Roberto (The Conti Family #3)

Chapter One

Olivia

I stand outside the frosted-glass door that says CATERINA CONTI — OPERATIONS, my palms damp and my carry-on still digging into my shoulder because I didn’t trust the hotel storage closet on my first day.

The carpet in this hallway is brand-new and aggressively neutral, the kind of beige that makes contractors and investors happy.

It smells like glue and dust. Somewhere below, a drill whines, stops, and starts again.

A man’s voice echoes, “Kill the breaker,” and then the lights over my head blink once.

I adjust the strap, wipe my hand on my skirt, and knock.

“Come in!” she calls. Same voice as a hundred late-night study sessions, same impatience that used to make me finish a case summary twice as fast because Caterina does not believe in wasting minutes.

I push the door open.

She’s behind a desk that still has a shipping label stuck to the underside of the glass.

The office itself isn’t finished; half of one wall is exposed, showing the rough concrete behind the drywall.

The window looks over the casino floor, which is nothing but plywood, wiring, and islands of black plastic-wrapped shapes that will become tables and machines.

But the desk is organized, because of course it is.

Two monitors, a legal pad, three pens aligned perfectly.

There’s a framed photo at the corner: Caterina in a cap and gown, arm slung around me, both of us sunburned from a day outside by the river after graduation.

I feel the jolt in my chest before I can school my face.

“Liv.” She’s up and around the desk before I can say anything. I drop the bag just in time to catch her. She smells like expensive citrus, and I register how small she is, how not contained her movements are, which is unusual for her.

“You cut your hair,” I say into her shoulder. It’s shorter than last year; sleek now, resting just past her chin, ends razor clean.

“You grew yours,” she says, pulling back, and there’s a quick grin that cracks the controlled expression I remember from every one of those study sessions. “You look good.”

“You too.” I try not to stare at the photo. I fail. “Is that new?”

“It came yesterday.” She glances at it, then at me. “I wanted to start in this office with something I actually chose.”

“You chose the pens,” I say. “If I know you as well as I think I do.”

“I did choose the pens.” She mock-wince-smiles. “Just because it’s not ready yet doesn’t mean I can’t be organized.”

“Typical Cat,” I say fondly. “And no. I’m impressed you have a desk at all with that wall.”

She glances at the exposed concrete. “They swore the noise would stop by noon.” The drill starts again, as if it had heard her. She sighs. “They lied.”

I laugh, and with the laugh, the pressure flows out of me. “Thank you for calling me,” I say, quieter. “For thinking of me.”

Her eyes soften. “I told you at graduation I would, if the timing worked. It worked.” She tips her head toward the chair across from her desk. “Come on. Let’s make this official before someone else swoops in and steals you.”

We sit on either side of the desk. She opens a folder, and the tone shifts from friends to business.

Not unfriendly but exact. “So. Olivia Romano. MBA, Wharton. Concentrations: Marketing and Business Analytics. Internships: Fitzroy Resorts, brand partnerships; Nectar, loyalty-life cycle modeling; Dewitt Events, experiential. You’re a California native, moved back home after graduation, and I just convinced you to trade your ocean for… our ocean.”

“I’ve heard the Atlantic is moodier,” I say.

“It is. So are the people. But at least we’re honest about it.”

There’s a glint in her eyes that reads as pride when she says it, and for a second, I get the urge to ask how that happened. How a woman our age can say the word “our” about a whole casino. But I don’t ask. Not yet. This is the interview. This is me being good at what I do.

“Officially,” she says, “you’ll be Marketing Coordinator for The Regent Club, our hotel-casino, reporting to me.

Unofficially, you’ll be my right hand, making this opening feel like we’ve been here a hundred years and everyone else is late to the party.

I need a calendar, a pipeline, and discipline on spend. ”

“I can do that.”

“I know you can,” she says, and there’s a brief flicker of personal again, like a hand squeeze.

Then she flips a page. “Let me talk to you for a few minutes, and then you can ask questions. We’re eight weeks out from soft open on the hotel side if construction stays on the schedule they promised.”

She tilts her head at the wall. “Big ‘if.’ The casino floor trails the hotel by another four weeks; target is to be fully operational before Memorial Day traffic.” She names the date, and I do the math automatically—lead times, vendor availability, press cycles.

“Two phase,” I say. “Hotel first, then casino. Soft open, then grand opening.”

