The Girl and The Gangster

Summary: After being turned down from every secretarial role in Birmingham, Alice becomes desperate. Unable to provide for her sick mother, herself and more importantly, her young child, she takes a chance on joining the Shelby Company ltd. But when she runs into a familiar face, her whole world comes crumbling down around her.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The sunlight was peaking through a gap between the curtains and when Alice woke up, it was hard to place exactly where she was for a moment. She was laying face down on a bed and when she looked around the room, she realised she was back in her own bedroom, but she couldn't remember how she got home. Actually, she remembered little from the party. She pushed herself up and noticed that she had been stripped down to her underwear and her dress was laying just at the foot of the bed. One of her maids knocked on the door and peeked her head around the door.

"Mr Gray is on the phone for you, Mrs Gray. Shall I tell him to call back?"

"No, no I'll come answer it now." Alice stumbled off the bed and grabbed one of her robes, fastening it tightly around her waist. "Mary?"

"Yes, Mrs Gray?"

"Do you know how I got home last night or even what time I came home at?"

The maid tensed up a little bit and ducked her head. "You came home at seven."

"And what time is it now?"

"Three in the afternoon. Rose has been fed with the extra milk you keep in the fridge."

Alice's head was throbbing and now the pain was only getting worse. She placed her hand to her eye and puckered her lips in discomfort. "Who brought me here?"

"Your sister called Mr Gray at his hotel and he sent Mr Jarowski to retrieve you. She said that it was like you were dead."

"Fuck!" she muttered under her breath as she reached for the phone.

"What happened to you last night? You had me worried sick!"

She could tell that Michael was angry, it was a rare thing for him to raise his voice at her and it scared her when he did. She was just thankful that he was in Detroit and not in their home.

"Nora invited me to her party to get over our issues and I guess I just let go a little too much." Alice played with the phone cord, wrapping it around her fingers as she spoke softly. "I've worried myself as well, I don't remember drinking so much."

Michael sighed down the phone and she knew that he was pinching the bridge of his nose. "Listen, I'm not mad at you having a bit of fun, after everything you've been through and the workload you've got while looking after Rosie… You just should've known your limits."

"I usually do, I'm sorry Michael."

"It's fine, Alice but I think you should thank Paul for getting up early on a Sunday morning to drive across the city to get you."

"I'll go visit him now."

"We're coming home in a few days, no more scares please, it drives me crazy when I can't do anything to help you."

"No more scares, I promise. I love you."

"Love you too, see you soon."

The spring air was crisp on her face and it help relieve some of the nausea she was feeling from all the drink. She had barely been able to look at her late breakfast, never mind keep it down. She wrapped Rose up tighter in her blanket as she giggled at her from her pram, with all the work she had been doing, it had been a while since Alice took her out for a walk. As she approached Michael's office, Paul was waiting outside, like he said he would, and Alice gave him a sheepish smile. She felt embarrassed, he had stripped her down to her slip and he had probably saw more of her than she cared to think about.

"It's nice to see you walking around." He held the door open for her and helped her bring the pram into the building. "For a while, I thought you were going to die."

"Was I really that bad?" she looked up at him, her brows furrowed, and her lips furled into a frown.

"You kept choking on your tongue as I drove you home, you were completely out of it. Are you sure it was only the drink you took? I saw cocaine on the table as I scooped you up."

Memories came in flashes of Nora and Quinten snorting the lines, she remembered how disgusted she was with them, that she could only watch for a split second. It wouldn't be like her to take snow even if she were incredibly drunk.

"I wouldn't, I would never."

He could see that she was sincere and just nodded as a response. He took her into Michael's office and poured himself a drink. "I'd pour you a drink, but I think you've had enough for a lifetime." He smirked as she rolled her eyes at him. "I was just having a joke with you."

"Listen, Paul, I'm awful embarrassed about last night," she lifted Rose from her pram and set her on her hip, swaying back and forth to keep her entertained, "I appreciate you coming to my aid, so thank you."

He knocked back his gin and watched her with Rose, he was baffled how someone could go from being a complete mess to a mother in a matter of hours, if he had children he knew he wouldn't be able to do it. "You and Michael are my friends; I wouldn't want harm to come to you."

"I just have to ask, why didn't you just let me sleep in my dress? I checked to see if I had been sick on it or if it was drenched with alcohol, but it was fine."

