Page 4 of Just Like You (Square Mile Rogues #2)

Julian

O kay, when I told people that I loved my job? I usually lied through my teeth, because this? This right here was exactly why I didn’t. The incoming crews were usually picked up in a large bus here in New York, but today we’d been downgraded to a minibus.

Yes, perhaps karma was playing a trick on us as a whole, but it was the last thing any of us needed, and now I was sat cramped in the back row with my bag on my lap, trying to balance the iPad on top as I tried to stab letters onto the screen.

My report writing today was scathing, and I wasn’t holding back.

Not only with that badly taped up toilet door, the lack of information, the missing catering, the broken seat that had still been sold, and to top it all up?

Bloody Mr Andrieu was getting a dose of my very special brand of bollocking.

Which, as always, would lead to nothing because he was a diamond card holder and the people in customer support would just file my anger away with a simple note on his file. And that would be the end of it.

I was still seething at his behaviour. It wasn’t often people made me feel small, and yes, I was small. Slight and not in any way tall, but his demeanour? It had riled me up, and now I couldn’t stop fidgeting.

“You really hate that iPad, don’t you?” Bea said, temporarily removing her earbuds. “I can feel every stab onto that keyboard.” She smiled. I tried to smile back, but it felt like a grimace.

I was tired. Really tired.

“Any plans?” I tried to make simple conversation.

“Shhh.” She grimaced. “I have a hot date with a hotel bed; that’s as far as my plans go. Can’t even be bothered to nip down to Bath I’d had to take my contacts out on board, since I couldn’t stop rubbing my eyes.

But here I was. Ready to face the world for a ten-minute carbohydrate dash.

Sonny would have scolded me, but I just laughed out loud in my ridiculous haze of not letting my brain do its thing.

So I flung the door open and stepped out, only to come face to face with…

“Mr Andrieu,” shot out of my mouth.

“Fuck,” he said. This man. Still in the same clothes, obviously, dragging a small suitcase and a suit carrier. Like the idiot he was.

“I can’t win today,” I huffed out in annoyance. “And really? The room right opposite? There are thousands of hotels in Manhattan!”

“Corporate account,” he said weakly, actually looking a little embarrassed. “I have no choice. Have to stay here or sleep on the streets.”

“You don’t have to do anything.”

Childish and stupid. But that was me, and now I was stomping around in the threadbare carpet like this was somehow my responsibility, when it wasn’t. I was off duty; my brain just hadn’t caught up.

“Look,” he said, putting his bag down on the floor, his keycard still in his hand. “I…suppose I should apologise.”

“No shit,” shot out of my mouth.

“Yes. I know.” He looked bewildered. Miles away from the stubborn confidence and ridiculous scowl he’d presented before. This guy? His hand was trying to put the key into his jacket pocket and missing the opening. Time after time.

He was nervous, and I had no idea why.

“The report is in. The company doesn’t take these kinds of incidents lightly. We’re not here to be harassed by our passengers or deal with abuse.”

I had no idea what was coming out of my mouth, and I should just leave, but there was still anger in me. Too much of it.

Perhaps I was just tired. Maybe even fed up with all the crap that constantly got thrown my way.

The truth? I was tired of being treated like this because this wasn’t an isolated incident.

I got all the complaints. The abuse. The cleaning up of my crew’s messes, even though they hadn’t actually created those.

Well…sometimes they had. I still cleaned up, virtual rubber gloves constantly at the ready.

Hence? Tired. And now here I was staring at this bloke, who…

He was just a bloke. One who was as exhausted as I was .

“Got a big contract I have to fulfil, and it’s driving me nuts.

Goalposts are constantly changing, and whatever I do?

” He suddenly stopped. Like, he meant to follow that sentence with something else but had just realised that he wasn’t actually talking to his wife.

Or his PA. Or whoever he shared these kinds of professional rants with.

He was talking to me. A stranger in a wrinkled tracksuit, with dark circles under his eyes and a phone now in his hand, ready to strike.

“Sorry,” he said again, and he sounded like he meant it. His hands raised in front of him like he was expecting me to resort to violence. What kind of arsehole was he?

Whatever. Bastard.

“Doesn’t mean anything,” the truant child in me barked out.

“You’ll do it again, to someone else. Behave like a toddler when the truth is that you should probably have turned up and checked in on time.

And smiled sweetly at the check-in person instead of barking out insults.

You know this downgrade? I am a hundred per cent sure you brought that one on yourself, and deservedly so. ”

Now, who was being unprofessional and rude? Moi. Right here. And somewhere on the inside, I was blushing wildly and regretting every syllable spilling out of my mouth.

Having a wild, unhinged argument with a passenger in a hotel corridor, where the rest of my crew was probably standing by their doors with their ears on high alert.

“Julian,” he said softly. “For once? I actually agree with you.”

Who was this guy, and what had he done with the arsehole ?

I almost laughed out loud but swallowed that notion right down as Mr Andrieu caged me in against my hotel door. My hand slamming against wood, as his hand hit the door next to my ear.

Bastard. Lulling me into some kind of false sense of security, because now? Now my whole body was on full alert.

“You’re right, and I’m an arsehole. Nothing I don’t know already,” he whispered, his mouth far too close to my ear.

“Get away from me,” I hissed out, putting my hand firmly at the centre of his chest. If he wasn’t careful? I knew some moves. I was…a slightly built…man and knew how to handle myself. Also? Nothing I hadn’t done before.

“Really?” he said softly right into my ear.

Bastard.

I shoved him, catching him off guard, but only for a second, a tiny smile catching his lips as he spun around and just stared at me. Crossed his arms over his chest.

“An apology,” he said quietly.

What a weird arse of a man. Standing there like this was normal, and me? I was waving my hands in the air, trying to compose myself, as this guy took one step towards me. Then another. Slow. Calculated.

Bastard indeed.

Because he reached out and carefully placed one finger under my chin .

My unshaven, freshly-moisturised chin.

This wasn’t…anything. This was weird. This was the kind of encounter where I should use my fist and then run as fast as I could.

There was security in this place. I could shout for help. I could scream. Did I still have that alarm thing in my bag?