“Yes. The soft open can’t feel like a partial. It has to feel like an invitation. Then the grand opening is the bang. We want to underpromise and overdeliver in between the soft and grand openings.”

“Guest segments?” I ask.

She turns the second monitor toward me. The screen shows a slideshow of brand statements, half-finished style tiles.

“We’re not trying to be Vegas. We’re not trying to be old-school Boardwalk either.

Think: precise, contemporary, but warm. A lens of Italian coastal.

Subtle, not theme-park. Polished wood, and low light beneath hand-cut chandeliers.

Private gaming salons on the upper floors, accessible only by invitation.

“The Regent does not cater to tourists. It’s for legacy patrons—politicians, financiers, and men who prefer their power—shall we say, absolute and unseen. Rules are enforced without spectacle. Problems disappear without explanation.

“And nothing that happens inside these walls ever truly leaves. Discretion is everything here.”

I nod, taking notes. “So not neon and brass. More sandstone and light. Brand voice restrained and confident.”

“Exactly,” she says. “Not tacky but still fun.”

It all sounds perfect. Exactly what I’ve been looking for. But I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Sometimes, too-good-to-be-true is too good to be true. I realize my hand is shaking with adrenaline. I rest it on the notebook, and it calms. “KPIs?”

“Occupancy at soft open: seventy percent in the first two weekends without discounting below target ADT,” she says immediately.

“Grand opening: sellout across three days at target ADT plus ten percent; casino footfall exceeding modeled flow by fifteen percent; loyalty program enrollments exceeding baseline by twenty percent. We’ll track earn-and-burn behavior in the first thirty days post-launch; I want a plan that moves new members from basic enrollment to first redemption in under fourteen days. ”

“Got it.” I write fast. “What do we have on the loyalty program now?”

“Name is set. Tiers are set. Creative is halfway there. The tech is… being welded into place.” She makes a face. “We can get people enrolled. The back end will track. Redemption will be manual for two weeks while they finish the automation.”

“Manual how?” I ask because manual is how mistakes happen.

“Paper and a code list. It won’t be pretty,” she says. “But it will work. We’ll keep the initial redemption menu small. Rooms, dining credits, and a partner spa credit we’re negotiating.”

I flip my page. “Opening calendar. What events exist already?”

She pulls another folder from a stack and fans the contents like a deck of cards. “Hold dates only. No contracts yet. I wanted you to build it with me, from the ground up.”

She slides a list toward me. “Press preview dinner for locals and hospitality media. Chef’s table series—intimate, twelve seats, three nights.

Charity gala with the hospital foundation—this one is important; they’re a legacy presence here, and this is part of how we belong quickly.

One or two entertainment nights—tasteful. I will not be doing a foam party.”

“I can live without foam,” I say. “Who’s the chef?”

“We have a proper professional coming in. My Uncle Gio’s wife, Bianca. She’s just coming off maternity leave but is itching to get back in a professional kitchen. CIA-trained. That’s Culinary Institute, not the other one.”

She smiles. “Spent a few years working in Italy under a Michelin-starred chef. Came back to Atlantic City to run her family’s legacy, Regalia, an institution in this town.

It’s a family restaurant, but we want to open a second location in the hotel itself and give it a fancier vibe.

She’ll be culinary director for anything else food-related under the roof as well. You’ll like her.”

“I’ll trust your judgment on that one,” I say.

“You should. I’ve got great judgment,” she says, and it’s not bragging. It’s just true. “For vendors, I want your Brain Trust approach.”

“You mean the list,” I say, my chest warming pleasantly in the way that happens when someone recognizes something you’re proud of.

At Wharton, I kept a spreadsheet of cold contacts and warm ones: rental houses that didn’t gouge on weekends, photographers who could shoot food with warmth and professionalism, string quartets who could switch to jazz. It became known as “Olivia’s Brain Trust” during my time there.

“I brought it,” I say. “I updated it on the flight.”

“Of course you did,” she says. “We have some local must-haves. The hospital foundation has a preferred florist, and there’s an old-soul print shop that everyone here respects.

I’ll share the community list. I want you to layer your national partners on top, but lead with local when we can.

This town remembers who put money back into it. ”

“Budget?” I ask.

Her finger taps the page twice, an almost-satisfied rhythm. “For the launch series? Mid-six figures. You’ll have guardrails, but you won’t be starved.”