"I didn't strip you; you were in your underwear when I arrived, passed out on a couch with your head buried into a cushion. Your sister handed me your dress as I was carrying you out." A disturbed look crossed her face, she truly couldn't come up with a memory from last night. "Unless your sister took you out of your dress."

Alice nodded slowly and stepped towards the window, glaring down at the street below them. She felt so conflicted, anxious that something had happened to her while she was unconscious or scared that she had done something while she wasn't. "That could be it."

"Alice, did something happen to you?"

"I don't know," she glanced at him when he placed his hand on her shoulder, she had been so caught up in her thoughts that she didn't hear him come towards her, "just please don't tell Michael until I find out what happened. He might kill someone."

"I only spoke with your sister for a few moments, but I got a bad vibe from her."

Alice closed her eyes and wished that the feeling she had in her gut was wrong. "I'll avoid her for now, but she's coming to my gala and I'll ask her what happened then." She pressed the back of her hand to her nose as a cry broke through her, Paul spun her round and placed his arm around her.

"Let me take Rose for the afternoon, I don't know what to do with a baby, but you need to get some sleep and clear all that fog from your head."

"No, I need to put this behind me for now and focus on my family and my gala." She pulled away from him and tried her eyes before taking Rose's hand and pressing it to her mouth. She could smell the baby soap on her, and it gave her a little bit of comfort. "If I stop being busy for even a second, I'm going to lose my mind with guilt and worry." Her eyes darted up to Paul, she looked a little bewildered. "This stays between us until I speak to Nora."

As the day wore on, Alice kept her focus on Rose and for a while it worked but as soon as she put the baby to sleep, the fear of what could've happened to her started playing on her mind. She felt dirty and felt like she needed a drink, although she wouldn't touch the stuff for a long time. A hot bath would have to do. The warm water against her skin felt so good and she melted into the bubbles, but her mind still plagued her terribly. Alice tried her best to remember the events but all she could remember was the dancing and the music, she couldn't even remember Quinten's facial features and she had spent most of the night with him. There was a faint knock at the bathroom door, but it couldn't have been a maid, they knew not to disturb her when it came to her bath.

"Michael? Did you come home early?"

The door slowly opened and Alice near broke her neck as she tried to get a glimpse of who it was, then she saw the blonde hair and almost jumped out of the bath.

"Stay in, sis. You've got nothing that I don't have." Nora stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.

Alice's heart was racing, and she felt even more naked than she already was. "How did you get in here?"

"Your maid let me in, she told me to wait for you to come out of your bath, but I knew that you wouldn't mind me being in here seen as we're blood and all." Nora looked around the bathroom and decided to sit upon one of the counters. "How was your head this morning?"

"Foggy… Sore…" Alice relaxed back into the bath, but her body was still rigid. She didn't want to get out and have her exposed, too many people had saw too much of her. The bubbles would have to distort whatever Nora could see.

"Mine too, although I don't think I was as foggy as you probably were." Nora said with a laugh as she twirled one of her curls around her finger.

"There was something I was wanting to ask you, something that's been troubling me since I woke up." Nora looked at her, anticipating her question. "Did something happen to me last night?"

"What do you mean?"

"I woke up in only my slip but I asked the man that took me home, he said that it was the only thing I was wearing when he got there, that I was unconscious."

"You think someone touched you?" Nora shook her head with a smile. "No, nothing like that happened, you just took off your dress because you said that it made you feel free. You were just dancing by yourself as the band wound down and then you fell into the deepest slumber that I have ever seen. No amount of shaking would wake you up."

"I took off my own dress?" Alice felt like it was a lie, it didn't seem like something she would do in a room full of strangers. "Are you sure?"

"Positive, I can remember everything from the party. You really got out of your own head; I could tell that you needed to, so I didn't want to stop you. I can only imagine that you're under a lot of stress with your gala, a young baby and your newfound celebrity."

"I remember that there was cocaine… I didn't take any, did I?" Nora's face changed slightly; it was only a minor twitch of her lip. "I did, didn't I?"

"Alice, you didn't take any cocaine. No matter how much I tried to convince you to try it, you were determined not to put anything up your nose."

"You have to tell me the truth, Rose still nurses from me and I can't have any of that getting into her little body through my milk."

Nora got off the counter and knelt beside the bath, placing her hand on Alice's head. "You didn't have cocaine, I know that you nurse and it was silly of me to push you towards it in my drunken state, but even with all the vodka, you still thought about what was best for your baby."

