LITMIR.BIZ

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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,

      Hope you found something to go with those proper knickers.

      Meet me for dinner tonight, 8pm in the Rainbow Room.

      Z

      The signature Z had been slashed across the bottom like the mark of Zorro.

      Kate blinked and read the note three more times, but there was still no mention of the five hundred dollars. The feeling of foreboding had gone, but in its place was something much more disturbing. Heat shot into her cheeks and the butterflies in her belly were all burned to a crisp. What was this fixation he seemed to have with her knickers? Why did she find it arousing instead of insulting? And what exactly was the five hundred dollars for?

      She didn’t want to meet him for dinner tonight. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself again, or, worse, come across like someone on the make. But the invitation sounded like an order, and she couldn’t afford to annoy him.

      She remembered the small package then. The hotel bag had been taped shut. It didn’t look as if there was much in it. Undoing the tape she upended the bag and a scrap of lacy crimson satin with a Post-it note stuck to it fell out onto the coffee-table. She picked it up, and pulled the satin thing tight between her fingers.

      A thong! Her cheeks blazed and her breath got choppy.

      She read the Post-it note: ‘These are for you, Kate, in case you want a break from your proper knickers.’

      ‘Why, you cheeky…’ Kate was outraged.

      But a bubble of something worked its way up her torso. The light and airy feeling fanned out across her chest and a smile she couldn’t seem to stop spread across her face.

      Then, completely against her will, she began to laugh, for what felt like the first time in a millennium.

      CHAPTER THREE

      KATE WASN’T LAUGHING when she stepped into the elevator that evening. As the empty car whipped soundlessly up to the nineteenth floor she knew the weightlessness in her stomach had more to do with nerves than gravity.

      She studied her reflection in the mirror on the elevator’s back wall. At least she didn’t look like a vagabond. After a short but fortifying nap, she’d taken one of the hundred-dollar bills Boudreaux had given her and hit The Strip, aware she could hardly wear her Tom Sawyer outfit to the hotel’s swankiest restaurant.

      She absolutely was not dressing up to impress Boudreaux, but she didn’t want to look ridiculous either. Luckily for Kate, she happened to be an expert at styling on a budget. She’d found the vintage blue and gold

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