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Chapter Eight
When Diamond woke up the next morning, Pax was gone. That was nothing unusual. He rose with the sun and started his day, usually sneaking back to his own suite and eating breakfast before she was even awake.
She glanced at the clock, grumbling when it read at ten after nine. Another thing for her weekly report, but Pax and the other girls assured her that it was normal to have a lot of small infractions in the beginning. Diamond wasn’t used to having work rules outside of her actual time spent working. Aubergine had been much more relaxed in that regard. She liked it though, the fact that Pax cared so much for all of their health and well-being that he had rules and enforced them. Her backside might not like it come next Tuesday though, especially if she didn’t get a break before then. She would though. She had to leave early tomorrow morning for LA. The thought had her shooting up in bed like a jack in the box. That was the thing she had forgotten—the niggling in the back of her brain that hadn’t left her alone last night.
Emmy’s graduation from college. She had promised her family months ago that she would be home for it. At Aubergine, she had gotten the time off cleared back in April. And then she had gotten fired less than a week before the actual event. Smooth, Diamond, really smooth. Still, she had to go. And it wouldn’t be too hard to convince Pax—as long as she worked tonight as promised. There had to be some benefits to dating the boss after all.
Crap. That meant she had to add packing to her massive to-do list for the day, in between a required work out, an appointment at the spa, lunch with Pax, and, of course, work. She also had to find a graduation gift for Emmy, and unless she wanted her day to go completely to hell, she had to do it without leaving the hotel. Good thing Rojo was an upscale establishment, home to many shops, restaurants and spas that were renowned across the states. She wasn’t sure that any of them would have an appropriate graduation gift, but she would have to make do with whatever she could find.
Picking up the phone, she put in her breakfast order—coffee, toast, and fruit, and set off to the bathroom for a shower while she waited. There was no time to waste.
* * *
Pax was having a hell of a morning. Several of his casino dealers had gotten a bad case of food poisoning, and called in sick to work that morning leaving him to scramble to rearrange the schedule to find replacements. That had taken a while to sort out. Then there had been a fight between two of his girls at the café that morning. He had arrived after it had all gotten sorted out, apologized to the restaurant manager, and sent them both up to their rooms promising that he would be “discussing” it further with them on the following Tuesday. That had mellowed them right out. He had half a mind to suspend them from working the event tonight, but tonight was too important and the person he would mostly be punishing with that idea would be himself and the other girls on duty who would have to pick up the slack.
At least all the chaos had made the morning pass quickly and it was now noon. He had a late lunch scheduled with Diamond for one. It couldn’t come fast enough. His business phone rang in his pocket, and he stifled a curse. “Please Lord, save me from dealing with another disaster this morning,” he muttered, digging the phone from his pocket and putting it up to his ear.
“This is Pax,” he barked, wincing as he listened. “Yup. I’ll be right up.” As he headed to the couture designer boutique shop on the upper level, he prayed that this would be the last thing today for real this time. He should have known. These things always came in threes.
He took the private service elevators, even though it was a longer walk, hoping that by doing so, he would be able to avoid any more crises coming his way.
Joanna, a silver haired woman in her fifties, who dressed exclusively in pink every day of her life, came around the counter to greet him as he entered. “Paxxy!” she cooed, kissing the air next to his cheek.
“Joanna.” He forced a smile, but he wasn’t in the mood for chit chat and pleasantries. He wanted to find out the problem, fix it, and make it to Diamond’s suite in time for a little pre-lunch dessert. “What seems to be the problem?”
Joanna pouted momentarily, giving in quickly as his mood became apparent. “Well, Paxxy,” she began, stubbornly using the pet name she had chosen for him, and insisted on using no matter how many times he had told her not to. “You know that new girl I hired last month? Julia?”
“Mmhmm. What about her?” Anyone that came into his hotel, even into the shops he didn’t own had to have extensive background checks and be approved by him. Julia had passed with flying colors.
