Chương 5
“I guess.”
Inez pressed gauze gently against the scrape.
Sloane hissed.
“You look like her when you are annoyed.”
“I’ve been told.”
“Not by her.”
“No.”
Inez taped the gauze down.
Then she sat back on her heels and studied Sloane.
“Your mother really did scrub these floors.”
Sloane glanced at Marcus.
He looked at the carpet.
“I know.”
“No. You know the sentence. You don’t know the floors.”
Sloane waited.
Inez pointed toward the hallway.
“Your grandfather put her in housekeeping when she was nineteen.”
“What?”
“She wanted wages.”
“My grandfather owned the hotel.”
“Yes.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Rich families do many things that make no sense and then hire accountants to describe them.”
Marcus coughed into his fist.
Sloane looked at him.
He looked innocent.
Inez continued.
“Eleanor left college for a year. Fought with your grandfather. He told her if she wanted to understand the hotel so much, she could work in it. She started nights because nights paid extra. Your grandfather expected her to quit in a week.”
“She didn’t.”
“Your mother never understood quitting when it would have been convenient.”
Sloane smiled despite herself.
Inez’s face softened.
“She was terrible at corners.”
“What?”
“Sheets. Hospital corners. Awful.”
That detail hurt more than the letter.
Sloane stared at the bandage on her knee.
Inez stood.
“Vivian worked events then. Very young. Very ambitious. Your mother liked her.”
Sloane looked up.
“They were friends?”
“Closer than friends sometimes. Sisters, maybe. Enemies later. Rich people like to pretend those are separate categories.”
“Why did no one tell me?”
Inez shrugged.
“You did not ask me.”
Sloane laughed.
She liked Inez immediately, which made her suspicious of herself.
“Did Vivian hate my mother?”
Inez considered it.
“No.”
That answer unsettled Sloane.
“What did she feel?”
“Depends what year.”
Inez gathered the used wrappers.
“Last year? Fear.”
“Of what?”
“Your mother coming back.”
Sloane watched her leave.
Marcus waited until the door closed.
“She has ignored three retirement packages.”
“I can see why.”
At eight thirty, Sloane convened the hotel’s department heads in a windowless conference room on the fifth floor.
She had wanted coffee.
Someone brought a silver urn, porcelain cups, individual pots of cream, and six kinds of sugar.
She stared at it.
Marcus murmured, “I told them simple.”
“This is simple?”
“For us.”
“Your definition of simple needs intervention.”
There were fourteen department heads around the table: rooms, food and beverage, engineering, security, finance, HR, sales, housekeeping, banquets, guest relations, IT, procurement, culinary, and spa.
Some looked frightened.
Some looked curious.
One looked angry.
That was Daniel Ruiz, director of engineering, who had worked there twenty-four years.
He did not wait for introductions.
“Are we being sold?”
Marcus’s eyes moved to Sloane.
Sloane hated him a little for making her answer.
“I don’t know.”
The room shifted.
People had expected confidence or spin.
Daniel leaned forward.
“What does that mean?”
“It means there’s a sale agreement on the table. I haven’t signed it. There’s also a refinancing option that may or may not be real.”
“May or may not?”
“Yes.”
A woman from sales frowned.
“We have weddings booked eighteen months out.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Sloane looked at her.
The woman flushed but did not retreat.
“My mother died in May,” Sloane said. “I found out six weeks ago that I would inherit controlling ownership. I found out last night that the hotel is close to a covenant breach. So when I say I know, I mean I’ve read the bookings report. I do not mean I understand your job better than you.”
The sales director sat back.
Sloane continued.
“I’m not asking anyone in this room to trust me because of my last name.”
Daniel crossed his arms.
“Good.”
“I’m also not promising no layoffs, no sale, no changes, or no pain. I don’t know enough to promise that.”
The silence became different.
Less comfortable.
More useful.
The finance director, a thin man named Peter Lang, cleared his throat.
“Mrs. Cross made commitments to Halcyon.”
“On behalf of the hotel?”
“Yes.”
“Legally binding?”
“Some.”
“Did she disclose her post-closing role?”
Peter looked down.
There.
A clue.
Sloane leaned forward.
“What role?”
Marcus answered.
“Halcyon offered her chairmanship of the Mercer Heritage Advisory Council.”
Sloane looked at him.
“You knew?”
“Since April.”
“And the council does what?”
Peter said, “Preserves the historical identity of the property.”
Daniel laughed.
No humor in it.
“So she gets a chair and we get restructured.”
Marcus’s voice sharpened.
“That is not a fair description.”
Daniel turned.
“You signed the memo.”
The room went still.
Sloane looked at Marcus.
His face did not change.
Daniel continued.
“You think nobody knows?”
Marcus folded his hands.
“I think many people know.”
“You approved Halcyon.”
“I recommended the only funded option.”
“You recommended losing three hundred jobs.”
“I recommended keeping six hundred jobs for at least eighteen months.”
Daniel pushed back his chair.
“Listen to yourself.”
Sloane watched Marcus absorb it.
Then watched him become angry.
Good.
Anger was better than polished shame.
“You think I didn’t run the numbers?” Marcus said. “You think I enjoyed them? I have sat in lender calls you were not invited to. I have delayed replacements in your department because we did not have cash. I have approved overtime knowing I would have to cut somewhere else to cover it. Do not confuse a bad option with a happy decision.”
Daniel stood.
“And do not confuse a tie with courage.”
Marcus stood too.
Sloane slapped her palm on the table.
Not hard.
Enough.
Both men looked at her.
“Sit down.”
Daniel did not.
Sloane looked at him.
“I mean it.”
He sat.
Marcus sat after him.
Sloane rubbed her knee beneath the table.
“Great. So we are not a functional family.”
“No,” the HR director said.
A few people laughed.
The tension cracked just enough.
May you like
Sloane looked around the table.
“I want the preservation proposal reopened. I want a downside model for Halcyon. I want an actual staffing forecast through year three, not year one. I want every founder-relations expense over ten thousand dollars for five years. And I want no deletions, no cleanup, no heroic reorganization of files because the new owner arrived.”
