Chapter 41 Ellie
Ellie
“I’ve worked at the Suerte in marketing. And the Redwood was my most recent employment,” I say with perfect posture. When the woman in the pantsuit says nothing, I wet my lips and keep talking.
“I worked under…directly with…Damien Graves,” I add, and I’m not sure if I just dug my own grave or not.
“I can read, Miss Bates,” the woman says.
“Of course.”
I wait as she reviews my resume with bored eyes. It’s as if she’s already decided my fate but wants to string out my sentence for her own pleasure. Finally, she sets it down and looks at me from across the desk between us.
“Miss Bates, here at the Electra, we pride ourselves on employees with spotless histories,” she starts, and I cut her off.
“Is mine not? I mean, is there something on my resume that suggests otherwise?”
She clicks her tongue before going on. “Damien Graves has a lot of power here. He owns more hotels than anyone else in the city. As you know, hotels without casinos have to have other selling points. People come to Sin City to do just that. Sin. Luxury is his trademark–”
“And yet,” I say, matching her tone. Because at this point, I am a little tired of proving myself.
“And yet. Damien Graves also has a reputation. As do his…assistants,” she says flatly.
“So you’re going to base whether or not you hire me for your event planner position based on rumors?” I ask.
“In a world like this, Miss Bates, gossip can destroy an empire. Secrets leave an ugly residue on reputation.”
This time I’m the one clicking my tongue.
I stand up and turn away, then turn back.
“You will not find a better applicant for this job. I have worked my entire adult life for this. And if I walk out of your hotel unemployed, I will become your competition somewhere else, and I can assure you, it will be your loss.”
“With the assumption that your name hasn’t been smeared at every top tier hotel in the city,” she says, and I deflate ever so slightly.
“I am not saying you have to walk away without a job, Miss Bates. I actually like you. You know what you’re doing.
But considering what’s at stake, it would be too risky to put you in a position like that. ”
My brow furrows in confusion. “Meaning?” I ask.
“I can offer you a secretarial position but nothing more,” she says, shuffling resumes around on the desk.
“A secretary,” I echo.
“Unless you want to work as a bartender or a chef. Though I don’t see many of those credentials on your resume.”
I walk out of the Electra without answering. I don’t speak to anyone or look at anyone, even as they greet me. The audacity of offering me a secretary position after everything I’ve worked for. It’s lower than…a personal assistant.
I stop in the middle of the sidewalk. Tourists bustle around me, but I stand still. Because that’s when it hits me. Damien. I should have known. Breaking my contract with Damien…broke my chances of being employed anywhere, possibly in the entire city.
I head for my car and then realize I’m not ready to go home. Rachel and I are still kind of on the outs. She’s upset because I didn’t tell her what my job actually entailed and feels guilty knowing where the money I’ve been giving her is coming from. Not that the bulk of my salary was tainted…
I need a drink. So I walk into the first cocktail bar that I see that isn’t connected to a hotel. It’s dark and swanky and uncrowded at ten in the morning. It’s exactly what I need. I take a seat at the bar, and the bartender nods up to me while restocking glasses.
“What’s your poison?” he asks. He’s a lanky man with black curly hair and a nose ring. His arms are stained in green tattoos like a pirate. He is the opposite end of the Vegas spectrum that I know. And in a way, I envy it.
“Is poison an option?” I mutter.
He grins. “That bad, huh?”
“I’ll just take a gin and tonic,” I say. “Please.”
I’m not looking for frills today. I need something that cuts to the quick and dulls my memories around the edges.
“I’ve never known you to like gin,” a familiar voice comes from behind me, and I stop, mid sip. But I don’t turn around. Maybe if I don’t look, he isn’t real. Because nothing could ruin my already bad mood more than–
“Mr. Decker,” the bartender says. “You don’t come here often. Or ever.”
Fuck. It is him, and he is here. Well. Bottoms up.
I down about half of my drink, and Dylan takes a seat next to me at the bar. After a moment, he smirks and speaks again, without looking at me.
“Are you just going to pretend you don’t know me, Ellie?” he asks as the bartender sets a beer down in front of him.
“I was hoping to pretend you don’t exist, but you’re making that a little difficult right now,” I quip, and he chortles before taking a pull from the bottle. “Glad to see you didn’t lose your salt working for Graves.”
“What are you doing here, Dylan?” I demand.
