she really must call up hotel maintenance to get the top floor air-con checked because it was suddenly boiling in here. Her mother had never missed one of their shows, oh no, she’d spent half Layla’s childhood trailing around the world after them, wearing too much leather and hair mousse, while Layla outstayed her welcome with a progression of relatives.
Doors sped past, their glossy red number plates a blur. She didn’t have time for this. She had an hour or so at best to check the Kerry Suite was prepared to perfection before the last-minute guests moved in. After that she’d have to keep a permanent can-I-help-you smile on her face as she saw to their every whim when what she wanted to do was snarl at everyone within shouting distance. She made an enormous effort to lower her voice.
‘I was saving that money for a deposit on a flat,’ she said. Finally it had felt within her grasp that she might actually be able to put down some roots of her own. Steady job and her own place instead of the tiny rented studio with its grotty shared bathroom and her mother kipping on the sofa for a few months at a time when she wasn’t doing the festival season. ‘You told me it was just a start-up thing. You promised you’d pay me back in a week or two when your bank loan came through.’
‘And I will darling. Once the tour’s over I’ll be ready to get my teeth into that T-shirt business and you’ll get your money back quick smart. Just a few months that’s all.’
Layla mentally wrote off the cash. And when her mother turned up after this latest jaunt, just as she always did, murder might be on the cards.
‘How the hell did I get stuck with you as a parent?’ she wailed. ‘Why can’t you be like any normal mother? You should be teaching me how to make shortcrust pastry, handing down family recipes and lending me money to buy my first flat, not disappearing halfway round the world in a leather bustier and hair extensions.’
Her mother made a horrified noise.
‘Sounds like a bloody boring nightmare to me. What are you, living in the dark ages?’
‘No!’ Layla spat. ‘I’m living in the REAL WORLD!’
Temper completely lost now, she reached the end of the passageway and the door of the Kerry Suite with its red name plate. She flicked her pass card into the slot, threw open the door and stormed inside. The sitting room beyond was cool and quiet, October rain pattering softly against the high windows. The calm felt at odds with her scorching temper so she slammed the door hard enough to make the bottles in the mini-bar clink.
‘You know what?’ her mother’s voice was smooth and clear on the end of the line, tinged now with more than a hint of offended temper. ‘I’m not sure how the hell I got stuck with you.’
Layla paused, hand outstretched to reach the pad of light switches, her breath catching as her throat suddenly constricted.
‘What do you think is more important?’ her mother went on. ‘Getting to work on time? Counting the pennies? Or living life to the full, taking in every unpredictable turn, feeling alive? No one ever laid on their death bed, Layla, and wished they’d put in a few more hours at the day job. Life is passing you by, do you know that? You’ll get to old age, look back and realise you missed the whole bloody point.’ There was a pause followed by a mutter, which felt somehow even worse because it sounded like her mother was thinking out loud now instead of talking to her. ‘How can anyone so mind-numbingly dull share my gene pool? Sometimes I wonder why I ever bother coming back.’
Anger and hurt seemed to boil upwards from Layla’s toes to suffuse her whole body. Her pulse raced with it, her stomach churned with it and her lips pulled back from her teeth in a grimace of fury.
‘Alright then,’ she yelled, ‘if that’s the way you feel.’ Her voice rose steadily in pitch until it was so loud that it cracked in her throat and she snarled into the phone like some hideous fishwife. ‘Follow your saddo little groupie dream and DON’T BOTHER COMING BACK!’
She threw her arm back so far that her shoulder creaked and hurled the phone full-force across the semi-darkness of the room. There was a loud BONK! as it made contact with something on the other side of the couch and then it clattered to the floor beneath the flat screen TV.
‘Oi!’
Layla clapped both hands to her mouth in shock as a man got to his feet, hand rubbing his forehead and mussing his dark hair into haphazard spikes. Tall, broad-shoulders, chiselled jaw and lop sided grin, which actually was currently more of a grimace but which still gave the chocolate brown eyes a hint of wicked melt. Instantly recognisable, even without the usual pro tennis kit.
‘Let me guess,’ he said, his American drawl audible now that he wasn’t yelling. ‘Room service?’
She’d just clobbered the biggest crowd-pull in world tennis. And she’d be lucky to end this day without the sack.
****
The light flush that touched her peaches and cream complexion and the knit of a frown above the china blue eyes elevated her from pretty to seriously cute, and Matt Stanton walked around the sofa to get a better look at her. She was staring at him with ill-disguised disbelief, but really, he was used to star-struck. It was a good look in his opinion, it meant anything was possible.
She took a calming breath and smoothed a stray tendril of blonde hair back into place where it curled softly into her neck.
‘Guest Services,’ she corrected, her voice pleasant and professional. She held up a clipboard. Her coarse snarling of five minutes earlier still hung in the air between them. ‘My job is to make sure your stay runs as smoothly as possible.’
He stifled a laugh.
‘Not got off to the greatest of starts then,’ he said, rubbing his forehead.
She blushed again. He was beginning to enjoy the diversion. With the week of all-work-and-no-play that lay ahead of him it was an unexpected surprise. The phone had barely glanced off his head, but it would be such a shame to stop the show and point that out.
‘Or perhaps knocking out the guest is always part of the package?’ he said.
Worry flashed across her face as she made a panicky rush towards him.
‘I’m SO sorry about that,’ she said, stopping just shy of his personal space to stand on tiptoe and narrowing her eyes as she scrutinised his brow. He picked up a soft wave of her perfume, light and sweet, and his pulse jolted in response. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. I just had a row, you know, so frustrating when you’re not actually in the room with someone.’ She shook her head, shrugged and smiled as if he must know exactly what she was talking about. His eyes zeroed in on her full upper lip, devoid of lipgloss but still absolutely delectable. ‘Lost it for a second, just a split second.’ She gazed at his forehead. ‘It didn’t break the skin, I can get you an ice pack if you like?’
She looked at him quizzically and he held up a hand to stop the mad stream of consciousness apology. She clenched her hands together and looked up at him beseechingly.
‘Please don’t report it. I know you have every right, but I’ll get in so much trouble and I really…’ she shook her head and lowered her voice to a level that smacked of desperation. ‘…I really need this job.’
In terms of boredom, the day had just taken a very interesting upswing. In the storm of press attention, before he’d
