Chapter 8 #2
I freeze for a second. The last thing I need is another confrontation, especially after the blow I just took from Lawrence. But Sunny’s not backing down.
“Investor? Lawrence is an investor? And you didn’t tell me about my business?”
“You overheard, didn’t you?” I ask, trying to keep my voice calm.
Her eyes flash with indignation. “Of course, I overheard. You think I’m going to let you negotiate behind my back?”
I exhale, fighting the urge to snap. “It’s not like that. This is my job, Sunny. You don’t get to walk in here,” I gesture around the room, “and change what I’ve been doing with Evie’s backing.”
“I don’t get to? You’re treating me like I’m a fucking outsider. You didn’t tell me about the investor meeting. You’re making decisions that affect me. I’m trying to help save this hotel, Ryder. I’m not just here for some holiday gimmick.”
My jaw clenches, but I can’t look away from her. “It’s not just you, Sunny. There are big decisions to be made here. You’re not ready for the hard parts. The numbers don’t lie. The hotel is in the red, and that’s where my focus needs to be.”
She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t retreat. Instead, she steps closer, her face inches from mine.
“I care more than you do,” she spits out, rougher now, a raw wound she’s forcing open. “This hotel is my shot at building something real. I’m not just going through the motions for the paycheck, Ryder. I don’t have the luxury of that.”
Her words hit harder than they should. They land somewhere deep. A place I’ve been ignoring for too long. The way she says “shot” makes it clear that for all her joking, her chaos, this place is her dream.
Maybe it’s all she has left to hold on to.
I feel everything shift in the room. A pressure building that wasn’t there before.
I take a step back, my chest tightening.
“Don’t talk to me about luxury,” I snap, suddenly angry at the way she’s making this personal. “You think I don’t know what’s at stake here? This isn’t just about you, Sunny. This is my job, my reputation. My career.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” she snaps back.
“Maybe you’re so focused on saving your reputation that you can’t see what’s happening here.
This hotel, this place… this is my heart, Ryder.
It’s all I’ve got. And I’m not going to stand by and let you run it into the ground because you’re too scared to take a risk. ”
I freeze, the words hanging in the air between us.
My throat tightens, but I don’t speak right away.
I’ve spent my life burying my emotions under a pile of spreadsheets and figures, but there’s something about the way she looks at me now, so raw, so unguarded, that makes me feel exposed in a way I can’t shake.
I should say something, anything, to shut this down, but instead, I stand there, knowing I’m losing control of everything. Her voice still lingers in my mind, the fire in her eyes, the sincerity of it all.
She turns away, her shoulders tight as she walks toward the door, but stops before she reaches the handle.
“You want to keep playing it safe, Ryder? Fine. But don’t act like I don’t know what I’m doing.
I might not have your spreadsheets, but I have something you clearly don’t.
Passion. The willingness to fight for this place. ”
The door clicks shut behind her, and I stand there for a moment, staring at the spot where she was. Her words echo in my head, and for the first time in a long time, I feel my chest constrict. It’s gnawing at the back of my mind.
Maybe it’s the way she’s always right, even when she’s completely wrong.
I sit back down at the table, but I’m not looking at the papers in front of me anymore. I’m thinking about her, the fire, the conviction in her voice.
I tell myself I can’t afford to get distracted by any of this. But as the minutes tick by, what she said doesn’t let go.
This hotel is her shot.
I just don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do with that.
That night, I sit in the cold, dim light of my office, staring at the screen as if it’s a thousand miles away. The cluttered files in front of me are a mix of security logs, financial statements, and old emails from Evie.
She’d flagged these months ago, just before she died.
At the time, I dismissed them. Thought they were another one of her paranoid tangents. The kind of thing she’d notice but never quite manage to connect.
She was constantly scanning the shadows for problems that didn’t exist. A little eccentric, a little obsessive. But she loved this hotel and enjoyed making sure it ran smoothly.
Or so I thought.
Now, as I sift through the numbers, the red flags are too obvious to ignore. The discrepancies, the missing funds. They’re not just accounting mistakes.
This is calculated.
The kind of sabotage that takes more than a careless slip of the pen or a misplaced invoice. Someone’s been hiding their tracks, covering up their theft with just enough smokescreens to keep it from being noticed.
The numbers don’t add up, and it’s worse than I thought. Money’s been siphoned off from multiple sources: vendor payments, guest accounts, and operational budgets.
A little here, a little there. Nothing too significant to trigger an immediate alarm. But over time, it’s added up.
I lean back in my chair, exhaling slowly. What I’m looking at settles over me. Something clicks inside me.
This isn’t a failing hotel.
Someone was making it fail.
The realization hits me with a punch to the gut. Someone within these walls has been actively undermining this place.
I glance at the old voicemail from Evie, still saved in my inbox from last month. The last time I’d heard her voice. She’d been drunk, in one of her moods, rambling on about everything under the sun.
But there was something in the last bit of her message that has always stuck with me, even if I didn’t want to admit it.
“If you don’t start trusting people, Ryder, you’ll end up rich, alone, and boring as hell. Don’t be boring, darling.”
The words linger, taunting me.
I mutter to myself, almost reflexively, “Too late.”
Evie had always told me that I had a way of pushing people away, of keeping them at arm’s length.
She hated the way I kept everything so tightly wound. The way I wouldn’t let anyone in, even when I knew I needed to. I never listened to her. Never trusted anyone enough to.
I pour myself another drink, the amber liquid sloshing gently into the glass. The sharp burn hits the back of my throat, and I close my eyes for a second, letting it settle in.
What the hell am I supposed to do with this? Who the hell do I trust now?