out as many outfits as you need for your stay with us.’
‘Oh.’ Kate didn’t know what else to say. She’d expected a pair of hotel overalls or something, not a selection of the latest catwalk fashions.
‘Would you like me to lay them out for you?’
Kate stared at the rail. ‘Um.’She bit her lip. ‘No, don’t bother.’
Silk dresses vied for position with designer jeans, cashmere sweaters, a Dolce & Gabbana T-shirt. Kate rubbed a satin top between her thumb and forefinger. The cloth was a deep vivid purple, cool and whisper smooth to the touch. Lifting it off the rail, she studied the perfect stitching, the delicately beaded neckline, the way the cloth draped in shimmering waves. She’d never owned a piece of clothing this gorgeous in her life. Or, she imagined, this expensive.
‘Why don’t they have any price tags?’ Kate asked, hooking the purple blouse back onto the rail.
‘Oh, well.’ The girl’s smile faltered as she hesitated. Obviously her customers didn’t usually concern themselves with something as mundane as prices. ‘You don’t need them, ma’am,’ she said, brightening again. ‘Mr Boudreaux said to charge everything to the hotel.’
Kate gaped at the girl, momentarily struck dumb by Boudreaux’s generosity. Then reality intervened. That was ridiculous—he couldn’t possibly have intended to give her hundreds of dollars worth of clothing. The boutique staff must have misunderstood. He had probably intended for them to charge the clothes to Kate’s hotel room.
‘I’d still like to know the prices,’ she said, trying not to sound ungracious.
The girl looked confused. ‘I guess I could call down to the boutique and get Monica, my supervisor, to itemise them once you’ve made your selection.’
‘All right,’ Kate said. Although it wasn’t all right. She’d much rather know the prices up front. As beautiful as the clothing was she didn’t want to be scrubbing johns in Mr Irresistible’s hotel for the rest of her life, which could very well happen if she picked the wrong thing. Most of this stuff would retail in the hundreds, possibly even thousands.
But at the same time Kate didn’t want to embarrass herself further by making a big deal of it, and she also didn’t want to seem ungrateful. Frankly, she’d been astonished when Boudreaux had offered to help her out in the first place, she didn’t want to press her luck.
She opted for the plainest pair of jeans she could find and a simple blue T-shirt with The Phoenix logo on it. At the bottom of the rail was a box with a selection of shoes. Once again, the designs, colours and craftsmanship had her controlling a whimper. She recognised a pair of Fendis and some Manolo Blahniks from the style magazines she loved to paw over at home. She turned to Michelle, who was busy boxing up her selections.
‘Do you have any trainers?’
‘You don’t like the shoes here?’ Michelle looked thoroughly crestfallen now.
‘Oh, no, it’s not that, they’re gorgeous. It’s just I need something less dressy.’
‘Dressy?’ The girl glanced at the shoes, her eyebrows lifting. She obviously considered five-hundred-dollar shoes perfectly acceptable for day wear, but to Kate’s relief she didn’t say it. ‘The sportswear store in the hotel forum sells Converse and Nike—is that what you mean?’
‘Perfect.’ Even with the hotel mark-up, she was sure she could find something for fifty dollars.
The girl’s eyes widened, but she nodded. Kate had no doubt at all the shop staff would soon be abuzz with gossip about the dotty English girl in the Sunset Suite with the dress sense of a teenage boy. She forced herself not to care. With the stuff she had she could at least leave the suite—and start work tomorrow—without being indentured for life.
The girl took her shoe size and promised to have a pair sent up to the suite. She wheeled her rail back out the door, but stopped when she got over the threshold. ‘Oh, I almost forgot. Mr Boudreaux sent up a package for you.’ The girl unclipped a white hotel bag from the end of the rail with an envelope attached to the front. ‘I swear, I’d forget my head if it weren’t glued to my neck,’ she said, giving Kate a nervous smile.
Kate smiled back, or at least she tried to. Why would Boudreaux be sending her packages? Her hand shook ever so slightly as she reached for the bag. ‘Thank you.’
‘Well…’ The girl hesitated. Kate guessed she might be waiting for her to open the package. She wasn’t about to oblige. She had no idea what was inside, but the way her luck was going lately she thought it might be bad, like a demand to leave. Maybe he’d changed his mind about helping her out.
‘He brought it into the boutique and gave it to me specially,’ the girl continued, the awed tone of her voice making it sound as if she thought Boudreaux were the new Messiah.
Kate slung the package under her arm and rubbed her dampening palms on her hotel robe. ‘I really appreciate you going to all this trouble. Do tell your supervisor thanks from me, too,’ she said, as politely as possible.
Maybe the girl was waiting for a tip? If she was, she was going to be waiting a very long time.
The girl gave a slight hitch of her shoulders. ‘No problem, it’s all part of the service.’ Her eyes flicked to the package one last time. ‘Have a nice day.’ So saying Michelle took off down the corridor, the clothes-laden rail making a swishing sound on the carpet as she pulled it along behind her.
Kate closed the door and leaned back against it. Why did her knees feel wobbly? She glanced at the flimsy package, which she could have sworn was now throbbing under her arm like a ticking bomb. While she’d been standing in the doorway waiting for the girl to leave it had occurred to her just how dependent she was on Boudreaux’s largesse. Sucking in a deep breath, she walked into the room and flung the package on the coffee-table. The white envelope attached to the front had her name written on it in bold black ink. It had to be his handwriting, she thought. The large looping letters and the thick black line slashed under the words seemed to exude confidence, arrogance even—just as he did. She could imagine him writing it with the fountain pen he’d been tapping on his desk, his long tanned fingers moving quickly and efficiently across the paper.
She sighed and sat down. Oh, stop it, you dope. Just open the stupid thing and get it over with. If he’d asked her to leave, she’d leave. He’d honoured the promise about the clothes, which was the main thing. No reason why she couldn’t find a job in another hotel now, until she paid him back and earned her airfare home. That the thought of leaving the hotel made her feel a little depressed was simply ridiculous. Why on earth should she care? She wasn’t any better off here than she would be anywhere else in Vegas.
She guessed the butterflies jitterbugging in her stomach and the cold fingers of dread flitting up her spine must be the result of exhaustion and her recent emotional trauma, nothing more. She folded her legs and tugged the envelope off the package in one quick, decisive move. Still, as she put her finger into the seam and ripped the envelope open the feeling of dread tightened into an icy fist.
Five crisp new hundred-dollar bills spilled onto her lap. She scooped them up and stared at them. Clutching them in one hand, she unfolded the thick cream paper with the hotel’s green and gold letterhead at the top. It took a moment for her eyes to focus on the brief note, scrawled in that same dominant black ink in the middle of the page.
Kate,
