Page 10 of Highland Getaway
‘Oh, no, that’s OK,’ I gasp, too dizzy now to think straight. ‘I don’t need money. I mean, Idoneed money, but .?.?. um, I wasn’t expecting to get any forthis. So if I’m allowed to stay, that’s absolutely fine by me. Being allowed to stay would be all the payment I need.’
My voice is shaking by the end of this short speech; I’m so horribly aware of everyone’s eyes on me that it’s all I can do to get the words out. But the fact is, I didn’t come all this way, and pretend – albeit briefly – to be someone else just because I fancied a trip to the Highlands. I did it because Ineedthis. I need this opportunity to change my life, just like the email said it would. I mean, I’m a twenty-nine-year-old office manager who hates her job, and just got dumped. I don’t have anywhere to live. I had to max out my credit card to buy that bag of Haribo at the station, and my next direct debit is going to bounce so hard it might hurt someone. Probably me.
So yes, Idoneed the money, as it happens. But, even more than that, I just need abreak. I need the ‘life-changing journey of reinvention’ the email promised. And, now that I’m here, I’m not about to let myself be bullied out of it.
For once.
‘It’s also probably worth remembering that Rosie’s just had quite an ordeal in the sauna,’ Hunter says, politely refraining from mentioning the fact that he had quite the ordeal himself when he walked in on me. ‘She could’ve been seriously hurt. You’re lucky she’s not threatening to sue the hotel for negligence.’
‘Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to—’ I begin, stopping abruptly when he elbows me sharply in the side. ‘Iamvery thirsty,’ I say instead, truthfully. ‘And is it just me, or is the room a bit wobbly right now?’
‘Here.’
Zara Harris appears at my elbow and hands me a bottle of water in a Chrysalis-branded glass bottle; a small act of kindness which would be enough to make me cry if I wasn’t basically just a dried-out husk of a person at this point.
I take the bottle and practically pour it down my throat, gasping in pleasure at the icy coolness of it. I’m not acting – I really am so thirsty I was considering drinking from one of the vases of flowers that are dotted around the foyer until Zara stepped up – but the sight of me guzzling away is the final straw for Sabrina, who gives a single nod, followed by her signature evil glare.
‘Dante?’ she says, looking at the hotel manager, who’s been watching all of this silently, but in a way that suggests he’s taking notes in his head for later. ‘It’s your call. What do you want to do here?’
Dante’s dark eyes move slowly up and down my sauna-flushed body, finally landing on my mascara-streaked face. I can almost feel myself shrinking under his gaze. There’s no way this man’s going to let me stay here. Unless .?.?.
‘I say we let her stay,’ he says at last, with a shrug which tells me he’s only doing this because he knows it’ll annoy Sabrina, and not because he actually wants me here.
No oneactually wants me here; a thought that would be more than enough to make me leave of my own accord, if I wasn’t too weak with dehydration to make it further than the front door.
‘Fine,’ Sabrina says, waving her hand dismissively at me. ‘You can stay. You’ve missed dinner, though, so you’ll have to make do with room service. Dante will get someone to show you to your room.’
My shoulders sag with relief as everyone stands and starts gathering their things, ready to leave.
‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ Sabrina adds, spinning on her heel and addressing the room at large. ‘Breakfast is at 9 a.m. sharp tomorrow. And we need everyone there, because we’ll be giving you the details of the competition. We couldn’t do it at dinner because not everyone was there.’
She looks pointedly at me, then turns and strides off, Luna trotting at her heels in the same way Stevie does with Hunter. After a few muddled seconds, the rest of the influencers follow her, and Dante steps back behind the reception desk, leaving me alone with Hunter, who turns around to face me, his arms folded defensively over his chest.
‘That wasn’t a mistake, was it?’ he says bluntly, glancing over at Dante to make sure he can’t hear us. ‘The invitation. You knew it wasn’t meant for you, didn’t you?’
‘I .?.?. um .?.?. it was just addressed to “Rosie”,’ I begin weakly, but he cuts me off.
‘I asked if you were Rosie Summers back at the station,’ he says. ‘You said you were. Why? Why did you lie?’
I look up at him, grabbing onto the back of a nearby chair in order to keep myself upright.
What am I supposed to say to that? How do you explain what it’s like to want to run away to someone who lives in a place like this, and seems so sure of who he is, and what he’s doing with his life, that I’m willing to bet he’s never once lain awake at night trying to come up with an escape plan?
ButIhave.
And this is it. This is my escape plan; random and ill devised though it may be.
‘I just needed a break,’ I tell him in a croaky voice that’s only partly due to the dehydration. ‘And I don’t mean a holiday; I mean I needed achance.’
‘To do what?’ His arms are still crossed, but there’s a genuine curiosity in his tone that gives me the courage to go on.
‘To be someone else,’ I say simply. ‘Somewhereelse. This place claims to be able to do that.’
Through the window behind him, I can see the tips of the distant mountains, now a soft pink to contrast with the greenish-blue of earlier. The clock on the wall tells me it’s past ten o’clock, but there’s still light in the sky and magic in the air.
I’m not lying when I say I believe coming here could change my life.
It kind ofhasto.
