High Stakes (The Kingdom Book 2) (9 page)

And, in true Lottie fashion, she insisted we opened a bottle of Prosecco, just because we can.

The only lady missing from this picture is my mom. I’d put money on it that she would get along fabulously with Dana, and maybe a little further down the line it’s a picture that will be possible to arrange.

“Is everything okay, Lottie?” Dana asks casually, but I don’t miss the gentle concern in her voice.

“Sure,” she mumbles unconvincingly around a mouthful of truffle.

“You’re quiet,” Dana remarks.

Lottie shrugs, then sighs. “I had a shitty day … I had a complaint from a customer,” she says, looking into her lap.

“Wanna talk about it, babe?” I offer.

“No,” she grumbles before she can’t hold it in any longer and blurts out, “Can you fucking believe it? A complaint … Asshole. Well, he wasn’t smiling when I poured his gin and tonic into his lap, was he? No, he wasn’t. Maybe he’ll think twice about snapping his fingers at me like I should come to heel like a pet dog. Then having the audacity to complain because he asked for ice and no lemon and instead I gave him lemon and no ice. ” She rants the whole sentence in just one breath. Dana is looking on, her eyes wide with a smile to match. Lottie is unique, but it’s hard not to love her. She might have flame red hair and the temper to go with it but she has one of the biggest hearts I’ve ever known.

“Lottie!” Dana says unbelievably. “You can’t go around throwing drinks into customer’s laps.”

“Well, he was an asshole,” Lottie grumbles.

“So what did your boss say?” I ask.

“Oh look! We’re out of Prosecco, I’ll go to the fridge and get some more, shall I?” She hops up from her chair in one swift move and makes an escape back into the apartment.

“Lottie!” Both Dana and I shout out to her at the same time. I hear her footsteps falter then scurry away. Lottie doesn’t usually use avoidance tactics. She’s a straight up, head on kind of girl. So, I’m beginning to think there’s more to her story than she’s letting on.

“Do you want to go check on her, or shall I?” Dana asks.

“I think maybe we should just give her a minute, she’ll come out in her own time. You know Lottie, she’ll talk when she’s ready. She can’t stay quiet for long.”

Dana and I chat for a few minutes before realizing that Lottie still hasn’t come back with the Prosecco, and for her to avoid us this long really means something is up.

“I’m going to go check on Lottie. This is unusual for her,” I say, before making my way back through the balcony doors. As I step through the doorway, I let my eyes adjust from the bright sunlight to the cool, shadowed room.

“Lottie …” I call. No answer. She’s not in the kitchen area or the lounge, but her bag is still where she slung it on the back of the couch, and her shoes are left in the middle of the lounge rug in true Lottie, haphazard style. If Lottie could spend her life barefoot, she would. She’s constantly torn between her love of heels and the freedom of letting her feet breathe. If you saw this girl’s shoe collection, you’d think she was crazy.

“Lottie … Where are you?”

I pad through the bedroom and stop at the closed bathroom door.

“Lottie?” I say, quieter this time.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” she calls back. Her voice sounds different and I’m sure I hear her sniffle.

“Babe, is something wrong?”

No answer.

I push down the handle slowly and crack the door open. Lottie is sitting on the edge of the tub, with her elbows on her knees, and her head bowed. She has handfuls of tissues and when she looks up at me she has mascara streaks running down her face.

“Oh my god. Lottie, what is it? What’s happened?”

I rush forward and hold on to her shoulders, making her look up in my direction.

“Nothing,” she says trying to stand and brush me off. “I’m just a bit hormonal is all.”

“I call bullshit, Lotts. Tell me or I won’t let you leave this bathroom.” I stand in front of her indignantly with my arms crossed.

“Ari. I’m not in the mood for playing, okay?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. I’m not playing. I won’t let you leave until you tell me what the problem is. You would do exactly the same if it were me, right?”

She shrugs her shoulders then drops them dejectedly.

“Right. So … What happened? It’s obviously something that happened at work. Did you get fired for throwing the drink over your customer?”

“No … Well, not exactly for that.”

“What, so you did get fired?”

