A Material Gift (D'Arth Series Book 2) Read online

  A Material Gift

  D’Arth Series Book 2

  By Camille Oster

  Copyright 2013 Camille Oster

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the work of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Acknowledgements:

  To Heather for her help.

  Camille Oster - Author

  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Camille-Oster/489718877729579

  @Camille_Oster

  [email protected]

  Chapter 1

  Samantha D'Arth stared out at the bright blue sea of the Mediterranean as she sometimes did when she just wanted to clear her mind and forget whatever was annoying her. Straightening her uniform, she sighed. The customers at the Monte Carlo Yacht Club sometimes drove her up the wall, but she would smile and say, 'Of course', as she was expected to, no matter what hair-brained idea they accosted her with.

  The sea was the big advantage of working here. No matter how trying the job got, there was always the sea—changing, beautiful and loyal, like a friend who was always there when needed.

  Actually working here wasn't too bad, most of the customers of the bar were well-behaved, but sometimes you would just get the one where, behind your smile, you were wishing them annoying misfortunes. The tips were sometimes good, too, especially from the Americans.

  The Monte Carlo Yacht Club was where the rich met and mingled. The drinks were eye-poppingly expensive, but that was the point. That was how they kept the riff-raff out, and if customers weren't prepared to pay eighteen euro for a drink, plus a rather substantial membership fee, they didn't belong here.

  Sam had worked here for about six months. It paid alright, nothing spectacular, and each day she drove her Vespa—the gift from her mother, in an attempt to live vicariously through her daughter—to work from Beausoleil. Beausoleil was in France, just over the border. As it was too expensive to live in Monaco, most of the wage-slave army, like herself, who served this place, lived in France, but it only took her half an hour to get here.

  "Rotter spilled his drink all over the floor," said Crystal, the South African girl who'd started only two weeks ago. They had nicknames for some of the patrons, particularly the ones who had more money than sense and a determination to drink themselves to death.

  "Again?"

  "Luckily he didn’t spew."

  "He is good that way, at least."

  Cleaning up a mess while the bar was open was an art. They couldn't just pull out a mop and bucket; these things had to be done discreetly. Sighing, Sam admitted her little peaceful moment with the sea was over. Straightening her spine, she plastered on her smile before turning back into the building. At moments like this, she missed home—her real home in Auckland, where her school principal mother, Judith, would make them breakfast then pester them about their careers.

  *

  Arriving home and pulling off her helmet, Sam placed it on the handlebars of her Vespa, hearing music, which was the last thing she wanted to hear after the night she'd just had. Carli was partying again and there could be one or umpteen people in the house they shared. Carli was Australian and her true passion was to party. Actually that wasn't right; her true passion was to sleep with hot French guys—the party was just the honey that drew them in.

  "Sammie," Carli called when she stepped in the door. "It's sooo good you're back. This is Peter, isn't he hot?" Carli clambered over the knees of the strangers sitting in their lounge. The sticky smell of marijuana filled the whole house, tickling her nose and coating the back of her throat. "He's Dutch; works on one of the cruise ships. He's going to get me a job. I'd love that, working on a ship—new port every night."

  "Sounds great," Sam said, giving a guy a dirty look for having his feet on their table. Carli had a new idea every day. Last week she was going to start an Internet company and make millions.

  "Have a drink."

  "Maybe later. I need a shower."

  "The old retards have been fawning all over you again? Like I tell you, you need to tell them off." Carli was always vocal when things weren't as they should be, which was why she'd been fired for letting her boss know exactly what she thought of him. It had all been true, but truth was not expected from them, tolerance was. And if one of the patrons were to touch you inappropriately, you were to discreetly say it wasn't appreciated. You weren't supposed to blow up, which is what Carli did.

  Meeting Carli was how she'd got the job. They'd met one night out when Sam was staying at one of the backpackers and they'd hit it off, having a great night. The next day, Carli had dragged her, hung-over and moaning to her job, where they'd just had a girl not show up and that had been that—Sam had a job. They went flatting and then Carli had been fired. She worked in a bakery now.