“Having a drink, like you.”
“No,” I snap. “Why are you here at this bar in the middle of the day? You followed me.”
“I did not follow you, Ellie. But I may have been in the area and happened to see you–”
“Bullshit,” I nearly shout. The bartender finds something else to do.
Dylan nods, smirk still in place. “I may have heard…through the grapevine…that you were looking for a new job. And I wanted to see for myself if it was true. Looks like it is.”
“Let me guess, you’re enjoying this,” I state.
“Karma is a funny thing…” he says and I nearly spit out my drink.
“Karma?”
“Yes. You were the reason I struggled so much at the beginning of my career. Do you have any idea how hard it was working beside you?”
His words are enough to make me turn to face him. “You’re kidding, right? I made things hard for you?”
“You did. Because you were always in the limelight. That is, until you weren’t. And after you left, it was even harder. So hard in fact that I was forced to leave the Suerte and build a hotel from the ground up.”
“I’m sorry, but in what way are you the victim here?” I demand. “You cost me everything. And in the end, you are the one succeeding. Meanwhile, I am walking around with the metaphorical red A stitched to my dress everywhere I go. All because of you.”
I stop…and I realize my own words.
“You. You did all of this,” I say. “And you blamed me for it.”
And Damien believed it.
I shove up from the chair and open my purse but the bartender waves it away. Fine by me. The faster I can get away from Dylan the better. I need to get out of here, away from it all. I need to see Rachel, if she’ll even talk to me.
“I’m sorry.”
Rachel and I say the words at the same time the moment she opens the door. We embrace, sobbing into each other, and after a long moment, she takes me inside.
“Do you want a drink?” She asks as we make our way into the kitchen. “I have prosecco.”
“No,” I sniff.
“Tea?” she offers, and I spit out a laugh.
“Since when have you ever known me to drink tea?” I ask. “I’m all right. I don’t really need anything.”
“Ice cream?” she asks.
“Sure.”
We sit on the couch, one tub of mint chocolate chip and two spoons, both of us apologizing again and again. Finally she shakes her head. “No more, El. Just…tell me what happened from the beginning. No judgement, I promise.”
So I swallow a bite of ice cream and I tell my sister everything.
“He was…mesmerizing, Rache. I walked into that interview confident and determined. I wanted that job because I knew the kind of power he had. Everyone knows Damien Graves. Working for him was like reaching for a castle in the sky. But then I saw him and something in me just…unraveled. I don’t know how I didn’t make the connection earlier.
His eyes are the same as they were behind the mask six years ago.
His touch was the same. His level yet gravelly voice. His…well…” I blush and so does she.
“Jesus…”
“Yeah. At first, I didn’t like him. He was sharp and mean and didn’t seem to think I could do the job. But I proved him wrong very quickly. Then, he showed me the contract. I’d heard rumors about men like him hiring women for things like this, but I didn’t think it was real…”
“This is Vegas. Anything can be real,” she mutters, and she’s not wrong.
“Obviously, I was determined to turn the job down. It was insane. But I went home, and I realized just how desperate I was.”
“No one can blame you,” Rachel says, touching my hand. “Especially with that much money on the table.”
“But that’s the thing,” I say, wiping my eyes as my chin starts to quiver again.
“It wasn’t just for the money. It was him.
He’s just…I’ve never felt like this before, Rache.
It’s not money or status or anything else.
It’s Damien. I…fell in love with Damien.
And then when I realized who he was, who he is, and seeing him with Luca?
” The tears begin to stream. “It’s too much. I let myself believe in too much.”
Rachel sets the ice cream aside and leans in. “But why? Why is it too much? You love him. You just said it. And clearly, he loves you too.”
I shake my head. “No. No, he does not.”
“What makes you say that?” she asks. “I’ve seen him with you. And with Luca.”
“Because he believes I am the one working with Dylan.”
Rachel shakes her head. “I don’t believe that,” she says. “I don’t believe that he buys that story at all. I think…he let himself fall for you and now he’s afraid. So, he is looking for any excuse not to love you. He’s a hard man, El. But hard men, once broken, love the hardest.”
I am quiet for a moment as I think about that. I am afraid to let myself believe it because if it is true, both of us are broken.
“I don’t think we can fix this,” I say softly. “He’s so angry with me right now.”
“Because he loves you,” she smiles.