Chapter 16

THE SILENT MOTHER

BETH POV

Bloody stupid hotels. I thought rolling my eyes. There and no niceties over the phone when trying to make a booking. I knew I would have to go to the hotel that Sean requested for his date and wave money at the morons.

Sean had me hang about in the conference room when I wasn’t running around, which was more than okay with me because I was usually drinking tea all day and playing games on my phone or chatting with my friends online. My job was too easy really. Show up to his group meetings, take his calls, and run his errands. It was the easiest job I had in the last 5 years. So definitely not too bad considering the boss was easy on the eyes and I was allowed to drink wine on the clock.

It was nearing the end of the day and I saw someone shadowing outside the door. She popped her head in and I smiled at the sight of her. It was Sean’s mother.
“Hello Beth. How are you sweetheart?” she asked. Sean’s mum was very nice to me and quite honest as well. We had a close relationship and she had come to rely on me a lot. Not for herself, but more as a personal favour that included more money. It was originally an awkward arrangement, but it was more for the best interests of her son.
“How’s Sean doing?” she continued walking over to the coffee pot.
“Good, he’s having a better week this week…”

“Uhm better … I guess better is an improvement from last week,” she replied.
“Well Deidre, he seems to be just burying himself in work. And… women. Unfortunately I can’t control that. But he hasn’t been drinking excessively this week at least…”
“Well it’s been a tough three months. And you have been great for him, really you have. His first month in the UK … he came to me to fire 5 of his secretaries. It was one nearly every week, it was absurd!”
“What for?” I asked her. I had my suspicions. Considering he had left in the mornings and either had Rose of myself have his previous night’s conquests cleared out for him.
“Well I left Sean in charge of his assistants, and they all managed to be attractive young women. So I guess you can see how they turned out… that’s why I took over. I needed a mother figure and someone older who he might listen to when he is having a moment…” I had been Sean’s assistant for 2 months and he was truly a nice guy, but he often had a few battles with himself. His grief, and his guilt. He cured some of them with wine, and the other with girls. He grieved from his father in an odd way, often how most men did. He hid it from everyone, and never talked about it. And he was barely leading the way with this hotel and I was trying to keep him focused and remind him constantly of his daily schedule and planner.
“Well he does listen to me and he asks for my advice often. Grief is a tricky thing for men. Women will just grab a tissue and have a huge bawl about it, but he is a tough nut to crack…”
“Yes, he will not talk about it with me any more…” Deidre sighed.
“He mentioned a girl this morning… one from his past. A married woman apparently.”
“Oh god. Oh dear…” she said patting her forehead.

“He seemed really taken with her. He normally doesn’t talk about women with me. Unless I’m shoo-ing them from the hotel, or his room…” I chuckled. Deidre scoffed and sat down in the seat beside me.

“He won’t let his mother look after him anymore. And he won’t listen to me either. I thought we would be closer when he came home to live… but he has distanced himself from everyone. Just look out for boy my Beth and do your best… he needs some solid direction and no young ditsy secretary is going to be able to do that.” she smiled.
“Thank you Mrs Hyatt…”
“Find out more about this married lady. I don’t want homewrecker under his name along with every other indiscretion I’ve had to clean up…” Deidre said grabbing her coffee and getting up. She smiled and waved at me as she pulled the door open,
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow Beth.”
“Good day Mrs Hyatt…” I waved as she stepped out of the door.

I got back to work and wrote down a few notes regarding the cheque that Sean had to write and wrote another dot point with a question mark against it about this mystery married woman. All of a sudden the phone rang,
“Hello?” I asked.
“Hello Beth, I feel like this is about the 100th call I’ve made in the last day or so, but is Sean’s number disconnected? I have a feeling you’re not passing on my messages?” I knew her voice straight away. And her voice was naturally bitchy. And I found myself rolling my eyes at her rude remark.
“Samara. Yes I have passed your messages on, he is just a very busy man with a tight schedule. I’m sure if he wants to contact you he will call you back…” I passed on her messages always, but I knew Sean wanted rid of her.
“Girl to girl, is he done with me?” she asked.

Yes … he was done after your first night lady.

“Woman to woman …not my place to say, but you have nice day Samara…” I said as politely as I could before hanging the phone up. I had taken 4 calls from her today and immediately after I hung up the phone rang again,
“This is Beth Neave, how may I help you?”
“Hello, my name is Pam Cromwell, I’m looking for Sean Hyatt for an interview. I got your number from Josie Messina…”
“Sure. What magazine are you from?” I asked
“I’m from OK! Magazine. But Sean and I go way back… Could you arrange something and maybe tell him I called?” she asked.

AHA this must be the married lady.

I planned to pass on her message and urge him to do the interview to get his relationships in order. I just hoped that sorting his relationships out wasn’t going to wind him in bed with this married woman either.

Sometimes I felt like I was failing at my job to keep his record clean.