Eventually, I must have fallen asleep because suddenly, pure post-storm sunlight bathed the pale cream room.
The smell of coffee lured me into the kitchen like a moth to a flame.
“Found a French press,” Hugh waved the appliance at me. “We’re on our second round. Cream?”
“No, thanks,” I said with a smile.
He poured three cups of tar-black coffee. I added some sugar and took my cup over to the bookshelf in the living room, looking for a way to pass the time without having to talk to the guys too much.
The guys were both still in their robes, and I felt irrationally annoyed that it reminded me so much of what we did last night. Their clothes were still damp, so they didn’t have much choice, but my body responded involuntarily to their disheveled appearance.
I blushed, remembering how I’d begged them as the two guys explored my body. It was like I’d been possessed; I’d never behaved that way in front of another person before. And now I would have to spend the day with them, pretending none of it happened so I could keep my head clear and decide what to do next.
“Have any of you read The DaVinci Code?” I asked, and they answered at the same time.
“Amazing.”
“Fucking terrible.”
I laughed. If they’d given those answers anonymously, I could have guessed who’d said what.
My tastes were more aligned with Hugh’s than Cameron’s, so I put the book back on the shelf.
Ah, an old copy of Emma by Jane Austen; perfect.
I pulled it from the shelf and headed over to an armchair in the corner of the room.
“So, Muriel,” Cameron said in his small-talk voice. “Tell me, what exactly is an influencer?”
It was a fair question and one which I was asked often enough. Hugh understood what I did for a living, but Cameron was practically a Luddite, preferring to avoid all but the essential aspects of the internet.
“It’s just someone who... influences people, I guess. To buy things.”
“So, like a sales rep?”
I bobbed my head noncommittally. “Kind of, only I don’t directly sell things. Brands pay me to take photos of their products because I make them look good, so people will want to buy them.”
“So, like a store mannequin?”
My instinct was to argue back, but Cameron had asked the question so innocently, and it was not a bad comparison, so I bit my tongue.“Sure. I’m a walking, talking mannequin. Well, actually, it’s bit like product placement in a favorite TV series or an advertorial in a newspaper.”
“Great. And you can do that sort of work anywhere, can you?”
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled; this man had an agenda, and I wasn’t going to fall for it.
“Pretty much, although it helps if you live somewhere photogenic. But I don’t enjoy influencing, to be honest. It pays the bills, but I see it as a stop-gap. What I really want to do is start my own line of clothing, kind of like what Jasmine does now, only with mainstream clothes instead of cosplay stuff.”
“And that can be done anywhere, too?” Cameron asked, a touch too casually for my liking.
“Nah, at least to start off, I’d probably have to be based in fashionable LA or New York,” I replied, although that wasn’t true at all.
My dream was to start a label somewhere small and unusual, somewhere with a small-town hometown kid of a vibe. It would be a unique selling point, and I could use the local area for inspiration to make clothes unlike what you see in the fashion capitals. Start-up costs would be lower too; I’d done the math, so I knew how to make it work. I just didn’t have the actual funds yet.
His face fell on hearing my answer, and I felt bad, but I wasn’t in the right headspace to talk about anything serious right now. All I wanted was to get lost in Austen, get rescued, and then have some time to think things through. At the moment, I couldn’t see any possible way our situation would work.
“Hello?”
All three of us looked around at once, thrilled to hear another voice. A short, portly man stood at the window waving at us, so Cameron went over and opened the window.
“Hi there. I’m the manager of Lakeview Resort, and I wanted to extend our deepest regrets for what’s happened to you today.”
Hugh was over at the window in a flash, his face clouded with anger. “Why is the patio door sealed shut?” he demanded. “At the very least we should be able to open these windows wider if the doors don’t work.”
The manager clearly wasn’t expecting to be questioned like that, and he stammered for a while before answering. “I... I don’t know anything about that, sir.”
“Under town by-laws, as manager you are responsible for the safety of your guests. Not the company—you personally. And if there’d been a fire in here, we would have been completely trapped, all because of your negligence. Muriel here was terrified.”