51. Ronan
I knock on Belinda’s office door.
Her soft sigh of irritation is followed by, “Come in.”
She’s hunched over her laptop, her hot pink suit jacket draped over her chair, her matching stilettos kicked off.
A half-finished smoothie sits next to her mouse.
She was here before me this morning. For all else that Belinda may be, no one can claim she doesn’t work hard for Wolf. That seems to be all she does.
“Henry didn’t get in early, did he?” She checks her watch. “His plane should be landing right now.”
“No, I have an issue I have to deal with in the boardroom, and I’d like you present.”
Her perfectly drawn eyebrows arch, waiting for me to elaborate.
“I need to fire someone, and I’ve never done it before. I need you.”
“This should be interesting.” Tossing her pen onto her leather blotter, she slips on her heels and jacket and rounds her desk. “Walk and talk.”
I hold her door for her, and she strolls through, head held high, hips swinging.
“One of our employees in HR shared information about hires from our job fair. Names of people who made the final cut but were crossed off when they reached the director’s approval.
” It wasn’t hard to figure out who the culprit was.
A female HR employee whose name starts with the letters Ja and who accessed the documents?
It took Archie less than five minutes to track down Jasmine Guilly for me.
Belinda smirks. “The cuts for that little negotiation of yours.”
“The deal that got all those signs down ahead of media open,” I remind her.
Her lips purse. “Shared with whom?”
“One of the people who we cut.” Technically, Lena cut him.
“Which we’re fully in our right to do at any time in the process,” Belinda retorts.
“True, but she’s sharing sensitive company information.” We’ll ignore the fact that I did the exact same thing. Nobody but Sloane knows and, besides, I’m the fucking director.
“Why would she do this?” Belinda asks.
“That’s what we’re about to find out.” But I have my suspicions when it comes to a guy like Cody.
Don’t worry. Sloane’s not a tourist. She’s just a raging bitch.
My fist clenches. I can’t wait until the next time I run into him. It’s been a while since I’ve punched anyone.
“Mike is the HR manager,” Belinda cuts into my vengeful thoughts. “He needs to sit in for this?—”
“Already there.”
Her eyes bore into the side of my face. “I don’t think I’ve seen you so zealous about a cause before.”
Not a cause. A person. One who never responded to my text last night. It was an innocuous one at that, about Katie, and yet Sloane didn’t respond.
Maybe she didn’t get it .
I know that’s not true, and it’s bugging me more than it should.
Belinda checks her watch again. “So you’re aware, we have fifteen minutes before we need to be in the lobby to greet Henry.”
“To greet him? What, are we rolling out a fucking red carpet?”
“No, a green one,” she retorts without missing a beat.
I grunt. “Fine, I’ll make it quick.” I plow through the meeting room door, holding it open for Belinda before pushing the frosted glass shut.
At the far end of the table, Mike sits wearing a What the fuck is this about, now? I’ve got shit to do expression. Beside him is a young woman with long, cinnamon-brown hair and bold blue eyes that brim with apprehension.
Mike gestures at us. “This is Ronan Lyle, the director of operations, and Belinda Cartwright, the hotel’s general manager.”
“And you are Jasmine Guilly,” I say.
“Yes, sir.” She croaks and attempts a smile. She’s probably around my age.
I pull out a chair for Belinda.
Her brow flickers a beat—surprised that a Neanderthal can have manners—before she takes it with a murmured “Thanks.”
I round the table and sit down, willing myself to relax. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Jasmine clears her throat. “I don’t know what this is about.”
“Let’s get right to it, then. Did you share potential Wolf Hotel employee names and hiring decisions from the recent job fair with a man by the name of Cody Wilson?”
“I …” Her jaw drops in shock. “Yes, but …”
“But what?” I press .
Her bottom lip quivers, and then the floodgate of tears opens.
“You’ve fired your first employee. How does it feel?” Belinda’s heels click as we head for the lobby.
“As shitty as I expected.” According to Jasmine, she and Cody were “dating” for a couple of weeks.
She met him at Siren’s Call before the job fair, and they “really hit it off,” which, in my books, means he found out she worked in Wolf’s HR and saw an opportunity to give her dick in exchange for a job with us.
Good plan. Jasmine was part of the team vetting people at the job fair.
She admitted to making sure his résumé got pushed through.
She was shocked when he got the rejection email.
Cody was angry and insisted she find out why. That’s when she started fishing around in the main drive for files. He ended things with her the day after she confirmed those names for him. His reasoning? He can’t handle a serious relationship so soon after ending his engagement.
