Chapter 27
No Comment: Henry Darlington Cuts Press Conference Short.
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Henry
Heavy raindrops lashed against the window.
The night was pitch-black. Dark clouds obscured the sky, as gloomy as my mood.
Thunder rumbled, and the occasional flash of lightning lit up the sky.
Sweat ran down my forehead, neck, back, and chest. I ran.
And ran. And ran. But I couldn’t escape my thoughts, which once again were keeping me from sleep.
The brutal beats of Lorna Shore pounded in my ears as I pushed myself on the treadmill, but not even the singer’s animal growls could drown out the negative voices in my head.
The day had been a total catastrophe, starting with the press conference.
I’d opened my speech with a joke that had made the journalists laugh, and afterwards, I’d announced the plans for the Pearl Gala.
The news that this year’s event was raising money for a local organisation had been well received, and Tilly had briefly introduced Hope Harbour.
So far, so good—until that jerk William Hunt had suddenly started asking questions about my dad’s case.
I’d refused to answer, but his boldness had shattered everyone else’s restraint.
Every question from that moment on had been about Richard Darlington: the trial, his bail, and his house arrest. I’d reluctantly cut the press conference short, which the media had eagerly pounced on in their coverage.
I had assumed the day couldn’t get any worse, but I was wrong.
Vivian and my dad had given me a hard time after my speech for daring to deviate from the agreed script.
Their tirade hadn’t stopped until we learned that a group of activists had hung a giant banner along the parapet of Westminster Bridge during the press conference.
It was clearly visible to the hotel guests.
Not to mention to the rest of the world.
On the banner was an unflattering photo of my dad, accompanied by the words “The Face of a Rapist.”
The image had become grotesque in the darkness of the night, and my dad’s face watched me mockingly as I worked out on the treadmill.
I couldn’t wait for the banner to be removed in the morning, even though hundreds of photos were already doing the rounds on social media.
As if that weren’t enough, Giulia had informed me just before the end of the day that Mr. Fleming, one of the hotel’s most loyal guests, had filed a complaint against Kate.
She’d apparently treated him with disrespect.
I didn’t know what to think. It didn’t seem like Kate, but we had to take every complaint seriously.
Especially one coming from someone like Mr. Fleming, who had been a regular guest at the hotel for over ten years.
The Darlington relied on the satisfaction of its guests, and I was sure my dad would have fired Kate without batting an eyelid.
And perhaps that was just what I should do.
My priority should be the hotel, not some woman I barely knew.
But it wasn’t quite that simple. Not when it came to Kate.
Gasping for breath, I stopped the treadmill.
My heart was racing. I pulled off the heart rate monitor from my upper arm and headed to the kitchen, thighs burning.
I chugged a glass of water, waiting for the hammering of my heart to slow.
But the calmer my body was, the louder the thoughts in my head became.
It infuriated me that I had to deal with this shit.
I knew I could help The Darlington more without all these obstacles in the way.
No, they weren’t just obstacles. They were entire mountains, and they were growing bigger and steeper by the day.
I filled the water glass and drained it again before making my way through my dark apartment to the bathroom to take a shower.
Showering was a necessary evil in the mornings, something to be accomplished swiftly so I could get to the office as fast as possible.
All that was waiting for me right now, though, was my bed, and I wasn’t in any rush to get there.
I stood motionlessly in the shower and enjoyed the feeling of hot water raining down on my skin, washing away the sweat and relaxing my overworked muscles.
Fifteen minutes later, I was right back where I’d been two hours ago: sleepless in bed.
Lost in thought, I stared up at the ceiling and watched the flashes of lightning come in through a crack in the curtains.
I felt like I was losing my mind. Another sleepless night would be fatal.
Still, I caught myself reaching for my phone instead of closing my eyes.
Me:
Hey.
I wasn’t expecting an answer, but one pinged in a few seconds later.
Kate:
Hey right back at you.
I hesitated briefly before tapping the little camera symbol.
Kate answered the video call immediately. When her face appeared on my display, I saw that she was also in bed. Her hair was tousled, as though she’d been tossing and turning. Her eyes were tired, and the only light in the room came from the reading light on the bedside table next to her.
“You’re still awake,” Kate said.
I smiled. “You too.”
“So we’re both still awake,” she concluded.
“It looks like it, Troublemaker.”
“Nope.”
“Shame,” I said, as determined as ever to find the perfect nickname for her. I leaned back against my pillow. “How was your day?”
“Good.” Kate’s reply came a little too fast, but it wasn’t this that told me she was lying; it was the silence that followed.
If there was one thing I knew about Kate, it was that she enjoyed talking—and that even more than talking, she liked to listen.
Talking to her was always effortless. Normally she would have asked about my day now to keep the conversation going, but she didn’t. Her silence spoke volumes.
“Kate?”
“Yes?”
“What happened with Mr. Fleming?” I asked, because the topic was unavoidable.
