Freeing Alex Read Online Free PDF Page A

further.
    He raises an eyebrow. I think he’s surprised that I haven’t
spent all of my time shopping since I came to London.
    I eventually manage to open my car and slide into the
driver’s seat. I’m hot and flustered, feeling in need of a cold shower. “I’ll
see you, James. I’ll probably pop by tomorrow. I’d like to start meeting some
of the other teams, the other staff.” I hold the door ajar, looking up at him.
    “Look forward to it, Mrs Drake,” he says as I slide into the
driver’s seat. He closes the door for me and stands in the car park, waving as
I pull away.
     
    That was our first meeting and since then we’ve met several
times in the last few weeks. I enjoy working closely with the super sexy James,
the Bossman. He’s filled me in on the hotel, how it functions and runs on a
day-to-day basis. I’ve been introduced to a number of staff. Work has been
completed on the rooms and suites that were being remodelled and the leisure
facilities are now open. I think we both enjoy working with each other, I
certainly enjoy his company and I think he enjoys mine too.
    I don’t intend to make any other changes other than the
one’s that Maggie had already begun, everything is absolutely fine. The hotel
is more or less full all of the time, which is good, and there are no real
concerns.
    Anna is still awaiting her A Level results, which are due
incredibly soon. She’s keeping herself busy with this and that, mainly shopping
and finding ways to spend money, isn’t that the case with all teenagers?
    She’s been to the hotel and thinks it’s beautiful, even more
so when she knows that this place partly pays for her spending sprees! She loves
it and has asked if she can stay here with Katie, her best friend from school,
for a couple of nights. Of course she can, I’ve told her – after all, one day
it will be hers. She’s so taken with the place that she’s been talking to one
or two of the universities about a change of course and looking at something to
do with hospitality or hotel management. I don’t know how I feel about that,
after all, when you own the hotel you don’t need to impress yourself
with the right degree!
    I’ve continued to learn about business in general. Yes, lots
and lots of learning has taken place with the help of James, who seems to know
everything there is to know about the hospitality and leisure industry, but
I’ve also spent time with Gerald, my accountant and the guy who has dealt with
all of Maggie’s business interests, monetary wise, for years – all of them
except Henry’s, the night club, which I have little to do with apart from
receiving the monthly profit share. I’ve still not got around to meeting all of
the other people that were associated with Maggie, but bit by bit we’re getting
there.

Chapter
2
    Since I’ve left Lewis and moved on
I’m starting to feel liberated, I really, really am. Sometimes I could sit and
cry, just thinking about the shit twenty-two years I wasted living with that
fat bastard – he could grind me down and damage me, physically and emotionally,
but he couldn’t break me completely. From time to time my heart feels heavy and
broken, yet it still works, functioning as well as it ever did physically. It
gives me life and the drive to move forward, away from the hellish time with
Lewis and onto new things, new ventures and a new life. Now it’s my time,
although it is an uphill struggle, and I think it will be for a while, to get
over what was, to be fair, a trauma. But little by little the old Alex, the
Alex from over twenty-odd years ago, is coming back!
    I’m enjoying my newly found freedom, spending so much more
time than I planned to at the hotel, if only to be in the company of my sexy
General Manager. He’s still the Bossman and I find I have to reassure him of
this each time we meet.
    They say that no-one is indispensable, well, at this moment
in time he is, he’s irreplaceable and has been such a great help. I have