#MidWeekTease

Gosh this week had flown by, and here we are at #MidWeekTease again. 
Woot!

I felt I just had to give you one last tease from a WIP. 

Unnamed and very new, here is the beginning of a story I have no blurb for...

(Rachel works in a tourist site in Scotland)

Her boss smiled. "You have plenty of time to lead a whisky tasting.”

“Not if I want to eat,” she muttered, even though she knew the idea of a proper break with real food, not a biscuit bar was about to disappear.

“What was that?” Ryan asked in a sharp voice. “You muttered.”

Oh boy did I.

“Lunch. You know the break we’re supposed to get if we work more than six hours a day. As it’s now one pm and I’ve been here since eight, without a break of any sort,” she tipped her half drunk now cold cup of coffee into the soil around her ailing Easter Cactus. It probably had caffeine overload. “I reckon I’m due it. Now,” she added to make sure he was under no illusion as to what she meant. “Rules and regulations and all that.”

“It will have to wait. You can take your hour once the school kids have gone out. This is a Very Important Person.” He invested the words with capital letters. “And no one else speaks Italian either.”

Now why did that give her a nasty itch down her spine?

“When, how many, and who?” she said resigned to the fact her lunch was going to be a good two hours away. “I’ll just leave early. After all, if I’m in at 8, I should go at 4. I’ll go at three and you can sort the kids out when they come back.”

“Me?” His voice was a shrill squeak. She winced.

“You’re the boss.” If he were any sort of boss, she’d never speak to him in such a snarky and dismissive tone. However, Ryan, who had arrived without any announcement six months before when the previous manager retired, was useless. Chosen, the staff assumed because of his friendship with the owner—a sweet, soft-spoken lady of uncertain antecedents and age called Maria McSporran. What Miss McSporran saw in the man no one knew, or as someone once said, dared to hazard a guess. Safely cocooned from the worry of being replaced, Ryan sat in his office all day and left the running of the site to as he called them, his minions.

“I’ll get Jess to do it.” He mentioned one of Rachel’s colleagues. The fact that Jess hated kids would be immaterial to him.”

“Don’t bother,” Rachel said, suddenly weary of it all. She didn’t have to work so why did she?

 Because I’d be bored stiff at home.

“I’ll take tomorrow off in lieu of all the hours I’m owed.” Cruel because she knew he liked to leave early on a Friday. “And it’s my weekend off.”

“Ah... I had hoped you’d change it.”

 “Nope sorry.” She didn’t say why and was rewarded with a heavy, long suffering sigh in her ear. Tough, it was about time he actually did some work. “So, this whisky tasting,” she prompted. “I can give whoever twenty minutes.”

 “He wants more than that.”

 “Well, It’s not going to happen.” She shut her desk drawer loudly. “You’ve wasted five minutes, I need ten minutes to set up, twenty to do the chat, ten to dismantle stuff and that leaves me enough time to go to the loo. Just. Knowing kids they’ll be early.”

Oh all right.” Ryan said in a disgruntled voice. “I’ll tell him that.”

“Not the loo bit I hope. Let me keep some secrets.”

“Oh don’t be vulgar.”

She shook her head at the two faced attitude of the man. He was the first to tell crude jokes.

“So who is my client?” she asked again.

“Ah a Conte Foscari and his PA.” Ryan’s voice was full of awe. “Or alleged PA. I’m not sure. She’s a bit of alright. Mar...er Miss McSporran arranged it.”

 Guido. Rachel might have known. I wonder who the woman is? And what’s it’s got to do with Miss M.

 “Ten minutes,” she said and hung up the phone. Her handed shook and she scowled. She’d need half of those minutes to compose herself.

Seven and a half minutes later Rachel surveyed the tasting table and smiled to herself. It would do. In fact it would more than do. She had used two precious minutes to refresh her make up and make sure she looked immaculate. Guido would notice any imperfection and pounce. She didn’t intend to give him the chance.

Exactly ten minutes after she’d put the phone down, the door to the tasting room opened and a fawning Ryan ushered two people in.

One she recognised, the other she recognised the type.

Guido, and who? His companion of choice she supposed. Predictable. Brassy blond alert. Catty, Rach, very catty. But also very true.

With Guido. Guido of the dark hair and blue eyes. Guido her what? Estranged husband?

That would do.

Catch all the other #MidWeekTease posts here

Happy reading,

love Raven x