Page 2 of The Heartbreak Hotel

“Let me stop you there.” Ella exhaled, trying to regain her composure and push away any tingly feelings threatening to re-emerge. Getting laid had also been embarrassingly low on her list of priorities recently. “I don’t wanna hear it, Maeve. I didn’t believe you when you said you and Annabelle were a one-time thing, and I don’t believe that you didn’t know this was coming. How could you not? You’ve always been such a sickly little daddy’s girl.” Maeve narrowed her eyes, but Ella continued, the fire in her belly flaming again. “I’ve worked my arse off for this company. Stayed here when you asked me to, even with you parading Bendy Wendy in front of my face.”

Her eyelids pricked, but she refused to cry in front of Maeve. Never again.

“Ella, don’t be like that. It’s nothing personal.”

She scoffed. “Of course it’s personal. You fucked me, then I pissed off your dad, so of course I’m the first one to go.”

Maeve nibbled at her lip. “Blake is leaving too,” she mumbled.

“Blake? You’re seriously lumping me in the same category as Blake? The very definition of hopeless.” The intern had only been at the company a few weeks, spending his first day going up and down in the lift, as he couldn’t remember the correct floor. The rest of his time was consumed in a continuous loop of forgetting and resetting his computer password.

Putting them in the same box was ludicrous.

“It’s not like that. You mean a lot to me, Ella. I promise you.”

Realising she was clenching her fists, she relaxed them and met Maeve’s gaze. Her boss had closed the distance between them, her perfume permeating Ella’s senses, her tall frame towering over her in that dominating way that used to drive Ella crazy. But instead of arousal or anger at her boss trying to get the edge over her the only way she knew, a fuzzy sadness overrode her emotions.

“You promise me?” Ella sighed. “Remember when you promised you’d always love me? That you didn’t want to be with anyone else? Some fat good that did me, eh.” She pushed her hand against Maeve’s chest, who fell a step backwards. “Goodbye, Maeve.”

Ella turned to leave, catching the eye of one of her soon-to-be ex-colleagues noseying through the glass window. She briefly wondered how much the people in the office knew about their relationship. Or what they thought about her. Not that it mattered now.

“Ella, wait.” Maeve’s voice stopped her at the door. “Here.” She handed Ella a white letter that had been sitting on her desk. “It’s your official redundancy notice.”

Ella looked at the piece of paper, then at the beautiful face of her ex-girlfriend/ex-boss. “You know where you can stick that.”

And she opened the door, slamming it shut behind her before marching down the hallway. Tears threatened her eyelids again, but she clenched her jaw, meeting the eyes of anyone who dared look her way.

When she walked into work that morning, she’d never expected it would be for the last time. What am I supposed to do now? She stepped into the lift, blew out a breath at her dishevelled reflection in the glass, and pulled her phone from her pocket.

She knew exactly who to call.

* * *

“What a complete and utter cow!” Winnie slammed two more orange cocktails down on the table as she reclaimed the seat in front of Ella. Her long blonde hair was half-tucked inside her shirt like she’d got dressed in a hurry, but Winnie always had a habit of looking like she’d just rolled out of bed. “Just when I thought that lanky grasshopper couldn’t get any worse.”

“I know.” Ella sucked hard on the straw, taking a few deep gulps. She could barely taste the alcohol over the fruit juice, but knowing Winnie, there’d be more than a generous helping. “What’s in this one?”

“I’m not too sure, but I know it definitely has tequila.” She offered Ella a toothy smile before nodding towards the bar. “It’s something Calvin’s been working on.”

Tequila and emotionally unavailable bartenders were two of Winnie’s favourite things. The friends-with-benefits arrangement Winnie had with the older, forty-something barman usually resulted in stronger—and cheaper—drinks for them both. Unless Calvin had found out about one of Winnie’s rendezvous with the other staff. For a relationship that required a mutual understanding of low commitment, it was surprising how often the two ended up squabbling like an old married couple.

But Ella couldn’t bring herself to ask about her best friend’s latest bisexual love affairs. Her mind was stuck on that lanky, power suit-wearing, sex magnet of a grasshopper.

Normally, Winnie’s nickname for Maeve made Ella laugh. Today, it made her belly churn in ways she didn’t know how to articulate. It was much easier when she was angry, but now a few hours had passed, the anger, along with the threats to sue Maeve and her stupid Switch Studios, had trickled away, leaving these sickly sad feelings swirling in their absence.

Was this Ella’s fault? Her motor mouth often ran up a bill without permission, like it had with Maeve’s dad, and her lifestyle choices didn’t exactly scream healthy living compared to Annabelle’s… but multipacks of chocolate buttons and late nights in the office went hand in hand. Maybe she should’ve been more mindful; her metabolism wasn’t what it used to be. Annabelle and her perfect white teeth were always munching something wholegrain when she manned the reception.

“Well.” Winnie leaned back in her chair, raising her already half-empty glass to Ella’s. “Now you don’t have to see Maeve ever again.”

Was that why Ella’s stomach felt like a boat on a stormy sea? Not going into the office meant never seeing Maeve again. Ever. Never again.

The finality made her squeeze her glass tighter between her fingers.

“Is it me, Winn?” she asked, unable to look up from the ice in her cocktail. “Am I the problem?” Tears swelled before her eyelids, and she hated how small and pathetic her voice sounded.

Winnie pushed her glasses up her nose, studying Ella with large, angular eyes. Her gaze softened. “Listen. Maeve wouldn’t know a good thing if it sat on her face, breaking those stupidly sharp cheekbones. That woman isn’t good for you. She never appreciated how great you are at your job, even before she started taking her liberties. You deserve a million times better. A trillion. Quazril…whatever comes after that.”

Ella sniffed. “I’m not sure.”