Chapter 7 #2
Every week I tell myself that I will step out of my comfort zone and get the tube, go into Oxford Circus, and do my shopping.
I hate relying on Vinny and Joey to take me everywhere; I know they’re both busy.
But right now, as I look down at Ellis and watch as he goes red-faced and grunts his way through his ten a.m. poo, I know I should’ve asked someone for a lift.
Do I get off at an earlier stop? It’s busy and people are starting to stare.
“Ellis, what did you do?” I groan as he sits, smiling at me triumphantly.
Stupidly, I thought we’d be okay. I didn’t get off early and by the time we arrived, it had started to come out of the sides of the nappy.
I roll the pushchair through Mothercare and into their baby changing unit to clean him up.
As I leave the shop, I can smell the stench from the clothes that I placed in a nappy bag, and I know I’ll have to ditch them. I can’t walk around London with that smell getting under my nose.
Looking up and down the street, I search for a bin, finally spotting one on the opposite side. “Thank god.” I push forward with his stroller at the same time a woman steps past me. She kicks the wheel, causing her to trip, her phone falling to the floor.
“Oh, I’m so sorr—” I cut myself off when she turns, and my eyes zero in on her familiar face.
It’s the girl from the hotel. The one who had been crying. She’s made up now though and is wearing an expensive business dress.
She goes to speak but then stops, dropping her eyes to Ellis in the stroller.
Her gaze lifts instantly, darting all over my face, her lips tight as if refraining from saying something.
She bends and picks up her phone, then looks down at Ellis again.
She pauses for a moment, her throat bobbing.
“I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going.
” She takes off quickly and all I can do is stand, frozen in place, watching as her back gets swallowed up in the crowd.
“It’s her.”
“Da Da Da Da.” Ellis claps.
I look down at him and then to the bag of soiled clothes in my hand. Moving quickly across the street, I toss the clothes into the bin and sit down on a nearby bench.
Needing to calm myself, I pull Ellis from his stroller and then reach for my phone and dial Lucy’s number.
“Hey! I’m on my way to a fitting, babe. Everything okay?”
“No. Luce, I just saw the stripper.”
“The stripper?” she asks. “Oh my god! The stripper?”
“Yes! She walked into me. I was about to cross the street.”
“Did you say anything? Jesus, Nina, did you hurt her?”
“What? No! I’ve seen her before though. In the hotel. She was going into a room when I was cleaning. I remember she was crying, and I just knew I’d seen her face before.”
She looked ten times better today than she did in the hotel, with her hair washed and her roots fixed. And her dress was smart—expensive even.
“At The Earl Marks?” she questions. “Shit, Nina, I have to go, me and Jean are just pulling up. I’ll call you after, okay?”
“Yeah. Sorry to call when you’re working. Speak later.”
I stare at the ground, completely lost in my own mind. It never bothered me to know who she was. She was a nobody to me. But now that I’ve seen her… I want to know more. Who is this girl, and how did she end up with Mason that night?
“I’m coming, baby boy!” I call into the lounge to a crying Ellis. “Just a second. Mummy is going as quick as she can.”
Since Mason has been coming to the apartment, Lucy has taken a step back in helping me in the mornings.
It’s what I wanted, but it means on the days I have work and Mason picks up, I have to get us up and ready for seven thirty when Mason comes to get him.
It’s a mad rush, especially when Ellis likes to nap so late into the morning.
He crawls into the kitchen and starts to climb up my legs until he’s standing clinging to me, swaying on his chunky legs.
“Come here.” I lift him into my arms and wipe away his tears. “Mummy was only getting your things ready, little man.”
I hear the door and then Vinny walks in. My brows crease. “You beat Mason this morning Vin, you okay?”
“’Morning, love. Mason needs to go into the office this morning. He asked if I could have Ellis for a couple hours after I dropped you in.”
“He didn’t say anything about it. You have time?”
“It’s not for long. And I don’t mind.” He smiles.
I know Vinny adores Ellis, but I sometimes worry he feels obliged to say yes. “If you’re sure.”
“Come on, what needs doing? You’re going to be late.”
Rochelle is waiting at reception when I get into work. Skirting past her, I slip into the staff office and hang up my coat. If you ask me, she’s making the place look untidy.
“Oh, hello, Nina. You decided you’d come in today then?”
“My son—” I snap my mouth closed, because explaining myself to this woman is pointless. She doesn’t have a compassionate bone in her body.
“You can stay on tonight, or your wages will be docked. Remember when you aren’t here, it’s everyone else having to pull the weight for your tardiness.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I smooth out my skirt and try to step past her, but she blocks my exit.
“I hope so, because if you’re late again you will be fired, and I’ll make sure you never get a job in hospitality again.” She side-eyes me as I walk from the room, a glare plastered on her stony face.
The she-devil lingers until lunchtime, before finally retreating back to her office, giving me and Ashley some breathing room.
“You sure know how to piss that woman off, girl.” Her lip twitches, but she doesn’t take her eyes off the screen.