The way Nora stroked her hair was the same way her mother used to, it made her think about her first night as a new mother; she didn't know how to make Johnny stop crying through the night and Agnes stepped in getting him to sleep in only a matter of seconds and once he was taken care of, she let Alice rest her head on her lap. She stroked her head until she too fell asleep.

"Did I make a fool out of myself?"

"No, you just had fun."

When Nora got onto her feet, Alice gripped onto the edge of the tub, pulling herself out and quickly wrapped a towel around herself. "Do you want to stay for a while?"

"Albert is throwing another party tonight for his friends so I can't stay. I just wanted to see if you were still alive." She stepped towards the door, lingering in the doorway for longer than she cared to. "I will see you at your gala, I can't wait."

"It's a dry event… Politicians are going to be there." Alice called out her warning as Nora walked down the hallway; the last thing she needed was for Nora to smuggle in a bottle of vodka for her or cocaine at an event that supported an institute.

The penthouse was quiet, the maids had retired to their rooms and Alice was left alone to contemplate everything Nora had told her. It gave her some relief to know that she hadn't ruined her marriage or let someone ruin her, but she knew that the way she had passed out, it wasn't normal. Nora was never going to tell her the complete truth and she was too good at lying for Alice to catch her out on it. She stared in the refrigerator and counted how many days' worth of milk she had in storage for Rose when the front door clicked open. It was just past midnight and she thought that perhaps someone had broken in. She grabbed a knife and stayed close to the wall, peering around the corner at a figure that was looking through documents in the dark. She kept a tight grip on the knife as her other hand reached for the switch. When the lights came on, she saw that it was Michael, home earlier than she had expected.

"Is that how you're going to greet me after I've been away for almost a week? With a knife?" he had a grin on his face as he turned around. He watched as she set the knife on a table and picked her up as she wrapped her arms around his neck tightly. "Did you miss me?"

"So much that you wouldn't even know." She looked down at him, her legs fastened around him and her hands on his face. "Are you home for good? Where's your mum and Johnny?"

"It's just a quick visit, I have business I have to intend to before I can come home, Johnny wanted to see a bit more of Detroit and I thought that it would give us a bit of time without my mum fawning all over you." He set her back onto the ground and tucked her hair behind her ear as he examined her face. He didn't want to show how much he was concerned about her; he could imagine that she heard it in his voice when they spoke earlier.

"What business do you still have?"

"That is a surprise to be revealed later. I had to pass through New York, so I thought that I'd spend a night in my own bed instead of in another hotel. Really, I wanted to see you."

"Could you not wait another couple of days?" she asked as she played with the end of his tie.

"I spoke with Paul," when she let out a disappointed breath and dropped his tie, he could tell that she was annoyed that he didn't keep their discussion private, "he said that you weren't in the best shape when he dropped you home."

"I could kill him because now he's got you all panicked when there's nothing to fuss over." She crossed her arms and tapped her foot against the floor as she tried her best to remain calm. She was furious at Paul. "Nora visited me earlier and I asked her about the events of last night and she assures me that I didn't take cocaine, that I just had too much to drink."

"And did she explain what happened to your dress?"

"She says I took it off myself while I was dancing." Michael started to smile at her and shook his head. "What?"

"How much did you have to drink?"

"I don't know but it sounds like a lot because I hate being undressed, especially in public."

Since Alice had Rose, she had no interest in any activity other than sleep. He didn't know if it was because she didn't feel attractive because of the changes to her body or because she was just too tired to care about anything else. "Trust me, I know."

She rolled her eyes playfully and rested her back against the wall. "Now that you know that I'm okay, what are you planning on doing now? I'm sure you're exhausted after driving from Detroit."

He placed his hand on the wall and leaned in closer to her. "Now that I know you're not playing in the snow or hurt; I was going to ask you to show me exactly how you got down to your slip."

Michael waited for her to reject his advances like she had done for the past six months, but she was receptive, either because of the time they had spent apart or because she was finally ready. Her hands travelled along his stomach up to his chest and stopped just below his collar.

"I don't know if I'll remember, but I'll definitely try to."

A:N Do you think Nora is holding something back from Alice? Has she really turned over a new leaf? And what surprise do you think Michael has for Alice? Thank you so much for reading, hope you enjoyed!