“Yes,” she squeaks through a sob that catches in her throat. Tears spring from her eyes and she can’t stop them. This is not my fierce, strong friend. I could count the number of times I’ve seen Lottie cry on one hand.

I pull her into me, wrapping my arms tightly around her hunched shoulders and cradling her head into my shoulder.

“Are you upset about getting fired or is there something you’re not telling me?”

“I can’t tell you …”

I push her shoulders away and push up her chin with my index finger.

“Lottie. You are my best friend. You can tell me anything … and everything.” I feel like a hypocrite saying this to her as I should have told her about Jonny and everything that was happening at the time, but I couldn’t bring myself to voice it aloud. At the time, I didn’t know if it would have helped or made things worse, and I was in so deep that I couldn’t see a way out so it seemed best that she knew as little as possible. She would have felt so helpless, just like I do now, knowing there’s something hurting my best friend and she doesn’t know how to tell me.

“Please tell me, Lotts …” I whisper.

“I can’t. Spike will go postal. It’s stupid anyway …”

“Well, maybe just tell me first then we can work out what to do, together.”

She sucks in a huge breath, trying to compose herself and steady her uneven breaths.

“My boss was pissed that I ruined the customer’s nice pants, and caused a scene. He hauled me into his office and sat me in the hard plastic chair, in front of his fucking ridiculous executive desk. I mean he’s a restaurant manager, not a CEO, Asshole.”

I raise my brows pointedly at her, knowing she’s veering off track in the conversation to avoid getting to the part that’s getting to her the most.

“So, he just basically tore a strip off me. Which I suppose, I was half expecting. I know I shouldn’t have done it. I was expecting my knuckles to be wrapped. Then he said I had two choices. He’d pay me what I was owed and I could walk, or …” She swallows hard.

“Or what?”

“Or he’d let me keep my job if …” she looks up at me through helpless eyes. Tears still clinging to her lashes. “If I slept with him.”

“He WHAT?” I yell. “Did he touch you?

Lottie doesn’t answer straight away, so I push further, “Lottie. Did he touch you? Tell me what that fucker did? I swear, I’ll take a rusty fucking knife to his balls …”

“He just …”

“He what, Lottie?” I say impatiently. I can feel my temper rising and the tone of my voice matches it. I’ve not ever seen my best friend like this and I don’t like it one bit. I want my strong, determined Lottie back.

“He cornered me. He tried to kiss me and when I refused he grabbed me.” Lottie starts to cry again and my blood boils at the situation she was in. I know the feeling of not being able to escape. I know it all too well, and I know that Lottie only experienced a fraction of it but it’s no less scary, and she should never have had to feel that kind of fear from a man.

“Where did he grab you? Did he touch you?” I hear the frantic tone in my voice and realize it’s not helping Lottie calm down. So, I take a deep breath and take her hand to lead her into the bedroom. I sit us on the edge of the bed and turn my body toward her.

“Lottie? Babe, you need to get it all out and tell me what happened.” I say softly, “I know it hurts right now, but we will sort it out and make it better for you. I promise.” I wait patiently for her answer and hold her hand tightly.

She steadies her breathing and then starts to talk, “I tried to talk to him, but he wasn’t having any of it. When I tried to leave, he backed me into the corner and pinned me with his body. He started to get all feely, then he was rough. I didn’t know what to do, so I kneed him. I’ve never done that before and after seeing you do it in the club, it was the first thing that came to me.” She smiles a little half smile, and I smile back knowing I might have helped in some way.

“I guess he thought I would just open my legs and beg for my job back. He called me all sorts of names. Nothing I haven’t been called before, but he said them with such venom. No one has ever treated me that way before … like I was … he made me feel like a whore.”

“Oh, babe. You know karma will make his cock turn green and fall off, right?”

She huffs out a small laugh, her lips twitching at the corners but it doesn’t last long. “I hope so.”

I hear talking outside of the bedroom and then Denham appears in the doorway, his broad shoulders and wide chest filling the space. The anxiety I was feeling at Lottie’s predicament seems to diminish somewhat just by knowing he’s there, and I’m not really sure why, or how.

