Page 8 of Ethan & Grace

Wordlessly, I crossed the room under the watchful eyes of the others. I opened my locker in the changing room and stuffed the envelope of money into my bag. Behind me in the break room, quiet voices started up again. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I kept hearing my name. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and my legs were heavy, as if they were trying to prevent me from going back into the kitchen. But I had no choice.

I left the changing room, and the room fell instantly silent again. The quiet was oppressive. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw George, who worked in the kitchen, kick Philippa from reception under the table.

She cleared her throat. “Grace?”

I stopped and looked at her. As opposed to my dark maid’s uniform, which was embroidered with the gold logo of The Darlington, she was dressed in an elegant trouser suit and a white blouse with her name badge pinned to it. I realised I had forgotten my own badge, which showed just how absent-minded I was today. “Yes?”

“Do you want to sit with us?”

My first instinct was to decline. I didn’t want to ruin everyone’s break with my presence. Besides, I couldn’t imagine anything worse than sitting there in awkward silence, with their sad eyes boring holes into me. Still, I nodded. I didn’t want to miss the chance to talk to the others, to observe them. After all, it was possible that one of them was working with the culprit.

Lucy leapt up nervously to offer me her seat. Muttering something about her break being over, she hurried out of the room. I watched her go, wondering whether her behaviour was suspicious or just a way to avoid an awkward conversation. Once the door had closed behind her, all eyes flitted straight back to me.

“How are you doing?” asked Melissa, one of the other chambermaids, placing a hand on mine without asking.

I didn’t usually have a problem with being touched. Normally, I loved being hugged and cuddled by my friends and found being close to them comforting. But today I couldn’t stand it.

I hastily withdrew my hand from Melissa’s. “I’m OK.”

“I really admire you,” George said, looking at me with his puppy-dog eyes. “If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t be able to work here anymore. I have a brother, and if he’d died in that accident . . .”

“Same here, if I had a sibling,” Philippa said, and as she nodded, my eyes were drawn to her gold hoop earrings. They looked expensive. Were they new? Or had I just not noticed them before? If they were new, and as pricey as I suspected, they might be a sign that Philippa had suddenly come into money. Perhaps they’d even been paid for with bribe money . . .

“You’re so brave.”

I responded with a tight-lipped smile. What could I say? I wasn’t brave. I simply had no other choice. Amy was gone, and she wasn’t coming back. She had left behind a void of pain and longing, and all I could do was live with it—or be consumed by it.

Predictably, another silence fell. George suddenly seemed very interested in the crumbs on his plate, while Melissa stared at her phone. Philippa fiddled nervously with her earrings, lips pressed together even though she usually always had something to say. The air in the room felt heavy and charged, too thick to properly fill my lungs.

I sighed. “So how have the past few weeks been for you?”

Uneasy glances.

Loud silence.

No one answered. My heart clenched, and I wondered if things would ever go back to how they used to be—or if this was my new normal. Not just a life without Amy, but one in which everyone tiptoed around me because they didn’t know how to handle my pain and grief.

George finally spoke up reluctantly, and Melissa and Philippa also murmured half-hearted replies, clearly trying not to upset me. I forced myself to smile, even though all I wanted to do was cry—which, judging by their pitying looks, was all too obvious. The lump in my throat grew bigger.

I pushed my chair back. Observing my colleagues to try to find out who had deleted the CCTV footage wasn’t a bad idea in principle, but I’d rushed it. They needed more time. I needed more time to get my bearings now that I was back in my old life, which at the same time was very new. “I should get back to work.”

I could practically hear a collective sigh of relief. I told them to enjoy their break, and as soon as the door closed behind me, their voices started up again—not pitying, this time, but once again at ease.

Dejected, I made my way back to the lift, trying to ignore how much it hurt, how disappointed I was. I felt like a stranger at the hotel, which had become my second home over the past two years, and an outsider among my colleagues, who had become my second family. The Darlington was where I had met Rose and later Kate, my two best friends. Working at The Darlington usually brought people together, because it was always us, the staff, against them—the ridiculously rich guests. But today it didn’t feel like us against them. It felt like me against the rest of the world.

As I walked, I pulled from my bag the golden key card that gave me access to the Darlington family’s private floor. They lived in separate penthouses on the top floor, and only a select few staff members were allowed up there. Who got access and who didn’t was a matter of careful consideration. I stepped into the lift, scanned the card, and pushed the button for the penthouse floor. The lift shot up within seconds.

It was just as luxurious up here as in the rest of The Darlington. The carpet was an immaculate burgundy red. Golden chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and the walls were lined with oil paintings in solid frames. They were all originals and worth a fortune, though the subjects weren’t particularly picturesque.

I grabbed the cleaning trolley and the hoover from the utility room and decided, just this once, to start with the hotel’s very own rubbish dump—a.k.a. Beelzebub’s lair, a.k.a. the flat that belonged to Ethan Darlington, the youngest of the Darlington brothers. I usually saved it till the end, because cleaning it was the part of my job I hated the most. But if anyone could distract me from my pain, it was Ethan.

He might have been the heir to a snooty luxury hotel, but he lived the life of a rock star. His parties were wild, loud, and excessive, and once they were over, his flat looked like a tornado had ripped through it. But that wasn’t even the worst part—that would be Ethan himself. He was every bit as disrespectful and arrogant as he was hot. And unfortunately, he was extremely hot. Not just the kind of hot that makes knees go weak, but the kind that makes knickers wet. It was deeply unfair, because no one with such an obnoxious personality had any right to be so attractive. And it was pretty much impossible to wish him ill while my body delighted at the idea of having sex with him. I would never have admitted it, not even under torture, but Ethan had starred in my fantasies more than once when I spent quality time with my vibrator. If he couldn’t take my mind off things, no one could.

As always, I rang the bell to announce myself before scanning the key card to open the door. I mentally prepared myself for total chaos. It was Monday, and Ethan and his friends had most likely spent all weekend partying in here. I took one final deep breath, steeling myself for the stench of booze and weed I was surely about to face. But to my surprise, when I pushed the door open, I was met by the fresh scent of lemongrass. And it didn’t look like a bomb of empty bottles, cups, and pizza boxes had exploded in the middle of the living room. It was tidy. Spotless, to be precise.

Had I accidentally stumbled into Henry’s flat?

No, this was clearly Ethan’s. His glossy black piano stood in the corner, and the cabinet under the gigantic television held several gaming consoles and a collection of games that Jason would have gone wild for. What was going on? Had Giulia already sent another chambermaid to clean, thinking I couldn’t deal with the chaos on my first day back? But that wasn’t possible. There was only one golden key card, and I’d had it since this morning.