.

  Instead he found himself barrelled into; off balance the pair went down.

  Several diners were on their feet watching the spectacle while three other waiters were running over to help.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, offering my hand to help the pair up on reflex.

  It was a bad move; the woman seized my wrist and once I was in her grasp she swung again. This time her fist hit my cheek and my nose and slapped my head sideways, hands helped rescue me from the iron grip the other woman had on me while I tried to shake off the sudden impact and stop the blood streaming from my nose reaching the immaculate hotel carpet.

  “Let go of me!”

  The shriek came from the feral creature masquerading as a woman who I was finally able to blink into focus, I hated to admit it but if anyone other than Sarah Harper had been on the other end of the punch I would have wanted to know what I had done to deserve it.

  She was currently being helped up by a couple of waiters so they could get to their fallen colleague who had taken the first punch and the fall.

  “Are you alright, Miss South?”

  One of the waiters who had rescued me was offering me a napkin full of ice cubes which felt like bliss when I held it up against my cheek and nose. My shirt might have been covered in blood but I had managed not to stain the carpet and the flow was easing now.

  “I think so,” I said, though I doubted that being punched in the face only a couple of days after I had suffered massive head trauma was an advisable thing.

  “Let go of me!” Harper shrieked again, shaking off the hotel staff and stabbing a finger at me “You want to grab anyone, restrain that man-stealing bitch!”

  “Would you like me to get you a doctor, Miss South?” One of the waiters asked.

  I caught the flash out of the corner of my eye, the press might not be allowed up here but there was nothing against people having their phones and taking photos or videos; I had to stay calm and not freak out.

  “No. Thank you, I’m okay.”

  “You won’t be once I am done with you!” Harper yelled at me. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “I have no idea what’s going on here,” I replied.

  It was a life-time of being an only child that held me in good stead. I knew how to lie when pushed. I had to learn to be infallible when I didn’t have a sibling to point the finger at like Lucy did.

  “You and Henry!” Harper bit out. “He is dating me, you need to keep your hands off of him.”

  I hoped I looked confused and innocent, rather than insanely guilty. Harper might have been enamoured by gossip columns and deluded but I had agreed to the plan that had a high probability of hurting her feelings.

  “We are just friends,” I replied.

  Normally I wouldn’t have lied about a new boyfriend but I felt quite confident that was the right things to say. Heronsgate hadn’t wanted to admit to the relationship in the car on the way to the restaurant and we hadn’t discussed putting our new understanding out for the world to see. Something that would be big news where his reputation was concerned.

  “Does this look like you are just friends!”

  Harper thrust an open copy of Everyone at me opened; it was the centre 'Everyone Knows' article where there was a big blow-up picture of us dancing at the restaurant. A part of me was surprised, I would have thought that the magazine would have been more interested in the crash, then again it had been pitch black after the lights went out and maybe they didn’t have a camera that could have picked out survivors.

  “From one picture of us dancing you have decided that I am trying to come between you both?”

  “Don’t deny it! I know you are fucking him!”

  The woman was seriously unstable, but I had to stay calm and careful.

  “I can assure you, Miss Harper, that we are doing no such thing.”

  My calm seemed to finally be getting through to her and my innocent mask must have stayed in place because she backed up, hesitating from her next verbal onslaught. The secret to lying was to tell the truth in an oblique sense, right in that moment Heronsgate and I weren’t repeating our afternoon tryst on the restaurant carpet so I could say with certainty that in this moment we weren’t intimate.

  Anyone who had known me longer knew better than to leave me room for so much manoeuvre when trying to wrangle the absolute truth out of me.

  A man pushing as close to seven foot as I had ever seen stepped between us and stooped apologetically in my direction.

  “I am Klaus, I own the hotel. Let me apologise to you personally, Miss South. The safety of our guests is always of paramount importance. Please, come and sit down, the police have been called and our doctor is on the way.”

  Under normal circumstances I would have protested and just gone back to my room, but people were still snapping pictures and as Heronsgate was paying my bill and Klaus was going to make sure that Harper couldn’t take another swing at me I decided to behave. Which was a lot more graceful than Harper who instantly tried shoving at uniformed hotel security who were leading her off to another table in the restaurant to hold her until the police got there.

  Klaus hovered until I asked for a glass of water which he rushed off to fetch. The moment I was alone I called Rosemary.

  “Hello, Harriet,” Jonathan had answered her phone.

  “I’m in trouble.”

  “What kind?”

  “Sarah Harper has just punched me,” I barely whispered the words trying not to let anyone else over hear my end of the conversation.

