Page 5 of Gold Digger
“What’s nice, Blake?” I blinked at the female voice, and my eyes flicked up to see a blonde woman had joined the group. She was absolutely stunning. I don’t think I’d ever seen a woman as beautiful in real life. Her long black dress hugged her slender body, her hair swept to the side in a glossy bun.
“Nothing, Vics,” Blake said dismissively, and she cocked her head to the side as she stared at him, a frown marring her forehead. I cleared my throat.
“Champagne?” I asked her, and she transferred her familiar, crystal blue, piercing gaze to me.
“Hello,” she said, her unblinking eye contact a little disconcerting.
“Er… hi,” I said, surprised to be addressed directly. Nobody addressed the waitresses directly at these things, especially not the women.
“You areverypretty,” she told me, and I blinked again. There was a muffled snort of laughter in the group, which I ignored.
“Thanks?” I said, tilting my head to the side as I studied her. “So are you.”
“Yes,” she agreed simply.
“So bloody weird,” I heard muttered next to me, but the woman didn’t seem to notice as she maintained eye contact with me.
“Er… right, I’d better get going,” I said stupidly, lifting the champagne bottle and waving it slightly to indicate that I should be getting on with my actual job. The blonde woman just kept staring at me. Okaaaay. I moved away to the next group and went back to being invisible.
After a couple of hours, I was beginning to really despise my shoes. My ankle wasn’t broken, but it still ached. Four-inch heels were not doing it any good. I nearly told the catering manager where he could stick his job when he’d specified high heels, but then I’d looked at my electricity bill and thought better of it. The other issue was my wrist. OfcourseI had to fall on my dominant hand, the one I needed for pouring champagne. I glanced at the large ornate clock on the wall: only two more hours to go. Right, I could manage that. I’d dealt with way worse. I shook out my wrist, picked up a new full bottle of champagne, took a deepbreath and then walked back out into the thick of it. The problem was that by this stage, the men were all well-oiled and a lot more disinhibited.
As I moved through the crowd, there were more blatant attempts now to stare down my blouse; even some of the men clearly accompanied by their wives were culprits. Then there was the standing way too close, smelling my hair (barf!), crowding me so I had to squeeze past them which created the opportunity for a good accidental boob graze. It was all very tedious, and I was beginning to feel a little punchy. So when I wobbled on my heels after I’d just escaped a particularly irritating group, and a large hand enclosed my upper arm to bring me to a stop, I reacted without thinking. Spinning around, I smashed the thankfully empty champagne bottle into the grabber.
“Lottie, it’s me,” the deep, familiar voice shot through me as the duke’s crystal blue eyes stared down at me. He dropped my arm and held both his hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry,” his voice was surprisingly soft for someone who’d just been hit with a blunt object. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
My eyes were wide as I stared up at him. I took a small step back, and he frowned. I swallowed before trying to speak.
“Are you going to get me fired?” I asked.
“Lottie I?—”
“Please,” I said, cutting him off in my desperation. “Please don’t report me to the manager. I reallyneedthis job.”
“Okay, Lottie,” he said again in that soft tone. “Take a breath. Did you hear me?Iapologised toyou. I don’t usually…” he broke off, and his hand went to the back of his neck. “I’m not in the habit of accosting women like that, okay? It just looked like you might fall and… well, you may have past form, clumsiness-wise.” He was smiling a small smile now, and my mouth went completely dry. Cheese and crackers, this guy was almost toobeautiful to be real. I cleared my throat and readjusted my grip on the champagne. I needed to get my shizzle together.
“Right, er… well, thanks, I guess.” I looked left and right and bit my lip. We seemed to have attracted a fair bit of attention. Shiitake mushrooms, I hoped Thomas the D-word hadn’t seen what happened. That would not bode well for my future employment. It was drilled into us how exclusive this place was, how the patrons were pretty much all celebrities or actual royalty, how discretion wasabsolutely essentialand how the customer was always,alwaysright. No exceptions. Never in all Thomas the D-word’s pep talks did he mention that it would be acceptable to smash customers, especially the practically royal ones, with champagne bottles. “I’d better get going.” I waved the bottle, forced a tight smile and started to step to the side. Unfortunately, my ankle was still not entirely happy with the heel situation, and I winced when I put weight on it, well aware I was still under that sharp blue gaze.
“You need to take the weight off that foot,” he said, moving to block my retreat. We were really starting to attract attention now.
“I’m fine,” I said through a fake smile, unable to keep the irritation from my voice.
“And you shouldn’t be wearing heels,” he said, as if I hadn’t even spoken. “Even if you hadn’t hurt your ankle,youshouldneverwear heels. You have enough trouble staying upright without adding stilts into the equation.”
“I’m not normally this clumsy,” I say without thinking. “It’s just being around you that—” Uh-oh. My eyes went wide as one of the duke’s eyebrows winged up, his small smile more of a smirk now.
“Ohreally,” he said in a low voice. “You’re only clumsy around me? Now that’s interesting.”
“Fugger off,” I muttered, and his smile widened.
“Fugger? I’m not familiar with fuggering. Is this something you indulge in?”
I felt my face heat. I really need to start swearing like an adult, but the alternatives I came up with for Hayley’s benefit were too ingrained now.
“Ah! There you are, old boy!” one of the grim blokes from earlier said, slapping the duke on the back and blocking him from my view. “Now, where were we on the Lexington deal? Has that land been commissioned for redevelopment yet? Government bastards still giving you gyp?” Now, this was a far more typical example of a customer here – happy to look down my blouse and cop a feel if they could get away with it, but beyond that, actual acknowledgement of my existence was rare. Unless they wanted a drink, of course.
“Giles,” the duke said through gritted teeth. “I’m just in the middle of something. Could you…?” I didn’t hear the rest as I melted back into the crowd as fast as my hobbling gait would let me.
I managed to avoid the duke for another hour, but he caught up with me at the most mortifying moment possible. It was close to midnight by then, and what with the free-flowing champagne, the disinhibition from before was verging on outright vulgarity.
