Chapter Fifteen
2098 Words
“What are you even doing here?”
“Are you struggling with anxiety?” She asked him. Storm got down from the bed walking around the room, pretending he was searching for something.
“It’s not your business. What are you doing here?”
“Nothing, I’ll be on my way out.” Rose said before leaving his room. She got into her room and remembered the scene she had just seen.
“What a weird world we live in,” Rose said as she opened her purse and took out the exact same pills she had seen in Storm’s room. “He’s definitely struggling, just like I am. But, why?” Rose thought back to when she was much younger.
“Hello Rose, how are you today?” Her therapist asked as she sat on the couch provided in her office for her clients.
Rose didn’t answer to her as she had zoned out again.
“Rose?” Her therapist called her again, and when she noticed that there was no response and that Rose was looking elsewhere, she reached out to her and tapped her on her legs. “Rose.” Rose jumped at the touch,
“Yes?”
“What brings you to my office today? You seem to be lost in your thoughts.”
“I can’t help it. I see them everywhere.“
“Who do you see?”
“My parents. I have nightmares, carrying my fathers bloodied body in my hands,”
“It looks like you’re still dealing with the ptsd from that event,”
“And then I get really anxious. I start to hyperventilate. It always kick starts an asthma attack,”
“Do you know what your triggers are?”
“Triggers?”
“What causes you to be anxious.”
“When I hear his name, whenever I hear it, it scares me.”
“Whose name?” She asked.
“I can’t help the memories. Every time I remember , it…” her voice trails off.
“It’s okay Miss Blanc. It’s okay to feel that way after a traumatic experience,”
“But my brothers don’t feel that way. They handle it so easily like it means nothing to them.”
“If I may ask Rose, do you perhaps have an idea who the murderer of your father is?” Her doctor asks. Rose stares daggers in her eyes.
“It’s best if you don’t ask questions that would get you into trouble. Prescribe my pills so I can get back home.”
“That’s okay, I just thought to ask. Here,”
Rose put the pills back into her bag. “Why do you even care Rose? He’s not worth it.”
She said as she walked around her room,
“I need to come up with a strategy for this mission that I’m going on.” She said as she sat in bed going through the documents. “But first of all, a nice warm bath would do.” She walked into the shower with her clothes off wrapped in her white towel and her red hair tied into a bun. She turned the shower on but water didn’t come out. She turned the knob again but still, nothing.
“What’s going on?” She thought to herself as she tried the tap in the sink, she got the same result.
“No water?” She said pouting her lips and folding her hands. “How can there be no water running in this prestigious hotel? Isn’t this just shameful? I’m definitely sure that my hotels have never had any faulty issues before.” She kept ranting to herself. “That’s besides the point? What exactly do I do now?” She wondered.
“Storm. But!” She looked down at the towel wrapped around her chest then looked back in the mirror. She kept stamping her feet on the floor, shaking her body in annoyance.
“I hate this. I hate it so so much! First of all I’m working with the enemy, and the next thing I’m traveling with him. What next should I expect? Marriage? Ew! I would rather die.” She kept going back and forth in her bathroom, tapping her chin non stop, thinking of an alternative.
“I’ll call the reception.” She snapped her fingers as the idea popped into her head. She rushed to her bedside where the landline was kept. She read the menu on the table with the reception number.
She dialed the number and put the phone on her ear, waiting patiently for an answer.
“Hello,” she said immediately the call connected.
“How may I help you?”
“I have issues with my shower.”
“What’s the issue miss? And please can I have your name and where you’re staying?”
“Rose Blanc and I’m staying in the suite opposite your boss’s.”
“Rose… Blanc? As in Blanc of the Blanc enterprise?” The receptionist asked her.
“Do you seem to have any issue?” She asks getting irritated.
“No! Absolutely no problem Ma. You know it’s weird seeing our rival in the same hotel as our boss.”
“Learn not to stick your nose into what does not concern you. I’m calling about the horrible reception that I’m receiving, being given a room where the shower is not working and I’m being interrogated like I’m an animal?!”
“That is not the case miss. I apolog…”
“Save the apologies! I’m pretty sure that the public would appreciate an honest review from a rival, I’m very sure you don’t want the public to have a say concerning your hospitality,”
“I’ll have the hotel manager check your room out right now. And please don’t tell the boss.” Rose hung up immediately and gave a very long hiss.
