Chapter 187

Staring at the bathroom ceiling as I soak in the tub, feels like heaven on earth. Warm, clean and luxuriating as my aches and pains soothe away in a bath I can actually lay down in. Nothing scratching and poking into my skin under my body and no dirty brown, unhygienic and marginally warm water to contend with.

Soft music from the apartment sound system is playing something classical, floating in the air around me as citrus-scented candles burn in the low light and creates the most relaxing atmosphere I have been in for months. I feel like I am a million miles away from the reality of how life was hitting me just twelve hours ago.

It’s such a contrast to how I have been living and feels like my prayers have been answered. You truly appreciate things like this after struggling for so long.

I’ve missed these rooms, this bathroom and the luxuries that come from being here in this world. I can barely keep my eyes open, fatigue swimming over me from lack of sleep and my lingering bug. I forgot how good this felt, even though it’s such a basic thing and taken for granted until you find yourself poverty-stricken.

I love this tub, it’s large enough to submerge completely, big enough for two if I wanted a companion and the jets for the Jacuzzi are on low, foaming away and giving me a full body massage as I soak in expensive bubbles—courtesy of the housekeeper, who stocks the bathrooms with products even when not in use and I could kiss her. I might die right here of complete satisfaction, purring like a kitten as all of my problems ebb away.

I am one hundred percent on a cloud of delirium, and cannot believe that only this morning I was stressing about where I was going to end up, or how to feed or fend for myself after today.

In one day from practically homeless, unsafe, and broke, to being in five-star accommodation with a bank account destined to be singing a merry song soon enough. This is the life Camilla was born to live, and she has been waiting on a reappearance of it with bated breath.

Money aside, the sense of being protected while being here is incomparable in any way and it’s this that I ached for more than anything in the past weeks. To feel like I could stop running, stop being weighed down and fighting so hard. Bastard or not, Alexi always made me feel as though nothing outside of him would ever harm me and I would never want for material things. I can just exist here, with no real worries other than him.

I have my doubts of course, about being back here in such close proximity to him, but I’m not as worried as I was. The way I see it, he cannot do a damn thing to me if I don’t let him get close enough to damage me again. Alexi is a mental abuser not a physical one and he needs you to be emotionally invested to really get you on that level. I see that now. He needs physical contact like sex to effectively turn the knife, well when it comes to my scars anyway. As long as I keep all of that in the forefront of my mind and don’t ever let myself fall under his spell again, then I will be fine. I can get through this and stand up to him.

We got through months of companionable business before we ever had sex, and it can be like that again if I just remember—sex ruined everything. No sex—No problem.

My mood is definitely brighter and more serene now, and I am really feeling positive about this, even if in my depths, the swirling sense of pride and stubborn is battling with me like an infernal tornado.

I am trying to ignore the warning bells, pangs of fear and push the anxiety aside. I can always leave if this goes pear-shaped, maybe just be better prepared for a life back out there, and have back up plans ready in case I need to go this time. This doesn’t need to be forever and I should look at it as a temporary step to a better place until I see where it is going.

I can always walk out on him if he puts me back in a place where I feel threatened.

I came up here from the club after I did my walk around and found a million things which pissed me off, so I needed to unwind and wipe the grime of the diner out of my pores once and for all. Joanne was enraged at finding me perched on a bar stool waiting for her, and it was my greatest pleasure to throw my orders in her face like a wench. All while dressed as Meghan from Joe’s diner and looking like a street hobo that was far beneath her.

Somehow it made it all the more satisfying and her tantrummy ‘I am going to ask Alexi’ didn’t end well, when she marched up to his office and came back down ten minutes later with her tail between her legs and a pouty lip that was more suited to smacked toddler. Whatever he said to her put her face completely out of joint, did a magnificent job. She was tearful, docile and went off to the ground floor makeshift office to call the clients and staff without argument.

It was the highlight to my day.

I already have a cleaning crew booked in all day tomorrow and the next, after thirty minutes on my phone to various places for a full sanitise. Just falling into my old role effortlessly, like I never left.

