La Fleur de Blanc by Sean Platt

Author:Sean Platt [Truant, Sean Platt & Johnny B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling & Stone

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

FIGHTING BACK

For Lily, the idea of work had always revolved around one of two things: Either you worked because the family needed work done and someone had to do it, or you worked to earn money. She’d done plenty of the former throughout the first part of her life, then skewed toward the second as she grew older. Right now, even though Lily owned her own place and clocked in for no one, the need to work for money was more pressing than ever. It never occurred to her that anyone might work for another reason — building responsibility, perhaps.

But that was why Allison worked, in the eyes of her father. Same for Cameron. Their father had built his company from nothing. Those first years (when Mr. Deak was still negotiating lease terms for Palms Couture tenants) had been spent in a small three-bedroom at the edge of the county line. Because he’d built his fortune — which now paid for a house in the Cielo del Mar hills and matching Mercedes for Allison and her brother — he didn’t want his children to coast. He wanted them to work for what they had the same as he’d worked for what he had. And while the system would forever be incurably flawed (both children had credit cards without limits and didn’t spend like paupers), he’d always insisted that Allison and Cameron at least have jobs. They’d clock in, and they’d clock out; they’d ideally try to build something new as their father had. If they did that, they could plunder the family coffers. If not, they’d be cut off.

Working at La Fleur de Blanc satisfied the same need whether she got paid some piddly clerk’s wages or not. And Allison had already made it clear that she hated her old job.

“I guess the idea was to force us to build a work ethic,” she said, arranging flowers into a hideous mess sometime after she’d beaten Lily into agreeing to hire her. “But that didn’t really work out, now, did it?”

Lily didn’t say anything, but thought it might have worked out better than Allison’s cavalier attitude was allowing. From what she knew of Cameron, he barely worked the minimum at Abercrombie & Fitch before heading off to surf through the rest of his day, and until now, Allison had been phoning in her employment just as egregiously. But in her first few hours as a La Fleur employee, she’d already become a changed young woman. She swept floors with gusto. She did paperwork and Lily’s semblance of bookkeeping like a surprisingly adept savant. She turned her sarcasm and dirty mouth off when customers entered, effortlessly selling to the types even Lily, with her friendly demeanor, had failed to crack. She saw the reason immediately. Lily was friendly, but she was too honest. Allison, on the other hand, had no difficulty being as inauthentic as the sale required. Especially when the customers were male, and straight.

But Allison didn’t just make a good and dedicated clerk.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.