Calloway // Michael Gray x Reader - Peaky Blinders Fanfic

Chapter 9

Calloway

No.

No, no, no.

This cannot be happening.

I've come here to keep tabs on Mosley. To make contact with him, to gather information from other bankers he's worked with. To figure out what the fuck is going on, and to avoid both prison and certain death.

I do not need Michael Gray ruining my plans.

I didn't even recognise him at first. He bent down to help that old lady, and that doesn't fit with the image I have of him in my mind — arrogant. Entitled.

Staring right at me.

"Miss Calloway," he says, in genuine surprise.

"Michael." I take a moment. "What are you doing here?"

He looks at me blankly before stating the obvious. "It's a conference. For finance and accounting professionals. I'm an accountant."

"Oh. Yes. Of course you are."

He joins the queue behind me. It's okay, I reassure myself. A complication I didn't expect. But I shan't need to cross paths with him much, if at all. It's a large conference, and I'll be busy focusing on networking with the men close to Mosley. I'm sure I'll barely remember Michael's here. And vice versa.

It calms me enough I manage a smile when I reach the receptionist. "Calloway," I tell her.

"Let me see..." She flips through a book, each page crammed from margin to margin with a scribbled record of all the bookings, her finger scanning each one. "Oh, yes. You are sharing the room?"

I feel my body go rigid. "No. It should only be me."

The receptionist frowns. "There must be a mix up with the registrations. It says here you are sharing with a Mr Michael Gray?"

I hear a soft chuckle from behind me. I turn to face Michael. "Did you do this?" I ask. "Your idea of a joke?"

"You think I'd want to share a room with you?" He retorts.

Before I can argue with him, the receptionist speaks again. "I'm sorry, Miss Calloway, we have no more available rooms. Everything's booked for the conference."

"Not to worry," I say. "I'll find another hotel close by."

"You won't have any luck. The World Expo's on. Every lodging in London will be full."

I stare at her for a moment. This cannot be happening.

"You won't be charged," she says. "As an apology for the mixup." I notice the fear in her eyes that I'm about to cause a scene. She's only young — fresh out of school.

"Please don't worry." I try to smile, to reassure her. "We'll make do."

I take the key to the room and take the stairs two at a time, too quickly for the busboy to intercept me, even dragging my heavy trunk.

Michael, on the other hand, infuriatingly seems to be trotting along on clouds as he catches up, his trunk even larger than mine.

"Third floor?" He asks.

"Fourth." I try to hide my exertion in pulling the luggage up so many flights of stairs. It hardly seems fair when Michael doesn't look as though his pulse has raised a single beat.

"Four-one-four?" He clarifies once more. We leave the staircase and begin to head down the corridor to the rooms. "Look, this hotel even has an elevator. We should have taken that."