Cold

ONE

One

Humming a tune known to nobody but herself, yes she was that kind of girl, she focused on the job at hand. Mopping and scrubbing floors had never been her cup of tea growing up. However, she was helpless in the face of destiny, just like we all are.

There she was at one of the world's most renowned chain of hotels; La Vida, down on her knees, scrubbing the tiled floors of the bathroom suite belonging to the hotel lavish's penthouse.

This right here was what other workers in the hotel considered a dream come true. For what reason, you might wonder? First and foremost, this was the penthouse. The only place in the entire eighty five floors of the hotel that never required much cleaning. Just a little dusting, mopping and scrubbing was enough.

Now secondly and apparently most importantly to the entire female population of workers, was the fact that Mr Black resided there. By cleaning his penthouse one might be lucky enough to get a glimpse of the mystery man. Their words not Anelia Telford's.

In all the times people had cleaned the penthouse, not a single person had seen him. She was no exception either. Everything about him proved to be one big tub of mystery. The only reason why Anelia was so much as even aware of his name was because of the grapevine which coursed amongst the workers, male and female alike.

If Anelia had to be honest though, she did not think that anyone was ever going to see this so called Mr Black. Not if the manager could help it.

He, a kempt man whose receding hairline stood to reflect the number of years the man had already lived through, always made sure that their shifts never clashed with the times during which the guests were around. In the event that they did clash, he had firmly instructed the whole lot of them to politely excuse themselves and leave the suites as soon as possible.

Failure to do so would result in some very sober consequences. And Anelia did not possess enough curiosity to want to find out what those consequences were.

In actuality, Anelia was beginning to question the very existence of the man. Was he an actual person or just an enigma formed to spice up dealings at the Hotel? If she thought about it, it did not particularly make sense that nobody had ever seen him in a huge hotel like La Vida.

Whatever the case were, it was a seemingly lost cause. Well, hoping to ever see this man, she thought. She would, however, not be crazy enough to voice that opinion. Simply put, she wanted to keep her name off the Workers' blacklist.

As crazy as that sounded, it was an actual thing. There were, undoubtedly, classes in their group of workers. Firstly, the Dappers, a group that comprised beautiful and handsome workers whose looks pretty much got their work done, not hard work.

The Averages, who worked when it suited them but could still get away with any fallouts. Last and most probably least, well in terms of fashion sense and looks, the Misfits. Simply put, these were a group of dedicated workers who served the hotel diligently to their last drops of sweat. The group which she belonged to.

The Dappers, it was indeed an interesting choice of name, was reigned by the 'Three Bad Bitches', as they oh-so-liked to call themselves. Once they disliked you and decided to add you to the Blacklist, you were as good as jobless. They were so conniving and influential, even the manager took heed of them. How that was possible was beyond her.

She did not dwell much on it though. As a matter of fact, Anelia applauded herself for having managed to stay off their radar, focus on doing her job and earn her due. That was after all, all that truly mattered to her.