  "Seriously, have a drink. You look like you need it."

  It was true, she really did, but if she started, she knew where it all would end. "Maybe later," Sam mumbled. The truth was that she couldn't keep up with Carli. She'd known that fact for a while now and had to invest in some industrial strength ear plugs when she crawled into bed to get her beauty sleep. Carli was fun, but there was just too much of it.

  Walking to her room, she snorted and rolled her eyes when she saw light under the door. Not again, she thought and pushed the door open. "You can't be serious," she yelled at the couple lying on her bed. The guy was lying on some girl, his hand up her thigh. "Get out! This is my bed. Get out!"

  A guy she'd never met, turned to look at her like she was cramping his style—or cock-blocking as they'd taken to calling it. Like she gave a damn. "Piss off. Get out of my room." The girl had the sense to at least look embarrassed, but the guy just gave her a look as if he thought her a frigid cow. Looks like that might have had an effect on her at some point, but she just raised her eyebrows in indication she couldn't care less. Tilting her head, she pointed to the door with her thumb. The guy huffed and led the girl out, leaving Sam to look down on her messed-up sheets. Yuck.

  She was tired and drained and the last thing she wanted to do that night was to change her sheets, but since people were rude enough not to respect her privacy, and cleanliness, she had no choice. Dropping her bag down in the corner, she went to tear the sheets off. Sometimes she just hated people, and at the moment, Carli was high on the list. If she had to have people over, she could at least keep them out of her room. Stuff went missing when Carli had her parties. But Carli didn't care.

  Pulling out some clean linen, Sam wondered whether she was actually getting too old for this. Although, maybe it was a sad indication that at twenty-three, she was getting too old for partying. It was just that she had started to wonder if there was anything else to life other than getting drunk and having a fumble with some guy she'd never see again after. Amongst the crowd here, a long-term relationship constituted having breakfast together in the morning.

  She didn't want to come home to this every night—some belligerent guy in her bed, dirtying it up with a random drunk girl. Admittedly, she'd been that girl a few times, but maybe she'd reached her limit. Perhaps it would be nice to go out for dinner for a change, as opposed to just a bar—nothing fancy, just a sedate bottle of wine in one of the little eateries. They had some lovely ones here in Beausoleil, but they'd never tried any. To Carli, food was what one got from the kebab shop at the end of the night.

  *

  Lying in bed and stretching, Sam refused to get up when she didn't have to. It was her day off. Turning over, she saw a half-drunk bottle of be
er on her night stand, a souvenir from the arsehole she'd chased out of her room last night. She growled at it and got up, wanting it out of her room.

  Picking it up by the neck, she carried it out to leave somewhere with its comrades. She was sure there would be plenty of them around. The hall looked okay, but the lounge was a disaster. There were bottles on every surface and cigarette butts all over the floor. Luckily, their floor was tiled and the cigarette marks came out with some elbow-grease. There was even the obligatory guy passed out on the sofa. Not one she remembered from the night before, but then she hadn't been paying close attention.

  She left the mess for now and retreated out into their little courtyard, which was just a walled patch of dirt with a lone and miserable tree in it. Sitting down on one of the chairs, Sam pulled her knees up and yawned.

  "Oh good, my fags," Carli said, stepping out in her bakery uniform, newly showered with her hair severely pulled back. "I'm running late. I feel like utter shit." That was Carli's philosophy: she could party, but she went to work, no matter how bad she felt. As long as she went to work, it was all okay, even if she felt like passing out most of the time. "Awesome night last night. Did I tell you that one of the guys I met was going to get me a job on a cruise ship? That would just be the best."

  "You mentioned it."

  Carli flicked her cigarette and looked at her watch. "Shit, I've got to go. See you later." She rushed out of the door and Sam heard her little nineteen eighties Honda Civic fire up. Her little reliable beast, she called it. The wheels spun a bit as she pulled away down the road on the other side of the wall.