“Alright?” he asks me directly with a deep frown.

Lottie snaps her head up at the sound of his voice and immediately pulls herself together the best she can.
 I know what she’s doing. She’s trying to put on a front. It was hard enough for her to let me see her feeling so down.

“Hi, D man. Yes. Everything is fine. Just fine,” she says unconvincingly. She stands abruptly, runs a hand through her crazy hair and makes her way to the doorway. It’s only about five strides and when she reaches Denham, he doesn’t let her pass. It’s a questionable move. One that could go either way, especially the way Lottie’s emotions are at the moment.
 

“Excuse me, please,” she chirps, very unconvincingly, plastering a huge fake smile on her face.

“Nope,” he answers, casually.

I watch as her shoulders drop. “Please, D. I’m not in the mood, okay?”

“No, that’s not okay. For your face to be smeared with makeup and your eyes to be so puffy with tears, I’d say there’s something wrong. Now …” He crosses his arms before continuing and it makes his already wide shoulders even wider so he really fills the doorway. “If someone’s upset you, I want to know about it. If someone has hurt you, I want to know about it and I’m not moving until you tell me. So if you’re going to be all stubborn you had better get comfortable, because it’s going to be a long night.”

“Lottie, just tell him,” I sigh.

“Arianna, whose side are you on? I can’t tell him, because he will tell Spike. Then there will be a whole heap of mess that I was trying to avoid, thank
you
very much.” She looks at me with a scowl and I know she’s trying her hardest to protect her fierce reputation.

“Lottie,” Denham says quietly, resting a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me, but you’re like a little sister to me, and if you really were my sister, I’d be sorting it out, wouldn’t I?”

Lottie just shrugs like a child. “So …”

“I got fired from my job today.”

“And …”

“And, what? That’s it … I liked my job,” she says, her feet fidgeting while she’s telling such an unconvincing lie.

“No, you didn’t. You fucking hated your job. What else happened to get you in this state, and make you so afraid of Spike knowing?”

“My boss hit on me,” she says in a small voice.

“Lottie, you and I both know that’s bullshit. You do not get upset just because someone hits on you. You get hit on ten times a day, and normally you’d brush it off as easy as breathing. What did he do? Did he hurt you?” Denham asks, starting to get impatient because he knows there’s something more to this story.

Lottie can’t answer him with words. She gives a small nod, and lets out a sob, which starts her crying again. Her boss must have really done something awful for her to be like this. Lottie is one of the strongest people I know, and this is a side of her I’ve never seen before.

“Come here.”

Denham pulls her into his chest and strokes her head, letting her cry and get it all out. Her mascara tears are staining his light blue dress shirt, but he doesn’t even notice, and if he does notice, he doesn’t care. When her sobs subside, he releases his arms from around her and holds her face gently in his hands. He has to crouch to get eye level with her, as there is at least a foot difference in height between them.

“I won’t make you tell me exactly what happened. I know it must be bad for you to be like this.”

Lottie doesn’t find her voice, but she lifts the corner of her short-sleeved shirt to reveal red marks that are already starting to turn into a purple bruise. They are finger marks. I gasp and Denham’s expression turns thunderous. Damn that motherfucker. He really did hurt her. Not only physically, he made her feel scared, and he stole some of that bright light that Lottie always has. Denham takes a deep breath, gathering his composure, kisses her forehead, and strides over to me, holding out his upturned palm. I place my hand in his. He pulls me close and entwines his fingers together in the small of my back. I snuggle into his neck, amazed at just how well we fit. Like missing puzzle pieces.

He nuzzles into my hair and takes a deep breath. “So, I want you girls to stay here. Call down for more to drink. Food if you like. Caviar, champagne, whatever the fuck you want. And I’ll be back in an hour. Okay?” I can tell he’s trying to keep his patience in check, but his words are clipped, and I know it’s really hard for him to contain the temper that’s dangerously bubbling beneath the surface.

“Where are you going?”

He leans in to whisper in my ear, “I’m going to sort out this mess, I know she doesn’t want me to, but what he’s done to her, he’s not getting away with.”