“It’s so easy for us to not even think of how it must feel to not be able to trust what you’re putting into your body.” Don’t poison me, I haven’t done anything to you. “What choice is that? If I don’t drink, I will die but the dirty water in the jar I’ve collected, what is in it that might kill me? Will it make my child sick? My mother, my husband?”
Eva resisted the call from her dry mouth.
“In our auction this evening, we have an amazing array of lots that money can’t buy. If you’re wondering how much is enough to pledge, think of my injuries on a seven-year-old girl beaten for the water she trekked five miles to get for her family.”
Eva lifted her glass, the man was doing the same. “Sip your water, hold it in your mouths, taste it, this miracle that supports life on our beautiful planet. You have the power to give that gift to others, to save their lives. To safe water for everyone.”
The audience rumbled the toast back to her and silence held for that moment while they did what she asked. She hoped they were thinking about what she’d said, really thinking about it.
“Now I’ll hand you over to our fabulous auctioneer,” Eva grasped the lectern and leant towards her audience. “Please, be generous.”
Gordon’s warning propelled her downstairs to hotel security, where she asked to see their registration list for her event. She took her time studying the list of guests they’d checked in. What the uniformed security guard represented felt oddly comforting, even though she was certain the stranger upstairs would best him if it came to it. They had admitted no one unexpected; the hotel prided themselves on giving their clients exactly what they requested they explained to her twice.
An icy worry trailed down her back when she checked her phone. Radio silence from Charles still? Surely he wouldn’t let himself be so distracted that he’d miss the biggest night of her career? He knew what this meant to her. Had something happened?
She was staring at her phone screen as if she could conjure up an answer when the door to the disabled toilet clicked open and a couple practically fell out of it into her.
In that snapshot second she looked up at Jonathan Trainer, Head of the Transit Group. Not Mrs Trainer stumbling with him but one of the other guests, Annabel Grayson, apparently having forgotten about her Prince Charming fiancé.
In a blur of red designer exquisiteness, probably real diamonds and an animalistic, most unladylike roar, Annabel launched herself. She collided with Eva in a scream of “No, you don’t!” knocking Eva’s phone onto the marble tiled floor. The possibilities of broken glass made her wince more than the slapping, scratching onslaught.
Jonathan Trainer was sidestepping away, disappearing in the opposite direction of the running footsteps of the concierge.
“Ladies, please.”
Everywhere Eva looked, tried to move away, she met slaps and scratching, hair pulling, squealing, yelling.
“Stop it.” Eva tried to push Annabel Grayson off with one hand, defending her stitches with the other.
More running feet, a crowd gathering.
One last shriek from her attacker, followed by the horrendous ripping of a dress not designed for a catfight. Hands on Eva, not pinching or scratching, but unwelcome all the same.
The man she didn’t recognise was right there, too close, lifting the tattered remnant of the front of her dress to cover her bare breasts.
11
Eva snatched the torn fabric of her dress from the hands of the man she didn’t recognise. His hazel eyes held her gaze as he took his jacket off. She looked right back at him, hoping somehow that would cut off his peripheral vision so he couldn’t see anything he shouldn’t be seeing.
He held his jacket out to her. “It’ll detract.”
Annabel Grayson was yelling something about selling pictures, but at least now it was at the hotel staff, busy trying to calm her down and move the indiscreet guests filming this disaster away. Jonathan Trainer was nowhere. Eva hoped they’d got him sneaking off.
Who was she kidding? She’d be the one all over YouTube, not to mention probably back on ‘Your Good Morning’ on the ‘what’s in the papers today’ feature under some innuendo, ‘CEO of Every Drop drops everything for charity auction’. Breaking one of her cardinal rules.
Realising she didn’t have enough hands, the stranger stepped behind her and laid his jacket over her shoulders. She looked at him, his face close to hers.
“It’s okay.”
Eva shivered into his borrowed warmth, slipping her arms into the sleeves, buttoning his jacket while trying to hold the front of her dress up underneath it.
Reinforcements of hotel staff had arrived to restore the five star order the guests paid for.
“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer, I’m suing your arse.” Annabel Grayson had a lot to learn about being ladylike. “Don’t even think about touching me.”
She slapped the manager trying to cajole, placate. He stepped backwards, letting his colleague try, turning to Eva.
“Madam, how can I be of assistance?”
“Can you get me a taxi, please?” Home to change and hopefully back before the auction finished, before anyone questioned where she was. Time enough after tonight to weather how this would undermine Every Drop’s reputation, that image Stuart was so concerned about. If he thought a couple of bruises would destroy it, he’d be apoplectic about this.
“Of course.” The manager strode away.
In the now emptying space, she could see it. “Oh, no.”
“I’ve got it.” The stranger collected as many of the smashed remains of her phone as he could, although, really, what was the point? There was no putting that back together. But such an extension of a person, the way we interact with the world through those tiny rectangles, it felt like she was leaving a glimpse into her soul over the marble floor. “Is this yours too?”
He held out her clutch bag. She wrestled both lapels into the grip