“I barely slept, then Ellis was fussing.” I drop my head into my hands, thinking about my shopping trip the day before. It’s the main reason I couldn’t sleep. “I saw the woman from the photos with Mason.”
“No way! Where?”
“On the street. She walked into Ellis’s stroller. It was kind of my fault, but she just picked up her phone and kept going.” The entire interaction has been messing with me all night. “If I wanted to look someone up—”
“Oh wow, are you going to hire a PI?”
“No!” I look over the top of the desk, making sure it’s clear. “I mean here, at the hotel.”
“Like a guest?”
I nod. “She’s been here before. I saw her.”
“Well yeah, you’d need her name or room number.”
“She was staying in a room opposite one of the ones I was cleaning. I saw her go inside. She was crying on the phone; I’d probably remember the door if I was up there again.”
She nods her head, then looks back to her computer, typing for a moment. “Did you do odds or evens that day?”
Shit, I don’t know… “Odds.”
“Hmm, do you know what time it was? You checked out each room which is helpful. And Emily helped you on two-thirteen, was it before or after Emily helped you?”
“It was straight after!”
“Well, then… two-fourteen!” She bounces in her seat as she finds the information I need.
That was too easy. “What’s her name? How much info is there?” I can’t sit in my seat any longer. I need the information and Ashley’s gone mute on me. Rochelle can kiss my ass.
Leaning over, I scan the invoice on the screen, searching for a name.
Ashley looks up at me over her shoulder. “Vinny Dukes? Is that?”
“Vinny.”
What the fuck?
Ignorance is bliss.
What you don’t know can’t hurt you.
What the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over.
They’re all sayings for a reason. Sometimes we think we have to know something; we think it’s for the best or that it will bring us peace of mind.
But my mind doesn’t feel peaceful right now.
It didn’t take me long to work out what Vinny paying for her hotel room meant, and yet the naive girl in me still hoped I was wrong. For the best part of a week, I’ve doubted my decisions and blamed myself for our situation. I feel stupid to have let him get to me so easily.
His fingers rap at the door and I take my time to get up and open it, making sure my head is clear before I do.
Fuck him.
Fuck him.
Fuck him.
I swing open the door.
“Hi.” His eyes eat me up, just like they always do.
“Hi,” I reply.
So many feelings suffocate me as I lean in and take Ellis from his arms. Has he been with her today? Does he have Ellis around her?
“He napped around four, sorry. I think it’s his teeth.” He runs his hand through his hair, messing it up. He looks tired.
I drop my eyes to Ellis, not being able to answer him.
“Hey.” He places a hand on my arm, and I recoil. “What’s the matter?”
So much sits on the tip of my tongue. So many words I want to unleash on him. The damage is already done, though. There’s no going back. There was never any going back. For once my head and heart are in agreement.
I can’t seem to pull my eyes from Ellis. He’s the only safe territory here.
“Everything’s fine, Mason. We’ll see you on Thursday.”
He crosses his arms in front of his broad chest. “Something’s wrong, what is it?” he asks, his tone demanding.
“Do you think you deserve to know what’s the matter with me?” I snap.
He frowns, then drops his arms to his side with a thwack. “You know what, right now, I don’t care. I came to drop my son off, which by the way was what you suggested, but if that isn’t working, we can come up with a new arrangement. Your hostility is getting old.”
“What?!”
“I don’t care,” he repeats, hammering the knife even deeper into my chest. “I’ll see you in the week.”
His lips brush Ellis’s head, and then he leaves.
Rochelle called this morning and asked me to work an extra shift, which is why I’m currently stripping beds. I should ask if there are any jobs going in housekeeping. I much prefer it up here.
I didn’t want to leave Ellis this morning, but I knew I needed the distraction and Maggie has been desperate to have him. She was over the moon when I called.
Lucy came over last night and helped me find the bottom of the wine bottle while I bitched and moaned about Mason.
She agreed with me that if Mason thinks he can have that woman around my son, he is deranged.
I wonder if he plans on speaking to me about it first. The fact he uses somewhere to screw her proves the fact he wanted to hide her.
Pushing my trolley into the lift, I hit the button for the ground floor.
I already knew that Mason could hurt me easily.
I’m used to it. The asshole sold my little studio, once upon a time.
But what I didn’t expect or anticipate was Vinny.
I never thought he’d hurt me, not intentionally.
The last time he thought he would, he left.
So why is he telling me he doesn’t believe anything happened when he knows full well what’s going on?
The doors slide open to the reception area, and lo and behold, Mason stands at the front desk, his hands in his pockets as he waits.
I watch as he turns and walks down the corridor and into a back room. My adrenaline starts pumping until it’s all I can hear.
All I can think about.
I see red.
The steel doors begin to close, and I shoot my hand out to stop them. Does Mason come here when I’m not working?
He comes here on my days off.
That bastard.
I leave my trolley in the lift and follow him, feeling completely unhinged as I push through the door, slamming it back against the plaster.
“What the fuck is going on?!” I rage, ready to unleash the pent-up anger I’ve kept at bay for the best part of a year.