For what felt like an eternity, the only sound in the room was the rustling of my duvet and the drumming of the rain against the windowpane. Finally, a single word crackled through my phone’s speaker: “Nothing.”
“So Mr. Fleming complained to Giulia about nothing?”
Fear flickered across Kate’s face. “Am I fired?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On what happened,” I said, which was a lie. Nothing Kate could say would make me fire her, risking her giving up a warm bed at The Darlington. I just wanted to know what had happened with Mr. Fleming. Whatever it was, it was apparently preoccupying Kate enough to keep her awake until 2 a.m.
“I’m sure Mr. Fleming has already explained.”
“I want to hear your version.”
Kate’s face lit up as a flash illuminated the sky, and I could see the doubt and uncertainty in her eyes. Her lips were pressed firmly together, as if she didn’t want to talk about it. But then she did. “He harassed me.”
“He what?” I gasped, even though I’d heard her clearly.
“He harassed me,” she repeated, but that only made it worse. I clenched my hands into fists.
“Tell me about it,” I demanded.
She avoided my gaze and turned onto her side, so that half her face was buried in her pillow. I guessed she would have liked nothing more than to disappear entirely into the mountain of down feather bedding.
“Giulia asked me to clean Mr. Fleming’s room, because he’d complained.
At first he just watched me, but then he started asking me personal questions.
” She spoke so quietly that I had to turn up the volume on my phone to catch her next words.
“I kept my answers short because I didn’t want to talk to him, but he didn’t care.
He kept talking, and he told me how pretty I was.
” I thought I detected a glimmer of tears in her eyes, but it was hard to be sure—her camera shook as if her hands were trembling.
“I reminded him that a table had been reserved for him in the restaurant as compensation for his room not being clean, but he wanted me to apologise personally. When I said no, he grabbed my chin and told me that I’d like it, and that it was how things were done at The Darlington. ”
My heart was racing, pumping pure rage through my veins. The bastard hadn’t just assaulted Kate—he’d also used my dad’s misconduct as justification. And then he’d had the audacity to file a complaint against Kate! Was he out of his mind?
“I made it clear that I didn’t want that, and that he should let me go, but he didn’t,” Kate went on.
Her voice was shaky, cracking as though something inside her had broken.
She was showing me the shards she’d swept under the rug to hide them from the world.
“He undid his trousers and tried to force me onto my knees so that I would . . . you know. But I managed to get away just in time.”
I wanted to storm over to Mr. Fleming’s room and wring his neck with my bare hands, despite the fact that I didn’t usually resort to violence. “I’m going to kill him.”
“Henry . . .”
“Or better yet: I’ll tell his wife and let her kill him.”
“Leave it,” Kate begged.
My jaw clenched. “He wanted to rape you!”
“But he didn’t.” I was sure now that I wasn’t imagining the tears. She wiped her face with the back of her hand before they could fall, but not before I saw them. “I sprayed bathroom cleaner at his face before anything could happen, and then I ran away.”
I shook my head. “How can you stay so calm?”
“Maybe because I’ve gotten used to situations like this. When you’re a woman living alone on the streets, you’re confronted with this kind of thing all the time.”
“Fuck, Kate.”
I rubbed my forehead and felt the knot deep in my gut grow even tighter.
I hated that Mr. Fleming had done this to Kate.
And I hated even more that a part of Kate had resigned herself to being treated so terribly, with so much disrespect.
No one should have to put up with shit like that and get used to it.
But it was over now. I would make sure she never got into another situation like it. From now on, I would look after her.
“Can I come to you?”
Kate blinked. “What? Why?”
“I want to be there for you in person, not just on a video call.”
She hesitated then nodded. “OK.”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I promised, before ending our call.
I leapt out of bed and got dressed, then hurried down the corridor to the lifts.
The entire hotel seemed to be asleep. I didn’t encounter a single person in the corridors, not stopping until I reached Kate’s door.
The door swung open before I could even lift my hand to ring the bell, and there she was, standing right in front of me.
Kate. My beautiful, brave Kate, who had endured more in the last year than most people had to in an entire lifetime.
She was wearing a shirt that was several sizes too large, emblazoned with The Darlington logo.
Her legs were bare except for socks, and her eyes were glassy with unshed tears.
Even now, she was still trying to be strong.
I wanted to hug her. Desperately. Perhaps more than I’d ever wanted anything before.
But I also didn’t want to scare her off.
Kate opened her mouth as if to speak, but all that came out of her mouth was a pitiful sound that broke my heart.
She pressed her lips together, struggling to compose herself, but she’d been fighting for too long and had no strength left.
She whimpered again, and I felt I had no choice but to give in to my urge.
I took a cautious step towards her, and when she didn’t flinch away, I pulled her into my arms, creating a space for her where she didn’t have to be strong.
A space where she didn’t need walls for protection, because I was her wall.
She gasped for air—and then she began to cry, as if she’d been waiting to finally let go.