I also have decorators coming to look over the paintwork that needs redoing, in dark grey instead of the shitty green tinted stone that she had slapped on the walls in my absence.

Lights are being hauled down as I lie here relaxing by the accommodating wiring company who are being paid double to get that crap out of here pronto, and the new ones are being delivered tomorrow. I managed to snag next day delivery on some pretty expensive chandeliers online, much like the ones Hoe-anne removed and I cannot wait for her to see them go up.

The bar is being unstocked by the bar staff who had already turned up for their shift, they are all off tomorrow as they will be back in two days to restock when our new delivery comes in. I wasted no time in doing my job, tired and sick or not.

Alexi has kept out of my way upstairs in the office. I haven’t even seen Mico yet so I don’t even know if he is even here, or knows that I am. I wonder if he will be happy and surprised by my change of heart. He seemed just as keen as Alexi, so I guess so.

I have a million things to get through this week to get my club back to the standard I set upon it, and I am starting after it’s clean and fresh. I also need to have the sprinkler system checked over, seeing as it was the source of a flood and I don’t trust that bitch to have bothered. I am determined to get this baby back to its previous glory and smooth running and I have a day to get myself back to the ‘hostess with the mostest’ to get over whatever this is.

I used my phone to get on top of things needing immediate attention and the bar as a desk to start ‘doing’, which is what I have always been good at. No time like the present to dent a to-do list.

Now I have the apartment to myself, my belongings all lying in the living room after one of the men took me for a half hour to get them, and hours of my evening to soak my troubles away and never face that shithole of an apartment, or Joe, ever again. I left my landlord a lovely note, stuck to the front door, telling him to go ram his rent. He used to love swinging by on the due date to try and coerce more than what I owed him, and he’s due in days. Good luck with that, arsehole.

My face is no longer swollen like it was this morning, and most of the marks can be hidden with a good bag of makeup when I go shopping tomorrow to refill both my cosmetics drawer and my wardrobe. My shopaholic side is ecstatic with that turn of events and I have a bubbling sense of excitement every time I spy King Carrero’s sexy credit card on the vanity. All in all, I feel like life just got a whole lot sweeter.

I can almost forget that I just signed my existence back over to the devil when I’m surrounded by clean comfortable settings and have a whole day of retail therapy and spa planned.

I managed to get a quickie appointment for my hair and nails at my preferred salon and Alexi has given me a driver at my beck and call for the day. He had his head of security inform me when I ventured to the lift to come up here.

He really is pulling out the stops to keep me here and I wonder if this is all really about his club. If I didn’t know better, I would wonder if there is any guilt brewing in that closed off mind of his and then remember … this is Alexi we are talking about and that’s as plausible as flying pigs.

I have a use once more and I have something he needs from me. He likes to use what he can acquire and that would be me once more.

This time I won’t be so naïve as to think that I can let my guard down and let him near me in any way, except for business. This is a new playing field and I won’t bend the rules for anything. Any feelings I once had for him are lying beneath a solid concrete floor because I have buried them so deep I never want them to resurface. I don’t trust him, I don’t put it past him to turn nasty at the drop of a hat, but I’m prepared for it this time.

First sign of him trying to play with my head like he did and I will leave this all behind, even if I own half the club. I will not let Alexi Carrero screw me up again, and I refuse to continue being afraid of him.

I have no doubts that this placid act he has going on is a temporary thing until he secures what he wants from me and I will be watching for the change, ever aware of how he is.

I just do not want to spend my first night out of squalor thinking about him. I want to enjoy this luxury and the fully stocked cold fridge he has up here and spend the night vegetating on the bed to watch the fifty-five million channels he pays for on the flat screen in there.

Alexi knows how to keep a girl satisfied; materially anyway. I can’t deny that, and I am overjoyed to be back in this apartment feeling like I am home once more.

I missed this more than I missed him.

I am looking forward to climbing into my old bed with its soft plush mattress and sleep under one hundred percent cotton sheets to get over the remainder of this bug. It’s a far cry from the damp mess I woke up in this morning and I don’t even feel a little bit guilty about planning on maxing Alexi’s card. I feel like it’s the least he can do.