What a motherfucker.
And now the girl—a four-year Wolf Hotel employee and a transfer from Chicago—is packing her things, a prosperous career with the company ended over an opportunistic asshole. “Is there any way we can not fire her?” I ask.
“It wouldn’t be a good look for you, but stranger things have happened at Wolf. Still, we can’t have someone like that working for us in HR. The guy manipulated her into getting him a job in exchange for sex.” Belinda adds under her breath. “Must be one hell of a cock.”
I snort. Her thought process works a lot like mine.
“But for a bartending job? Who does that?”
“A thirtyish-year-old guy who is now selling boiled peanuts and ice cream from a dinghy. ”
She cringes. “Seriously, who is this guy again?”
“Why? You want his number?” Belinda would eat Cody alive. I’d enjoy that.
She huffs. “Maybe. I could use a good dicking.”
I falter a step, not expecting that answer.
“What?” She shrugs. “It’s been too long since I had a good lay.” There’s humor in her tone.
“Just under two years, if my memory serves me accurately,” I tease. “You really need to get away from this place once in a while.”
“Not this week. Neither will you.”
“Yeah, Archie walked me through my calendar.” It’s rammed to the teeth with meetings and golf sessions—with journalists I need to smooth-talk, politicians I need to ass-kiss, and corporate big dogs I need to make feel special.
I may as well book a room here if I want any sleep. “Where do you live, anyway?”
“Why? You want to come over later?”
I chuckle. And then I meet Belinda’s gaze, see the heat in it. Fuck me . I’ve seen that look before. She’s not joking.
“Need to talk to you!” Dorian charges in to join us, uninvited, but I’m thankful for the interruption. I wouldn’t know how to turn down Belinda without earning her wrath—I doubt she’s rejected often.
“It’s about the sprinklers.” A bead of sweat trickles down Dorian’s cheek and into his bushy mustache.
I briefly wonder if I can use the clean-cut employee policy to make him shave that broom brush off. “What about them?”
“They’re not working.”
“What do you mean, they’re not working?”
“I mean exactly what it sounds like I mean.” The attitude is thick with this one today. “They’re programmed to work during the night and the entire system in the front didn’t go off last night.”
“ That’s a problem.” We’ve spent millions on landscaping, it’s supposed to be eighty-five degrees all week, and we’re hosting guests in three days. We can’t greet them with wilted palms and brown grass.
Beside me, Belinda remains quiet. No help whatsoever.
“What are the engineers saying?”
“They’re on it. The sprinkler company is here too, but so far they’re stumped.”
“Okay. So, what do you want me to do?”
“You? Nothing. I’m letting you know, in case we have to get outside specialists in.”
Which I’ll have to sign for, and then I’ll get reamed out by head office.
I already have a meeting request from them to discuss the golf course rework invoice our finance department approved.
“I’m already over budget, thanks to that fucking moat on the green, so how about we see if these guys we’re paying salaries to can earn their keep before we bring in outside help?
Give them the day. If they haven’t found the problem by tonight, then we move to plan B.
And get the crew guys out there with hoses.
” And I’ll replace these engineers with people who know how to fix fucking sprinklers.
Look at me, on a firing tear today.
“Already got the hoses out,” Dorian confirms. “Hey, what’s with your guy, Connor, callin’ in sick? Is that legit?”
“Yeah, he fucked up his knee yesterday. Doc said to stay off it for a day or two, plenty of ice, that sort of thing. We’re hoping it’s not something serious.”
“Oh, bummer.” Dorian frowns, appearing genuinely distressed. “He brings a good energy to the group. Hope he’s not suffering too much.”
I smirk. “I think he’ll be okay.” When I left the house this morning, Rachel was with him and, by the sounds coming through the door, doing a great job taking his mind off his discomfort.
“I’ll give you an update as soon as I have one.” Dorian storms off.
“That was less painful than usual,” I declare as we pass the mermaid fountain.
“You have good people working for you. Sometimes they just need to check in and you need to give them confidence that they’re making the right calls.”
“Or so they can pass the buck on making the wrong call.” Should I be scrambling to get outside people in to fix this? What if this ends up being an open-heart surgery nightmare on the front lawn of the hotel as reporters roll in?
“Have more faith in yourself, Ronan,” Belinda scolds. “You have a lot to learn but … you’re learning.” She adds after a beat, “Who knew you could?” As if paying me a compliment and leaving it at that is too much to handle for her.
I snort. “Love you too.”