Meet Me In The Pit

Chapter Nine - Promise Me

Keira

Score: Secret - The Pierces

It takes all of my willpower and self-control to sit through that meeting, without combusting spontaneously into flames of embarrassment.

What the actual fuck?

My mind is short-circuiting, going over and over that night in Paris, and all the clues that I had missed. He'd worn a baseball cal, and sunglasses, in the middle of the night, and I had thought he was some sort of a D-list celebrity, taking himself way too seriously. He'd been sneaking through the lobby, not because he was afraid he'd be caught cheating, as I had assumed, but because he didn't want to be recognized. And the woman he hid us from behind the column? She's been staring at me for ten minutes straight from across the room and it has just occurred to me why she seemed so familiar when I walked into the room - I've seen her before. From what I recall from Paris, though, she hasn't, so I can't really tell why she doesn't seem to like me.

But that's just a small part of the problem. A tinny, tiny one, compared to the one I have sitting in an office back in London.

Whatever you do, don't sleep with them, Jean's voice booms loud and clear in my mind.

Not that I have slept with Benjamin, and not that I ever would (and I mean "Ever" in a more cosmic sense of the word - like, in no way, in no parallel Universe, in no space, or alternate dimension would I ever sleep with a client), but I still did something completely out of line, breaking my professional ethic, while I was out on the field, doing actual work, and, if word ever got out, I would be in so much trouble!

That's why I don't get involved with anyone at our locations, doesn't matter staff or guests.

How could I be so damn stupid!

I slide a glance his way and see him, talking quietly to Garry and the other Benjamin. From what I can see, they are talking about something important, because, even though they keep their voices low, their body language is pretty animated.

I watch as Strange Hot...as Benjamin's arms flex, as he waves them in the air, explaining something to his bandmates...as the hem of his his t-shirt lifts up slightly, revealing just a strip of his lower back muscles...as his lips curve into a smile...

"...Let Mis Vough explain," my stomach flips, then hits the ground, as I hear the last bit of Jack's sentence, absolutely clueless as to what it is I am supposed to explain, and to whom.

"Um, sorry, can you repeat that?"

I barely wait for the meeting (of which I managed to hear absolutely nothing over the roaring of the blood in my ears), before I excuse myself and dart out of the conference room, into one of the service lifts, because I don't want to meet anyone on my way, and into my room, making it in record time.

I fumble with my key card, dropping it on the floor, because my hands are shaking so badly.

What the actual fuck?!

The minute the door opens, I rush to the armchair under the open window of my room and take my Chloe tote bag, turning it upside down and spilling its contents all over the floor.

It is one of those bags that shit keeps constantly going in, but it seems like nothing ever gets out, and that's exactly what I am counting on right now, as I fumble through folders, empty snack wrappers, my emergency toiletries bag, and...Yes! There it is!

The May issue of The Sound of Music, the magazine I bought at the airport in Paris three weeks ago. I skim through the cover until I see it.

The interview with The Flying Benjamins on page 39.