Page 31 of Hard Limits

Firecrackers went off behind my eyes as I rolled over in bed. The pain. I’d never had a headache like it. My memory returned in flashes—the cocktails, the rice pandas, duetting with Selena… Oh, hell. How much had I drunk?

At least it wasn’t light. I wasn’t late for work, not yet, but I’d have to drag myself out of bed as soon as Kamal turned his music on. I had three roommates, and we got along okay, mainly because we all worked long hours and never spoke to each other. But Kamal liked to listen to rock, and at some dim and distant household meeting in the past, eight o’clock had been deemed an appropriate hour for him to crank up Spotify. I didn’t mind. I just took it as my cue to get up.

But today, there was only silence and darkness, which meant I could close my eyes for another hour or two and pray my head stopped throbbing. I shifted on the mattress, reaching for my phone on the nightstand, but my hand hit smooth cotton. What the…? I only had a single bed. My mattress wasn’t that wide. Heart pounding as well now, I stretched out the other arm and found pillows, a whole mound of them.

Then the real panic hit.

This wasn’t my bed.

Another memory—a man walking beside me, talking, trying to push me into his car. Had I been kidnapped? A scream bubbled up in my throat, but the alcohol had worn off now, and the rational part of my brain told me that if I’d been kidnapped and put into a king-sized bed, then I should just relax and enjoy the experience.

Wait.

What experience?

I’d changed into a skirt after work yesterday, and a quick check under the covers revealed I was still wearing it, my top too, although that smelled a bit funky. Underwear was all present and correct. So I hadn’t been molested, but where was I?

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw I wasn’t just in a king-sized bed, I was in a king-sized four-poster bed, and the room was huge. Faint cracks of light on the far wall suggested the windows were covered with blackout blinds. What if it was later than I thought? Mr. Vale would probably send me to the torture dungeon if his coffee wasn’t ready when he arrived.

Mr. Vale…

Mr. Vale…

Shiny black Oxfords…

Oh, fuck!

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I’d thrown up on my freaking boss. Had he called the security team? Made them stash me in one of the beautiful bedrooms on the second floor until he could fire me this morning? I mean, where else could I be?

I groaned louder than that awful man who wouldn’t take no for an answer last night. Had Mr. Vale really broken his nose? Fragments of conversation came back… She’s mine, nobody touches her but me, I’ll break every fucking bone in your body. He hadn’t really meant any of that, had he? No, of course not. He’d been angry, that was all. And I was angry too. If that scumbag had cost me a well-paid job I was starting to like, I’d knock his damn teeth out.

But first, I had to find my boss and apologise. Actually, no, I had to take a shower, then find my boss and apologise. If I walked into his office with vomit in my hair, breath that made a cadaver smell good, and armpits that could collapse a man’s lungs at ten paces, he’d fire me on the spot.

I felt my way around the room, fingertips outstretched, until I located the light switch. Each room on the second floor was decorated in a different style, but they had commonalities. The luxurious padded furniture, the high-end electronics, the perfectly matched colour scheme. This one was fifty shades of teal with silver accents. The bathroom had a swimming pool for a tub plus a separate shower stall, two sinks in the vanity, and a basketful of expensive toiletries. If I’d had more time, I’d have delighted in my first bath since I came to LA—my apartment only had a tiny shared shower room, usually with somebody else’s hair in the plug hole—but Mr. Vale’s anger was no doubt simmering already. I grabbed the necessities out of the basket and jumped into the shower.

My choices of attire were a fluffy towel, a silk robe, or my yucky clothes. With little other option, I shimmied into last night’s outfit and sprayed it with perfume. Now to do the walk of shame to the elevator. What if I bumped into a guest? I wasn’t meant to mix with clients, and if any of them said hello, I wouldn’t know where to look.

The bedroom door didn’t lock, which I thought was a little odd, but I gathered from Mr. Vale’s (vague) explanations of Nyx that a lot of emphasis was placed on trust, so perhaps the members considered the lack of security normal? Or maybe they went wife-swapping after hours and pesky keys got in the way? I cracked open the door, peered out to check the coast was clear, and found a reading nook lined with books in the hallway outside. Memoirs, thrillers, leatherbound classics. I didn’t remember those, but I’d only been to the second floor a couple of times, so maybe the building was bigger than I thought?

I tiptoed along, my bare feet sinking into plush grey carpet. And found myself in a vast living room. A grand piano sat in one corner, and a horseshoe of pale grey couches surrounded a coffee table, overlooking the park in the distance.

Wait.

If we were on the second floor, we shouldn’t be able to see into the park. There was a row of tall evergreens blocking the view. Deliberately, Charlotte had told me. Mr. Vale had sponsored the planting. Which meant… Oh no.

“It wakes.”

If one of the windows had been open, I’d have jumped right out of it. But I just wasn’t that lucky. I didn’t want to turn around, so I sure took my time doing it, and there he was. Mr. Vale. Large as life and wearing a disapproving scowl.

“Why am I in your apartment?”

“I was going to take you home, but I couldn’t find a key to get in.” He stopped ten feet away and perched on the back of a couch, coffee in hand. This was as casual as I’d ever seen him clothing-wise—suit pants, white shirt but no tie, bare feet—but he radiated tension. “And you weren’t providing much assistance.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise how much I’d had to drink, and that man… He was just there, and he started following me.”

“Why were you walking the streets alone, Meera?”

“Because I left my key on my desk. Why were you there?”

---