  Turning back, Sam looked at the mess in the lounge. She would either have to clean it up or live with it for the rest of the day.

  Chapter 2

  Sitting in the little cafe halfway to work, Sam sighed as she took her first sip of coffee, letting the liquid coat her tongue and hit the back of her throat. God, that was good. This cafe didn't look like much, but they knew how to do coffee. And the croissants; they just couldn't do those the same in New Zealand—not for lack of trying, but it just wasn't the same. Their buttery fineness just melted in her mouth, sending flakes all the way down her clothes.

  Picking up her phone, she texted her brother, Marco.

  Hey, how's mum?

  Fine

  Did you actually see her?

  A couple of weeks ago.

  I'm not there, so you have to make an effort.

  She's fine. She'll call if she needs something.

  You're a dick.

  That exchange unfolded like her exchanges normally went with her brother. They were twins; her being that important two minutes older. Her brother was a dick. She's been aware of that fact for a long time now, having left her feeling short-changed when it came to her twin. She'd seen twins on TV—girls who looked the same, close enough to finish each other’s sentences. She'd spent years wondering what it would have been like having a sister as a twin, someone she could actually talk to. Instead, she got Marco. If they weren't fighting, they were barely civil. Although as they got older, they just grew apart. He worked in advertising, as a junior account exec—a job he thought made him special. You're just a junior, she would tease him and he would give her that look she was so very used to, when he non-verbally said she was a useless, spiteful cow.

  She didn't even know if he had a girlfriend—not that she cared. If some girl was stupid enough to go out with him, who was she to argue? She certainly wasn't going to feel sorry for the girl.

  Communicating with Marco always put her in a bad mood, not to mention Carli, who'd had a huge fight with her boyfriend last night; and when she fights, she goes on forever. If Sam was really spiteful, she would introduce Carli to Marco, but for all her faults, Carli was actually cool. Sam would probably like her a lot if they weren't living together. Sam was learning fast that there were some real drawbacks to living with people—you learned too much about them, and sometimes their habits just weren't reasonable.

  Having spent her university days at home, Sam was quite a late entrant to the flatting gig, except in her first year at uni, when she shared that flat with a group of girls she knew from high school—who were pedantic clean-freaks compared to Carli. It hadn't worked out; the girls all got bitchy and before long, none of them were talking to each other. If she wanted that, she could just live at home with Marco.

  Shaking off her annoyance at having to deal with her brother, she flicked through the paper left by a previous patron. She didn't read the paper every day, but she flicked through it whenever she found a copy lying around, and most days, there usually was one at the Yacht Club. It was the usual stuff, news about the European economies finally recovering, some law passed by the European Union and American reactions to something happening in the Middle East—nothing ever changed.

  Flicking to the back, she had a look at what was on at the movies. It had been a while since she'd been, and it would make a nice, sedate night out if Carli was in full party mode. An article in bold print caught her eye.

  Seeking a kind heart to help with surrogacy - All expenses paid.

  Sam huffed. Good luck, she thought and checked out the showing time for the latest, greatest blockbuster—which would probably prove a disappointment.

  It was time to go, or she was going to be late. Picking up her helmet, she gave the cafe owner a quick wave and headed for her Vespa sitting on the dusty parking space just outside the cafe.

  Driving down the road to Monte Carlo itself, she was passed by a Ferrari, driving so close, she had to steady her scooter. Ferrari drivers were the worst; they seriously thought the road belonged to them. She cursed the driver for his inconsideration.

  Then came that moment, the one when she saw the sea. It always picked up her spirits and reminded her that she was in this wonderful place, on the other side of the world, experiencing amazing things. The Mediterranean sparkled, the sun shining off its deep blue surface. They had a beautiful spring day in store; there wasn't a cloud in the sky and it all looked gorgeous. Monte Carlo looked gorgeous from a distance. It was okay up close, but there was traffic and strangely laid out streets to navigate, along with rude drivers.

