Chương 3
“Mostly verbal.”
“Mostly.”
He looked tired.
“A server got shoved during a Christmas event last year.”
“What happened?”
“He didn’t file.”
“Why?”
Dean gave her a look that was almost apologetic.
“You know why.”
She did.
Still, she wanted him to say it.
“Tell me.”
“He needed the job.”
The door opened.
Richard stepped inside.
Behind him, Victoria said, “I’m not sitting in the hallway like a child.”
Dean stood.
Richard pointed toward the second chair.
“Then sit in here like an adult.”
Victoria looked at Maya.
Maya kept the ice against her cheek.
Victoria sat.
Richard remained standing.
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
The gala music sounded distant through two walls.
Maya looked at Victoria’s dress. Ivory satin. Perfect tailoring. A narrow line of champagne had dried near the hem where somebody must have bumped her during the confrontation.
Victoria noticed Maya looking.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Then stop staring.”
Maya almost smiled.
“You walked into my office.”
“This isn’t your office.”
Richard said, “It is now.”
Victoria’s eyes closed briefly.
“Can we please stop with the theater?”
Maya set the ice on the desk.
“Yes.”
The room changed.
Maya did not raise her voice.
“Did you hit me?”
Victoria stared at her.
Richard started to speak.
Maya held up a finger.
“This is between her and me for the moment.”
Richard’s eyebrows lifted.
He did not look pleased.
He stayed quiet.
Victoria crossed one leg over the other.
“You were obstructing me.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“I told you not to touch me.”
“After you reached for my bag.”
“You were behind a restricted desk.”
“I showed you an employee access card.”
“It looked fake.”
“Because?”
Victoria’s mouth opened.
Stopped.
Maya watched the answer form and get rejected.
“Because I didn’t know you.”
Maya nodded.
“That’s different.”
Victoria looked away.
“Did you hit me?”
“I pushed you.”
“With your hand.”
“You were in my space.”
“Did your ring cut my mouth by accident?”
“I don’t know.”
Maya looked at Dean.
“Please record that wording exactly.”
Victoria turned on him.
“You’re taking her side now?”
Dean’s face became professionally empty.
“I’m documenting the incident.”
“You work for my family.”
The sentence sat in the room.
Richard’s expression hardened.
Maya felt something colder than anger.
There were organizations where people believed authority was institutional.
There were organizations where authority was personal.
The Halcyon Grand had apparently been pretending to be the first while operating as the second.
Maya folded the wet towel.
“Dean.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“How many times have you heard that sentence?”
Victoria stood.
“Oh, come on.”
Richard said, “Sit down.”
“No.”
“Victoria.”
“I’m leaving.”
Maya looked at Dean.
“Don’t stop her.”
Richard stared at Maya.
Victoria did too.
Maya picked up her handbag.
“She’s not under arrest. We have the footage. We have witnesses. If she wants to leave, she can leave.”
Victoria laughed once.
“You really think you have power because my father gave you a piece of paper?”
Maya stood.
“No.”
Victoria waited.
Maya adjusted the bag on her shoulder.
“I think I have a problem because he gave me responsibility for a hotel where employees are afraid of his daughter.”
Richard’s face changed.
Maya saw the sentence hit him.
Good.
He needed it to.
Victoria looked at her father.
“You’re letting her talk to me like this?”
Richard did not answer.
For the first time that evening, Victoria seemed to understand that the rules had changed in a way no document could fully explain.
She picked up the small clutch she had left on the corner of the desk.
“You’ll be gone in a month.”
Maya said nothing.
Victoria went to the door.
Her hand closed around the handle.
Then she looked back.
“You think they’ll respect you because you stood up to me?”
Maya thought of Lena’s face.
“No,” she said. “I think they’ll wait to see what I do next.”
Victoria left.
The door shut.
Richard rubbed a hand over his mouth.
Dean looked at Maya.
Maya sat again.
“Now,” she said, “tell me about the server from Christmas.”
By eleven fifteen that night, the gala was over.
Maya had a butterfly closure on her lip, an incident report with five witness names, confirmation that security footage had been copied to two restricted servers, and a headache that had settled behind her right eye.
She had also learned that Victoria Hale had been quietly causing trouble inside the Halcyon Grand for longer than Richard had admitted during the hiring process.
A banquet captain had been called stupid in front of guests.
A valet had been threatened with termination after refusing to retrieve Victoria’s car ahead of customers who had been waiting twenty minutes.
A housekeeper had been accused of stealing an earring that later turned up in Victoria’s gym bag.
Nobody had been fired because of Victoria.
That distinction seemed important to Richard.
Maya found it appalling.
At midnight, she sat with him in the closed lobby bar.
The bartender had gone home. Richard had unlocked the cabinet himself and poured two glasses of water.
Maya stared at hers.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Richard loosened his tie.
“I didn’t think she was an operational issue.”
“She threatened employees with their jobs.”
“She doesn’t have firing authority.”
“They believed she did.”
“She doesn’t.”
“That’s irrelevant.”
He frowned.
“It’s not irrelevant.”
“It is if your managers let them believe it.”
Richard looked toward the darkened windows.
Outside, a rideshare car pulled to the curb and collected the last two gala guests.
“You’re angry.”
“Yes.”
“At me.”
“Yes.”
He nodded as though confirming a financial figure.
Maya hated that about him.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Turn this into data.”
His jaw shifted.
“I’m listening.”
“No. You’re evaluating whether my anger is reasonable.”
“I hired you to evaluate problems.”
“You hired me to run your hotel.”
“Our hotel.”
“Not tonight.”
Richard looked at her.
Maya pushed the water away.
“Tonight it was your hotel. That was the whole problem.”
May you like
The automatic doors opened.
A night auditor entered carrying a paper bag from a taco shop and stopped when he saw them.