  “What? Where are you?”

  “At the hotel restaurant, the manager called for security, a doctor and for the police. While all the other guests are snapping pictures and filming the scene. If it’s not on my board by now I would be very surprised.”

  “We are on our way.”

  I hung up and dropped the phone into my pocket wondering if mortgage money and amazing sex was worth a near-death experience and being punched. Maybe this was just the way America treated new celebrities; with a test of their mettle.

  The hotel doctor was a friendly woman who looked and gently poked at my cheek and bloody nose before reassuring me that nothing was broken, she gave me a potion to help with the healing but told me I was already bruising and would have an interesting back eye for several hours before the potion worked its magic.

  Rosemary and Jonathan arrived soon after; Rosemary came to take my side of the story while Jonathan smoothly flattered Klaus while we waited for the police. When they arrived it was a long process while they took everyone's statement before finally asking me what I wanted to do. Rosemary didn’t pull any punches of her own, and instantly pressed charges, grinning a little too smugly when Harper was cuffed and arrested.

  A
fter thanking Klaus and the staff who had helped me the three of us retreated back to the suite where Rosemary and I ordered dinner and Jonathan worked on Lemon Grove’s statement using my outdated laptop for the lengthy post rather than trying to type it on his phone.

  The incident hadn’t reached my author board by the time it was ready but not long after it was posted people began sharing links to videos showing the whole affair from different angles by different guests.

  I couldn’t wait until my parents saw it; they would freak out.

  Hadn’t I promised them that life was going to be perfectly normal while they were on holiday?

  # # #

  Henry Heronsgate

  I pulled the door shut and the car rolled into traffic.

  The team had been reserved in my company at first, until the tequila shots had been passed around, everyone had loosened up afterwards and it had been fun to spend time with people buzzing from their victory and sharing in their celebration.

  I was tired but going to be on time for South’s visit, I was looking forward to tugging her to the bedroom, dozing off the tequila and spending the rest of the night as energetically as we had spent our afternoon.

  We stopped for a red light and I checked my phone, scrolling through the texts and the emails and finding nothing that couldn’t wait until morning I flicked to the internet and opened South’s author page.

  It had become habit to check South’s author board when I had a spare couple of minutes. At first it was to keep up to date with her success and her public appearances so I could ease myself into her social circle. Once I had coaxed her out to New York and we talked more frequently it had become about making sure her publishers were taking good care of her and now I was just addicted to knowing that people loved her as much as I did.

  All the warm tequila buzz evaporated as I read the latest update and followed a link to a video of South ducking one blow, only to receive the second when she tried to help Harper up out of the lap of the employee she had fallen into.

  Most of the comments praised her for keeping calm after being given a black eye and a nose bleed, some of the comments told her to punch back next time, while others posted angry comments that Harper had already been bailed out of jail by her mother.

  My car pulled into the hotel car park and I slipped out trying not to hurry to the elevator but impatiently hitting the button regardless until it arrived. I went to her apartment and knocked, South opened and let me in, her eye was black and her cheek was puffy and I took her gently in my arms and pressed soft kisses on all the bruises.

  “Sweetheart, I am so sorry,” I whispered guilt lacing every word.

  This was my fault, all the pain and suffering she had gone through since she got here was all my fault and my need to get rid of Harper.

  “Why? Did you hit me?”

  “It was my idea.”

  “It was Ignis’s idea,” she corrected me.

  “Harriet, don’t split hairs, I came to you for help thinking I was going to suffer for it. If I had known she was going to do something like this I would never have suggested being seen together.”

  “I know,” she forgave me. “That’s why this isn’t your fault. Honestly, it doesn’t even hurt. I’ve taken a potion and by morning it’s going to be gone.”

  “Is Harper really already out of jail?”

  “Normally she would just have been released pending investigation but because she attacked with so many witnesses and they all agreed that she threw the punches they held her and posted bail straight away. She was at the station for about an hour before her mother turned up to pay the money.”

  “Did you call your publishers?”

  “Rosemary and Jonathan arrived before the police did. Rosemary is furious and all about going to court over it, Jonathan thinks that settling it quietly is the better option. Frankly I knew being seen with you was going to upset her. That fact doesn’t give her the right to hit me but I don’t feel like I have any moral high ground either, so I’m for quietly as well. I’m hoping for an unreserved apology, even if its fake it will still allow me to back off without it encouraging Rosemary to take it further. What’s your stance?”

  South had a point, the press might be all over Harper at the moment but if they didn’t circle back around for my statement in the morning I would be very surprised.

