“Do you live around here, Rachel?” Blackwell asks as I offer him the glass.
“Fort Lauderdale.”
“I have a friend who lives up that way,” he says. “You familiar with Seven Isles at all?”
Seven Isles is a neighborhood of multimillion-dollar homes with swimming pools and waterfront views. I bite back a laugh at the idea that I would know someone who lives in that neighborhood, but I can’t stop myself from smiling. “I’ve passed through on my way to the beach. I mean, it’s kind of low-rent.”
Blackwell chuckles, rattling the stones in the glass as he points at me. “You’re sharp. I like you.”
“Thank you,” I say, relieved that he’s being charming and friendly. “Well, I should get back to work. Is there anything else you need, Mr. Rhys-Blackwell?”
He takes a big slug of whiskey and places the glass on the bar cart. “You could stay.”
I laugh. “What?”
“Have a drink with me.”
“I’m afraid I can’t, sir,” I say, adding a touch of regret that I don’t really mean. “It’s against the rules.”
He gives me a conspiratorial grin. “Break the rules.”
“I really ca—” His lips mash against mine and his hands grab great handfuls of my ass. It happens so quickly, it hardly seems real. Until his tongue pushes into my mouth and he rubs himself against my pelvis. I shove him away and he staggers back a couple of steps.
I attempt to leave, but he comes at me again, pressing the flat of his hand against the door, beside my head. Trapping me in his room. This time his grin isn’t conspiratorial or charming. It’s predatory, and I’m scared of what he might do.
“Isn’t it your job to give the customer whatever he wants?” Blackwell asks. “You’re such a sexy girl, Rachel. Let’s have a little fun.”
“Let me leave.” I try to muster as much authority as possible, but my voice quavers. My heart is thumping violently behind my rib cage. “Please.”
Blackwell leans in, as if he might kiss me again, then laughs softly. He releases the door and holds up both hands, like he’s innocent. No harm, no foul.
I yank open the door.
“You should be grateful.” He leans against the frame as I step out onto the bungalow path. I want to run, but I don’t want any of our other guests to think something’s wrong. “Most guys don’t want to fuck a fat girl.”
My better angels tell me to ignore Blackwell. To get away from his door as quickly as possible. Let it go. But I pause, straighten my shoulders, and turn to look him square in the eye. “Well, now you’re entirely free to go fuck yourself.”
CHAPTER 2
Bérézina
French
“a sense of panic associated with a huge defeat”
For the next twenty-eight and a half minutes, I replay the scene in my head, pausing to wonder if I gave Blackwell the wrong impression, if I somehow led him to believe I was interested. Maybe I smiled too brightly. Maybe I was unintentionally flirty when I chatted with him about Maisie. I rewind to when he gave me the one-hundred-dollar bill. There are rumors that concierges worldwide discreetly break the law to supply drugs and other illicit entertainment to guests. Was that his way of trying to pay me for sex? Did he see the money as some sort of contract? I fast-forward to when I told him to go fuck himself. Could I have read the whole situation wrong? Maybe he was only joking. Was I too harsh toward the man who grabbed my ass and kissed me without permission?
A minute later, when Jack Fulton—general manager of the hotel—calls the desk, my insides are a snarled knot of anger, fear, and unease.
“I got a call from Charlie Tennesley,” he says, referring to the CEO of the hotel group that owns Aquamarine, along with a third of the other hotels on Miami Beach. “He says he had a disturbing conversation with Peter Rhys-Blackwell, who claims you made a sexual advance at him, and that when he turned you down, you physically and verbally assaulted him.”
My knee-jerk reaction is to laugh. This must be some sort of joke. But Jack doesn’t laugh with me. He responds with utter silence.
“That’s not true,” I protest. “Blackwell ordered a bottle of whiskey and a cigar to his room. I delivered it, and when I got there, he kissed me and insinuated that the concierge policy includes me having sex with him.”
Jack clears his throat. “According to Mr. Rhys-Blackwell, when you didn’t get your way, you shoved him and used profanity—”
“I pushed him away while he was groping me.”
“And another guest overheard you tell Mr. Rhys-Blackwell to—and I quote—go fuck himself.”
“Out of context it sounds bad, but—”
“Unfortunately, it’s his word against yours, Rachel.”
“So, Tennesley is going to believe the man who pays thirteen hundred dollars a night instead of the employee who makes thirteen dollars an hour,” I say, and again I’m met with a chasm of silence. “Of course he is.”
“Blackwell has been a loyal customer for years.”
“And I’ve been a loyal employee for years,” I point out. “He’s a creep, Jack. Almost every employee has an abuse story about him. The housekeepers dread going to his room because they never know if he’ll be wearing clothes.”
“No one has ever filed a formal complaint against him,” Jack says. “If he’s treated the staff poorly, why hasn’t anyone ever said anything?”
“Because they need their jobs.”
Jack sighs heavily. “Look, Rachel, we’re having this conversation because Tennesley himself called me in the middle of the night, demanding that I fire you. Blackwell will settle for an apology. Is it possible you misunderstood his intentions? You need to remember that he’s from a different, less politically correct era. And not every situation is a Me Too moment. Apologize and this will all go away.”
My eyes go wide, stunned that Jack would defend Blackwell, despite centuries of evidence that men will believe other men before they’ll believe women.
“Peter Rhys-Blackwell put his hands on my body and kissed me without my consent,” I say. “He suggested having sex with him was included in our company policy and when I tried to leave his bungalow, he barred the door. Consider this a formal complaint. I will not apologize.”
Jack is quiet for a long moment and in his silence, I hear my career imploding. Rage flares inside me and I want to scream in my defense, but the impulse is almost immediately swamped by a wave of hopelessness. A career I spent nearly ten years building, gone in an instant because the Blackwells of the world always get their way.
“Collect your belongings,” Jack says finally. “Security will escort you out.”
* * *
“Sorry I have to do this,” Charlton says as he walks me through the employee entrance into the parking lot. We started the night shift at Aquamarine together—Charlton as a security guard and me as a desk clerk. We were promoted around the same time too, and it’s been an ongoing joke between us that one day we’ll run the hotel. Now he’s carrying my box of personal effects as he escorts me to my car. It feels like a bad dream without the anticipation of waking up. “And I’m sorry this happened to you.”