The Girl in the Yellow Vest by Loretta Hill Read Free Book Online Page A

Seas would never have had the opportunity to fill all but one of its luxury beachside chalets. In fact, prior to the approach from Barnes Inc, she’d had the resort on the market because they’d been facing bankruptcy. Her contract with the major construction company had saved her parents’ business. However, now she didn’t know whether their arrival had been manna from heaven or the onset of the plague.
    The problem was FIFO workers weren’t exactly domestic goddesses. In fact, they weren’t domestic anything. They treated her chalets like, well, like dongas. Coal-encrusted footwear was trampled straight into the two-bedroom units, through the white-tiled foyers and down the short, cream-carpeted halls to the bedrooms. Luckily the shoes seemed to come off then. But Charlotte couldn’t help but notice that her floors were getting more and more stained. If they kept this up much longer, she would need to replace all the carpets by the time the project was over.
    And that wasn’t the only bone she had to pick.
    There was this one guy the men called ‘Fish’, and with good reason. His name was his hobby, his diet and his personal life philosophy. Charlotte had nothing against passion. What she did have a problem with were the fish guts he left in the sink every morning after his evenings on the shoreline. Part of the service of Silver Seas resort was housekeeping. She didn’t mind cleaning as such. It was something she was prepared to do to keep her parents’ legacy alive. But within reason, please! To be greeted every morning by the stench of this man’s rotting catches as soon as she threw open his chalet door, and then be expected to clean it up as well, was definitely more than she’d signed up for.
    And then there was the level of drinking going on after five. Was it normal for a man to consume half a carton or more every night? Surely there must be some alcoholics among them by now. There had been no damage to property as yet, but Charlotte couldn’t see how this good luck could continue. Every night she found the evidence of their consumption littered around her pool chairs and on the outdoor tables. At first she thought she might just put a bin out there. But the large plastic blue hint, even adorned with a sign saying
Place rubbish here
, seemed to have no impact whatsoever upon the revellers who used the space for their booze-ups. Besides the mess, she had a teenage sister to consider. She didn’t want Zara getting any ideas. The girl was rebellious enough as it was.
    She walked into the kitchen and silently made her mother’s breakfast, wondering why the men didn’t want to go down and explore the beach like normal tourists. Salonika at twilight was gorgeous. Pristine blue waters, golden sand and usually not a soul in sight. Their little piece of paradise was definitely one of Queensland’s best-kept secrets. She instantly got a mental of image of beer cans and bottles making a trail from the surrounding bushland to the water’s edge. She shuddered. Maybe it was better that the Barnes Inc workforce stayed as far away from it as possible.
    The last thing she could afford to do was offend the project manager. But she was running out of patience. If Mark Crawford would not answer emails, phone messages or even personal confrontational visits, it really was time to bring out the big guns. And in her case that was vanilla and raspberry cupcakes.
    She turned around briefly and glanced into the oven to see if they were ready. Not quite yet, but she had time. The aim of the game was to make sure that when Mr Crawford came to visit her that afternoon he stayed for a long and detailed chat about how things could improve. It was important that they moved forward on this matter in a way that was beneficial to them both.
    Or what? I’ll kick them out? Yeah right.
    Without them it would be back to running from the bank. And she already knew how much fun that was. On a sigh, she took the bowl of Coco Pops to her