← Back
“Then the price should come down a bit,” I said. “Shouldn’t it? If it’s not the full menu.”
The silence that followed was so complete I could hear the minibar humming.
Vivienne put her glass down very carefully. “I’m sorry,” she said pleasantly. “Did you just try to negotiate me?”
“Not you. The rate. It’s a commercial arrangement.”
“It is a commercial arrangement,” she agreed. “And like any commercial arrangement, there are terms. You read them. You agreed to them. You paid a deposit.” She stood up and smoothed down her dress. “And one of those terms, Graham, in bold, is that if a client makes me uncomfortable I can end the booking and keep the fee.”
My stomach dropped through eleven floors.
“Wait. I’m sorry. That was stupid. That’s my job talking, not me.”
She paused with her hand on her coat. Her face was unreadable. Then she sighed.
“Here’s what I’ll do,” she said. “Because you look like you’re about to cry, and I’ve had a nice week. You can pay the full fee you already agreed, apologise like you mean it, and I’ll give you what’s left of the hour. Strictly business. Or you can keep arguing, in which case I go home and have a bath and tell the girls about you.”
“Those are the options?”
“Those,” she said, “are the terms.”