“I should have just suggested a place where I held more power and authority. It’s just looking like I don’t even have a say here. What manner of problem is this?” She sat in her bed, shutting her eyes for a couple of minutes when she heard the door bell ring. She got up immediately and opened the door.
“I’m Dan, the hotel manager. I was informed that you’re facing some issues with your bathroom?” The tall light skin Afro American asked as her holding his hands behind him.
“Yes! Come check it out please, I’ve been dying to have a shower for some hours now and I can’t even do that!” She said opening the door wide for him to come in. He walked into her bathroom and examined the shower head and the pipes.
“It seems like we’ll have to call the plumber in here to check this out.”
“Well? What am I supposed to do then?” He thought for a while then looked up at her with a disappointed expression,
“I am honestly sorry about this situation, it hardly ever occurs. Unfortunately, you’re coming during a festive period and all the rooms have been occupied. This was the last available room, and the one that was already reserved for my boss.”
“So, what are you saying? That I should stay without having a shower?!” She felt her temper rising.
“Please calm down ma,”
“Don’t tell me to calm down! I’m already not a fan of your boss, and out of my will I am being dragged here and yet I can’t even get a proper treatment. Do you have any idea who I am and what I can do to all of you?!”
“Please relax, we never intended for this to happen while you’re here. This has never occurred before,”
“So tell me Dan! What exactly is your guest meant to do? What am I expected to do, while waiting in hopes for this plumber of yours to come attend to my shower.”
“Um… uhh…”
“Speak up boy!”
“Can you possibly use the one in sir Storm’s suite?”
“You want me to go and shower in Storm’s room?!” She shrieked almost pouncing on the poor manager who was already afraid of her. Her veins began to turn green, from her hands down to her neck and her face.
“Miss?” The manager called noticing the unusual state of her veins.
“You’re expecting me to share a bathroom with that fool?!”
“Miss?”
“Miss what? What else do you want to say? You know.. I … I just feel like strangling you now and feeding your bones to the dogs!” The lights began to flicker and her eyes turned green and yellow.
“You’re…” the poor guy swallowed on his saliva, his eyes watering. “You’re changing,” he said pointing his hand to her.
As if a light switch flicked off in her brain, she immediately calmed down, she felt her body turn cold as if she had just been poured a bucket of ice water.
“Get out.” She said to him and within a blink of an eye, the manager fled away from her room without wasting a second.
“Way to go Rose, almost giving yourself away.” She mentally reprimanded herself as she sat in her bed. She touched against her skin and felt it get sticky, she cringed her face in disgust and irritation.
“I can’t remain like this. Oh Rose,” she said face palming herself. “I just have to go to his room. That’s my only option.” She thought to herself. She was already stabbing herself mentally at the thought of going to his room, dressed in her towel and having to get dressed there.
She opened her door and looked at the door right in front of her, sighing she made her way to it.
“Here we go.” She said as she raised her hand to knock on the door but the door already opened revealing shirtless Storm.
Rose ran her eyes over his body and immediately noticed all the scars on his body, fresh scars and old scars.
She immediately had her attention drawn back when he pulled over a tshirt over the scars.
“Can I help you?” He asked. She batted her eyelashes for a couple of times before sucking in a deep breath and letting out, trying to forget what she had just seen.
“Um… the scars…” the words left her lips and immediately she regretted it. After all, it was the last thing on her mind, the last thing she was still thinking about and trying to process.
“Scars? What are you talking about?”
“Look, the water in my room is not running,”
“That’s not my business,” he said proceeding to shut the door in her face but she blocked the door with her foot.
“I am a guest in your wretched hotel. I deserve to treated with respect.”
“Call the manager.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“Well,” she said dramatically folding her hands against her chest. “Looks like your hotel isn’t really all that,”
“I don’t have the time for this.” Storm said about to shut the door in her face but she stopped him again,
“He said the plumber will come fix it tomorrow. And no, there is no other room available as we’re here during the festive period. So, what else do you want to say?”
“What do you want me to do?” He asked her.
“Are you asking me? My skin is so sticky, and I will also need a place to shower tomorrow, before going for our appointment, I would need to look good and…”
“You have not answered my question.”
“I need to use your bathroom.”
“No.”
“That’s not an issue. I’ll simply book a flight back home while you attend to Alejandro yourself!” She said waving her hand with her clothes in it, accidentally waving her lace panties.
“Oh!” She exclaimed putting her back down and biting her lower lip.
“That was not intended.” Storm rolled his eyes stepping aside for her,
“Do as you wish, but, make it quick!”
- Writer
