Hotel Vendome

Brad went home to his family in Philadelphia for Christmas, and Natalie convinced Hugues to go to Philadelphia with her for two days, while she could still travel. But Heloise didn’t want to go. She told her father she’d keep an eye on the hotel, and he felt badly about it, but Natalie was insistent that she wanted to go home, and he felt torn. Heloise was staying in New York. And Natalie was so emotional now that she was pregnant and she cried about everything constantly. In the end he agreed to go, and Heloise signed up for all the Christmas shifts. Her father called her as soon as they got there, and first thing on Christmas morning. She was already at the front desk by then. And for the first time, but not surprisingly, her mother didn’t call her at all.

Chapter 22

A GROUP OF Dutch businessmen checked into the hotel in January and took four of the big suites, on the ninth and tenth floors. They apparently represented a European consortium, and Heloise saw her father with them several times. It wasn’t unusual for him to spend time with important guests. They had taken over the big conference room, and she saw two of them in her father’s office one afternoon, chatting with him, and two others walking around the hotel with Bruce Johnson, the head of security, and Mike, the head engineer, which she thought was strange. But the hotel was so full that she didn’t have time to think about it, and it was only after they left that Mike said something to her.

“That’ll be strange, won’t it, if your father sells the place? I hear they’re willing to offer him a fortune for it!”

“Who is?” She looked at him as though he had grown a tree out of his head or were a creature from outer space.

“Those Dutch guys. The ones who were here last week. Your father had us show them everything. I hear they’re going to make an offer that’s impossible to refuse, or maybe they already did. The rumor is that he’s going to sell.” She felt dizzy when she heard his words. The ground rolled under her feet and she felt sick.

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” she said, wanting to squelch the rumor immediately, and she was shaking when she walked into her father’s office. He was alone at his desk, and Jennifer was out to lunch. She wanted to hear it from him, if he was going to sell. And if it was true, he should have told her long before this. She knew that he worried about their overhead, but the hotel was a huge success.

“Something wrong?” She looked as though she had seen a ghost, and he assumed she’d had a problem with a guest. So far, she was handling even the most delicate situations extremely well. She had a wonderful way with people and was learning a lot about the business.

She didn’t beat around the bush. She never did with him. “Mike says you’re selling the hotel.” She didn’t know what to think. First he got his wife pregnant with three babies, intentionally, and now he was selling her home. “Is that true?” She was still shaking as she stood on the other side of his desk.

He hesitated for a long moment. Too long. And he answered her with a look of pain. But he knew he had to tell her the truth, or she’d hear it from someone else. “I wasn’t trying to. But if they offer me enough, I might. I haven’t decided yet. It depends on what they offer. It fell from the sky. I didn’t look for the offer. It found me.” He looked guilty as he said it.

“How can you do that?” she blazed at him. “This hotel is our home. It was your dream. Now it’s mine. You can’t sell our dream.” Her voice was shaking with fear and rage.

“I’m fifty-three years old. In a few months I’ll have four kids, not just one. And I have to think of all of you, your future, Natalie’s, and mine. If someone is crazy enough to offer me an insane amount of money, I’d be even more insane not to take it.” It was a concept she was too upset to understand. She had a lifetime ahead of her. He didn’t. And he had a lot more people to worry about now. His family was about to double in size and he suddenly felt old, and a little scared.

“You have no loyalty to anyone or anything,” she accused him, so furious with him that she could hardly speak. “I’ll never respect you again if you sell,” she said vehemently, and he nodded. He suspected that would be the case. But if the offer was big enough, he had no choice but to sell. She didn’t want the money, she wanted the hotel. “I’ll never forgive you if you sell the hotel, Papa,” she said, looking him squarely in the eye, and then she turned around and walked out of the room.

She didn’t talk to him for the next three days, and when she saw him in the elevator, she said not a word. The rumors were flying all over the hotel. She told Brad about it, and he knew how upsetting that was for her. She wanted to work there for the rest of her life and take over from her father one day. It was why she had gone to the Ecole Hoteliere, and now he had made a mockery of her career and all she’d learned.