  As she drove, her mind returned to the advert in the paper and the couple looking for a surrogate. She knew finding surrogates was near impossible. She'd witnessed the suffering with infertility when her older half-brother and his wife were trying to conceive. She'd been too young at the time to help, and they'd finally adopted two children from the Ukraine. Depression had ravaged her sister-in-law every time she’d got her period; it really had become a curse, and Dean had suffered, because there was nothing he could do to help his wife or fix the situation.

  Sam thought of the couple desperate enough to place an ad in the paper; wondered if they were sitting eagerly by the phone waiting for someone to call—only to be disappointed when it remained silent. Her sister-in-law would have sat by the phone for weeks. Feeling her heart contract in sympathy, Sam tried to dismiss it. It was too nice a day to worry about the sorrows of childless couples.

  *

  Work was the same—boring and busy at alternate times. It swung between the two states, sometimes without a pattern that could be relied upon. Sam had become good at spotting people, amongst the patrons of the Monte Carlo Yacht Club; there were the various forms of rich people, the eye candy girls for the wealthy gentlemen, and the toy boys for the women. The eye candy were almost always bitches, mostly Russian or Eastern European beauties—and they were drop-dead gorgeous. The toy boys were incorrigible flirts—Italian or French, predominantly. She'd actually wondered at the possibility of writing a thesis on the intricacies of the social structure of Monaco, but no doubt someone had already done it.

  Sam knew she would go back to university one day for a masters degree, but for now, she just wanted to be young and carefree—living the life of a young girl doing their Overseas Experience, or OE as it was called back home, that well-worn tradition for all youths in New Zeal
and, Australia and South Africa. She wasn't sure how the South Africans had been bundled into what was clearly an Antipodean tradition; it must have been the common British roots—an urge to travel bedded down in their genes.

  "You ready for lunch?" Crystal asked. "If we go now, we can go together, if we're quick."

  "Sounds good."

  Tentatively, they stepped their way over the large rocks, down to the sea, where they sat down on the flat surface of a boulder and unwrapped their sandwiches. It just wasn't worth buying lunch as it would wipe out their wages with nothing left over, so they brought their own. It was nothing spectacular, but it was cheap.

  "I saw an ad in the paper this morning," Sam said, "some couple looking for a surrogate." The look on Crystal's face showed she had no idea what Sam was talking about. "You know, when you have someone's baby for them."

  "Baby? Like a miniature person?" Crystal put on a questioning look on her face, as if what Sam was proposing was absurd and distasteful. "Why would you want to do that?"

  "Because they can't have their own."

  Crystal shrugged and took a bite of her sandwich. Sam guessed that fertility issues just didn't register for people who hadn't witnessed it, which might be why couples had such trouble finding surrogates. "I just feel sorry for them, that's all," Sam mumbled.

  "You're not thinking of doing it, are you?"

  "No, of course not," Sam said with a snort. It was a ridiculous idea. She was on her OE—not really a customary stop on the OE circuit. It could be something she might consider in the future, when she was old and settled. She knew she would always have sympathy for those couples, and maybe someday, she could do her bit to help someone out. But for now, it just didn't factor into her plans.

  Carli was on form that night; she'd even brought home her DJ friend and the whole house shook with relentless bass beats. Closing her eyes, Sam lay in bed and watched the patterns passing cars made on her ceiling. She might have to consider finding somewhere else to live. The idea of living on her own was tempting—being able to leave her stuff where she wanted and it would actually be in the same place when she got back. But she couldn't afford a place on her own. All expenses paid, popped into her head, but she dismissed it. This was not the kind of thing you did for money and it was distasteful even thinking about it. Carrying someone's baby was something you did out of the goodness of your heart. Looking down on her duvet covered stomach, she wondered what it would be like to be pregnant, to have a big belly with a baby growing inside.