  “Harper has no right to attack anyone, male or female, I call a friend and chose to spend time with. That she did just goes to show me she needs help and if she tries to claim any relationship I am going to file for a restraining order.”

  “That’s what you are going to say?” South smiled.

  “My publicity department will make it sound more professional.”

  South laughed and it coaxed a small smile from me.

  I cradled her face when she kissed me, she might have said that she didn’t hurt but I wasn’t going to make the bruises worse.

  Coffee and talking about the karting win and my dinner with the team wasn’t how I envisioned us spending our night together, but she was as light-hearted and teasing, interested and curious about the work and as always just easy to relax with.

  I left about midnight with only a few kisses to fortify me against the long night ahead and the promise to meet her for breakfast before she had to get ready for her signing. I couldn’t believe it was Wednesday already, I had the sinking feeling that this week was just going to fly by before I even had the chance to enjoy it.

  # # #

  Harriet South

  Heronsgate scowled as I buttoned up my jacket and lifted the bag holding my old computer, the rest of my luggage had already gone down, and it was just me the car was waiting for.

  I didn’t know where the last two weeks had gone, if only felt like yesterday that I had been arriving in New York, and after more drama than I had ever known in my whole life I was now going home.

  “Don’t scowl at it, you’ll give it a complex.”

  “You should have let me buy you a new one.”

  “You had your choice,” I reminded him.

  Heronsgate rolled his eyes.

  I had to give him credit, after coming back from my Brooklyn signing he had met me for afternoon tea at the hotel and brought with him brochures of computers and told me to pick the one I wanted, and he had also surprised me with the knowledge that he had organised to have his private jet fly me and my team home.

  I had upset him by saying it was one or the other, I had refused to be coaxed and cajoled and eventually after lots of handsome pouting and scowling he had decided that flying me home in the comfort and safety of a non-commercial flight was more important than my laptop.

  “I will get a new one in London,” I promised him. “This one is far too heavy and bulky to cart around on the long tour that Rosemary has planned for me.”

  I was actually concerned about the UK tour.

  Jonathan was going to deal with enquiries and merchandise from the office while handling the day to day work while Rosemary and I took to the road. She had a brutal schedule of signings organised that was going to take us all over the country and staying in hotels in those towns rather than travelling to and from London.

  I had told her I could see myself collapsing half-way along but that had just made Jonathan chuckle so I doubted that appealing to him was going to get me a more sensible schedule.

  The announcement on the author board had stirred up another frenzy of activity and sales though, more print books had been ordered and my novel was well on course to be the most sought after printed fiction book to have been launched since the Pause.

  All of which mean that Jonathan was keen to start editing on my second book now rather than wait to see if the tour was a success.

  “You will call me when you land?”

  “Of course,” I smiled.

  He pulled me into a tight hug and I returned it; I was going to miss him as well.

  “I expect a selfie every day,” he ordered. “You are bound to take
a good one eventually.”

  I laughed and pulled away.

  “Three months will fly by, and then Rosemary has promised me a nice break while they plan out the launch of my second book and as I can write anywhere I am fairly sure I will be able to come and see you wherever you might be working.”

  “It’s already in my calendar.”

  The goodbye kiss he planted on my lips was strong and lingering, after several discussions we had decided not to come out openly with our relationship just yet. The last two weeks had thrust us together and we both agreed that the break to focus on our work would test the strength of our new understanding. If three months went by and we still missed each other as much as we did in this moment before we had even parted company then we would become public.

  At least we didn’t have to worry about Sarah Harper making a nuisance of herself any more.

  When an apology hadn’t followed as fast as Heronsgate would have liked he had used the press to his advantage to publicly slam her behaviour and what he called her appalling moral attitude after the fact by failing to apologise for her ignorance and stupidity. He denied ever being involved with her and threatened to sue any company that hinted that he had, which he said had been a contributing factor to her self-indulged delusions and had only encouraged her outrageous behaviour.

  I had once told Lucy that I didn’t know where Heronsgate kept his ruthless streak but watching his press release had given me a new-found respect for his temper.

  The speech had rooted Harper out of her hiding place to sob through her apology, and in turn I had forced Rosemary to drop the charges.

  “I have to go,” I whispered when Heronsgate gave me a moment to breathe.

  We travelled down into the lobby together but with the agreed friendly distance between us, the press were there to witness my departure, probably wondering what they were going to report on now I was taking my drama home. Behind them was a large crowd of fans waving banners with don’t go messages on them; I should have taken psychology at school, it might have given me half a chance to understand what all these people were going mad over.