“Well, I had her cover the front this morning while I did some inventory and pricing in the back room.”
“Yes,” Pax murmured, wishing she would get to the point, and at the same time bracing himself to hear the worst, fully expecting at this point to spend the rest of his morning talking things out with the cops, providing Joanna with moral support while she filed a report.
“Well, I guess one of your girls came in here, and bought some of our items we got last month from the celebrity auction.” The shop was well known for its selection of upscale vintage clothing and accessories, sometimes offering specialty items from the wardrobes of American icons such as James Dean, Audrey Hepburn, and Marilyn Monroe—a fact that Joanna took great pride in.
“Okay.” Pax nodded slowly, not quite seeing where this was going.
“Well, generally, I just save up all the room charges and send them to you at the end of the month so you can sort it out and make sure nobody went over their quota, but… Julia isn’t aware of how things work around here. She didn’t recognize the room number as belonging to one of the showgirls. I never would have allowed one of them to charge such an amount without running it by you first.” She trailed off, frowning as she rounded the corner and opened the pink cash register, withdrawing a receipt and handing it to him.
Pax accepted it, doing a double take at the circled amount on the bottom of the receipt. “Holy hell!” He exclaimed. The amount was four times the amount of their monthly allowance quota. “What did they buy?”
“A pair of Lauren Bacall’s sunglasses, and a Hermes scarf. A few smaller items too, but those were the main things.”
“One of my girls? You’re sure?”
“Unless Julia wrote down the room number incorrectly. But she charged it to Room 4713, and Julia is very scrupulous. It would be unlike her to make a mistake of that magnitude.”
Joanna was still talking, but Pax had stopped listening. 4713 was Diamond’s room number. “Do you have a copy machine in the back, Joanna? Can you make a copy of this for me really quick? I’m going to get it sorted out immediately, and I’d like to have solid proof in my hands to lessen any confusion, but I don’t want to mess up your day’s records.”
“Certainly,” she plucked it out of his hands and headed towards a room in the back of the shop, presumably the same one she had been in when the gaffe was made.
She was gone for only a minute, thrusting the copied receipt into his hands, and returning the original to the cash register. “Thank you Paxxy, darling. I hope I didn’t scare you. I just wasn’t sure what to do. I never would have allowed one of your girls to charge such a large amount without running it by you first. I would have recognized the room block, and given you a call. You can’t blame Julia though. She just hasn’t been here long enough to know better yet.”
Pax smiled, hiding the fact that his heart was beating a million miles a minute, and he was working hard not to let his temper simmer its way to a slow rage. “Don’t worry about it, Joanna. Julia’s not to blame here. I know who is, and believe me, I plan on getting to the bottom of it as soon as possible.” Probably by way of her bottom, he thought angrily, but he didn’t dare say it out loud.
He allowed Joanna to bid him goodbye with another air kiss, and strode out of the shop, checking his watch. Twelve thirty. They may have to cancel lunch, or order room service.
He didn’t run, but his long legs combined with his rising temper carried him across the casino as fast as one could possibly go. Of all his girls, Diamond was the most likely to be able to afford such a bill—so why charge it to him, knowing that it was breaking one of his rules? Was she trying to get his goat? Did she want to be punished? That stopped him short in the middle of the busy casino floor as he examined the likelihood. Some girls did that, especially in the beginning, so it was only natural. However, they usually tiptoed a lot closer to the line. This could be considered barreling across it with abandon. And unlike his other girls when they had been new, to his limited knowledge at least, Diamond was getting punished on a regular basis. Almost daily. She didn’t need to act out in a way that would postpone her punishment until Tuesday. Unless of course, she had exhibitionist tendencies? Maybe she secretly liked the humiliation of a public spanking? He thought of her shy reaction up on stage and refusal to look at the audience. That couldn’t be it. The possibilities played out in his mind on an endless looping reel until he reached her room.
