Christian hurried down the aisle, stopping at a display case full of expensive watches. A mug of milky coffee had been spilled on the top of it, and even though somebody had done their best to wipe it up, droplets were plopping through the cracks. A harassed cashier stood there, a pile of napkins in one hand. A queue had built up, people clamouring for service. Christian pulled his cleaning products from the trolley and excused his way through the crowd.
“I’ve been waiting for nearly fifteen minutes,” the cashier said.
“Sorry,” Christian replied. “There was an emergency in the restrooms.”
“More important than a $10,000 Rolex full of coffee?” she shot back, her face creased with annoyance.
Christian mumbled another apology, waiting for her to unlock the case. This was something he was discovering all too quickly: that when you were wearing a janitor’s overalls, people treated you like you were a servant, like you were trash. It was a good test of character, he thought, seeing how somebody reacted to him when he had a mop in his hands. He’d bet, if this cashier knew he was Christian Carroll, heir to the Carroll empire, she’d have been a lot more polite.
“Come on!” she snapped as he pulled the first watch from its stand and checked it. There was a spot of coffee on the face, but it was otherwise unharmed. It was a Cellini, very similar to one he owned, and it retailed at over $20,000. He carefully wiped the face with a lint-free cloth, then handed it to the woman. He’d always been conscious of the money he had, especially when he’dstarted to earn his own millions. But now, dressed in a janitor’s uniform, it seemed particularly nauseating that a single watch could cost more than he would earn doing this job for a year.
“Excuse me, could you please hurry up?” barked a man behind him.
Christian did his best to smile politely as he cleaned another two Rolexes. One — an Oyster Perpetual — had been quite badly drenched, but they were waterproof so it would be easily remedied. He polished it as best he could, then handed it over. He used half a roll of kitchen paper to mop up the coffee, then a clean cloth to make the glass and floor of the cabinet as good as new. There was something immensely satisfying about the work, but nobody seemed to appreciate it.
“You can go now,” said the cashier as the crowd surged forward.
“Sure,” he said. “No worries.”
He turned to walk away, whispering‘You’re welcome’under his breath, then changed his mind. “Hey, why are you on your own here? It’s so busy.”
“How would I know?” she replied, taking payment from the rude man who had spoken to Christian earlier. “There used to be three of us, but there have been layoffs.”
She waved him away like he was an annoying fly. He collected his trolley and squeezed out of the crowd. Only when he was back in the relative quiet of the staff corridor did Christian finally exhale. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, and the distant din of the shop floor faded into the background. His shoulders ached, his hands smelled like disinfectant, and his pride was still somewhere on the floor back by the Rolexes. But it wasn’t the coffee or the cashier or the rude customer that had him rattled. It was Merry.
He raked a hand through his hair and leaned against the wall, the image of her in that cramped bathroom seared into hisbrain. The curve of her neck when she turned to him. The flash of something dangerous when their eyes had locked.
He’d been an idiot, no question. Charging in like some knight with a mop and a martyr complex, trying to protect her when she hadn’t asked for it. But, God, when she’d looked at him in the aftermath, he’d felt something shift. Something had crackled in the charged air between them and he was sure he hadn’t been the only one to feel it.
The truth was he wanted her, and he needed to tame the ache in him if he was going to get through the rest of the day. Or the rest of the month. Because no matter how much he wanted to press his mouth to the warm skin of her throat, to learn the scent of her and the sounds she’d make if he ran his hands down her body, it wouldn’t be fair. She deserved more than someone who was leaving in a couple of weeks. And until he could figure out how to be honest with her, he had no business thinking about her like that. Even if he couldn’t stop.
Christian sighed, pressing the button for the service elevator. He was waiting for it to arrive when his radio hissed again.
“Chris?” said Harvey. “You still on three?”
“Yeah,” he replied.
“They need you on ten,” he went on. “Out back, head office. No idea what the job is, but they asked for you.”
Christian knew exactly what the job was. He rode the elevator to the top floor, pushing the trolley back out through the toy department. Santa Claus was sitting outside the grotto, a young girl on his knee and a line of people waiting to speak to him. Christian squinted at the man, shaking his head in disbelief. It couldn’t be the same Santa whose knee he had sat on when he was a kid, could it? It certainly looked like him, but he didn’t seem to have aged a day.
As if he could sense that he was being watched, Santa glanced up, a twinkle in his eye as he looked right at Christian.Despite the fact he was nearly thirty years old, Christian grinned and waved.
The smile didn’t last long. He used the new code to open the staff door, leaving his trolley in the corridor, and headed past the break room and the locker room to the offices at the back. There was no mess to clean up here, he knew — not in the conventional sense, anyway.
He stopped outside the door to his dad’s office, knocking twice.
“What?” came the gruff reply.
Christian opened the door, trying to make sense of the gloom after the blindingly bright corridor. “Dad? You needed to see me?”
“Come in.”
He did as he was asked, closing the door behind him. It was only when he turned to face the desk again that he noticed Margot sitting in the armchair in the corner of the room.
She glared at him. “Picking fights now, are we?” she asked. “Attacking customers with a broom? What kind of example are you setting for the rest of the staff?”
Christian sighed. “It was a mop.”
