Bad Reputation

32.

At precisely 9pm I was standing in front of her hotel room door.
I let her text me her hotel room details even though I already knew them.

She didn't have to know that I asked Zak her room details.

I wanted to take her swimming because I suspected that something was wrong.
Her not showing her arms was a very weird thing.

And seeing her in a bikini was of course another perk.

She opened the door pretty quickly, was standing in front of me with her hotel robe covering her body.
She was probably wearing her bikini under it.

"You're on time" she said with a smile. "I am always on time for you"

Which was the truth. I was terrible at that, I had to admit it, but I did my best for her.

"Are you ready?" I asked, she just nodded, walked out of her room and followed me.

It was only a short walk to the pool of the hotel. I've been there before, just to check if it was worth it.

Which it was, it was a pretty decent pool.

It was already late, so we were the only ones here. Probably also because I asked everyone not to go to the pool tonight.

They didn't ask questions, they just assumed I wanted my privacy and they respected that.

I definitely wanted some privacy.

She sat down on one of the loungers next to the pool, made sure that nothing of her body was showing.

"Let's go for a swim" I said as I nodded to the pool.

"You can go, I am not in the mood" she shrugged.

I tilted my head as I looked at her. This wasn't the answer I was hoping for.

"Oh c'mon on, let's get up and have a little fun" I said as I grabbed her wrist and wanted to pull her up.

She flinched at that, took her arms back as quickly as she could. "Lando stop"

"What's wrong Francesca?" I asked as I kneeled in front of her. "Are you hurt?"

She shrugged, rolled her eyes at that.

"May I?" I asked softly as I pointed at her arms.

She nodded, allowed me to touch her and push her sleeves up.

And my heart stopped for a second, I suspected this, but seeing it, just broke my heart.

Her wrist were completely bruised, red, blue, it looked so painful.

"Who did this to you?"

She shrugged, probably because she knew I already had a suspicion. "It wasn't his intention, he was mad because I took this job, we got in a fight and-"

She stopped.

"And he had the audacity to put his hands on you"

"Right" she looked down.

She was feeling embarrassed, even though she had nothing to feel embarrassed about.
This wasn't her fault, nothing about it was her fault.

But it was clear that she didn't want to talk about it, not with me at least.
So I felt as if it was better to take her mind of things.

"You still want to swim?" I asked, which made her look up at me. "I actually really want to swim yeah" she chuckled a little.

"Let's go then" I got up, took my shirt off. I was already wearing my swimming shorts. "I was waiting for this all day"

She laughed, took her robe off, only to reveal the bruises on the top of her arms as well.

Wasn't gonna make a comment about it, but fuck I hated to see her like that.

Worst of all, she was making excuses for him, acting as if he wasn't at fault. As if it was her fault for taking the job.

She walked up to the pool, made a beautiful dive in it and came back up, looking like a beautiful mermaid.

"Come in then" she chuckled as she looked at me.

And I did as she said, I jumped in after her, not with a beautiful dive or anything.

"Fuck, this water is actually damn cold" I said, putting my hands through my hair.

This was a big ice bath.

"It is" she laughed.

Hearing that beautiful laugh was all I wanted. I also wanted to protect her from Jordan.

He was gonna do this again and I bet she knew that. As long as she was here, I could keep an eye out for her.

But what was gonna happen if we were going back to Monaco?