Chapter 24 - Conrad
Conrad
I don’t make it up to the penthouse. I don’t even make it close to our space. As I’m sending a text to Mav to meet me and Storm in Atticus’s room, my phone lights up with a call from the front desk.
Sally Dupree, the day manager, never calls me unless something is on fire, and even then it would just be to report it after the flames have been extinguished and the guests settled.
The woman’s been here since before I could walk. When I was younger and wandering around the hotel behind the grown-ups, trying to be part of everything important before I was ready for it, she taught me to stop and listen before I spoke, to watch and observe before I jumped in with both feet.
If she’s calling me instead of handling something herself, it’s not a spark. It’s a blazing fucking inferno about to incinerate everything.
She’s seen every problem under the sun walk through those doors, and she has the spine of a damn battleship. If something has her rattled, then it’s bad.
“Conrad,” she says, voice low but sharp, “you need to come to the front desk. Now. We have…an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?” I ask, already hitting the down button on the elevator instead of up to the penthouse.
“The kind where a woman in a hat big enough to have its own zip code is threatening to sue us for ‘facial deformation.’”
Sally’s voice is a whisper. I have an image of her covering the phone with her hand, as though to hide her conversation from any listening ears.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to stop the migraine building behind my eyes. “Say what now?”
“She says the spa gave her bad Botox.”
I stop walking. “We don’t do Botox. We have never had Botox. The liability is too high. And we would need an MD on staff.”
“I know this! The spa manager knows this as well, and she swears that nothing has changed, but this woman doesn’t care. She’s loud, and she’s not alone. She is causing a scene, and…well, you’ll see. Just please get down here. Now.”
The line disconnects.
When I step into the marble-floored entryway, I spot her instantly. NFL-worthy shoulder pads and Italian leather heels. The large, hot pink hat perched on brassy-toned hair is a crime against both fashion and personal space, and the sunglasses are so large they could double as welding goggles.
The lobby is busy. It’s eleven in the morning, with couples checking-in and others checking-out beneath the halogen hum of the twinkling chandelier that hangs over the fountain.
Guests mill about, hands curled around overpriced lattes as they make the plans for the day.
It should be the kind of organized chaos I love, the kind that flows and puts more money in my bank accounts.
Today that flow is fucked, as every single one of them gets a front-row seat to this circus. More than one person has their cell phone out, no doubt recording for social media.
At the concierge desk, a new hire goes pale. I catch her eye and tap two fingers on the counter three times as I stroll by—our shorthand for breathe, smile, and script. She inhales, and her shoulders settle. Sally drilled that into me at sixteen: “Apologize. Offer. Act. In that order, sugar.”
I shoot a quick message to PR to have them scrub the hotel name from any videos being posted.
PR pings back instantly—a junior representative wants to clap back on socials.
I tap out a swift reply, CC-ing it to legal.
“No statements. This needs quiet suppression only, not hostility. Use geo/keyword scrub. Three lines and three lines only—‘We don’t offer injectables,’ ‘Guest wellbeing is our only priority,’ and an ‘Independent review is underway.’ Legal can review. ”
Then I step into the middle of the drama.
The spa manager is standing stiffly beside the woman in the hat, her arms folded like she’s holding herself back from strangling her. I run through what I remember of her dossier mentally.
Bonnie Drayton has been ten years in our spa, has managed to keep five estheticians through two recessions and my father’s budget cuts. Her jaw ticks, but not from fear. Offense.
Pink Hat sees me and turns her volume up.
“Are you in charge here?” she demands.
“I am,” I say, keeping my voice smooth. “Conrad Masterson. How may I be of service, Ms…?”
“Langford. Mrs. Karen Langford,” she sniffs.
Karen Langford. “Of course,” I say. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Your spa is the problem!” she says, jabbing a manicured finger toward me. “It ruined my face. I have an event in two weeks, and look at me! Look!”
She whips off the sunglasses. Her forehead is frozen in a state of permanent surprise, but it’s not uneven. There’s nothing obviously wrong with her. Except I recognize her. She’s the same Karen Mav had to deal with a few nights ago.
The spa manager jumps in. “Ma’am, as I’ve already explained, we don’t offer Botox here. We offer facials, peels—”
“Don’t you dare gaslight me!” she screeches. “I have the receipts. Do you know who I am?
The phones lift higher. A couple near the ficus leans in, the kind who will tag us before the elevator doors close. I angle my body to give cameras nothing but my profile and a smile.
I know exactly who she is. After Mav’s little encounter, we had a dossier made.
She’s Mrs. Langford, the wife of a powerful senator and—if my memory is right—the mistress of a man who sits on the state gaming board.
She could cause problems on so many fronts for us.
The gaming board especially are two words that can make an inanimate license get a little twitchy.
This isn’t a guest service moment. It’s a live charge on a wet floor.
Just like that, I can see the headlines.
Casino Under Fire for Disfiguring Politician’s Wife.
Botched Botox Scandal at Luxury Resorts.
Death and Disfigurement in Savannah
The last thing I need is another scandal.
Not with the overdoses, the drug rumors, the cops sniffing around, and now the motherfucking mafia at my goddamn door.
Not to mention the Ghost in our cameras—Atticus’s word, but it fits.
Every mess in the last week comes with mysteriously missing footage and our fingerprints stamped all over it.
I am going to defuse this situation, and then I am going to do whatever it fucking takes to get this shit back under control. I don’t give a shit who I have to bribe, maim, or murder. The next time I am balls deep in my girl, the relief is going to last longer than fifteen goddamn minutes.
I put on my best, most charming smile, the one that can hide all manner of sin under southern hospitality. It’s dripping with a charm sweeter than honeysuckle and bourbon. Hospitality, after all, is nine-tenths theater.
Sally Dupree used to make me rehearse in her back office, especially when I was acting like an asshole. It was all about posture, pitch, breath—control them. Make them do what you want them to do.
“People don’t pay for rooms,” she’d say. “They pay to feel safe, and they pay to feel important.”
Today, safety and significance is going to cost Titan-Wynn a few comped nights and a velvet rope around a tantrum.
I lean in a bit and place my hand on Mrs. Langford’s shoulder, giving her a friendly little squeeze.
“Ma’am, I’m very sorry for your experience. Whether or not it happened here, you’re our valued guest. Please accept my deepest apologies that you were not treated as such. Let me personally rectify that immediately.”
“Damn right I am,” she says with her chin in the air.
“So here’s what I’m going to do. We’re going to comp your current stay. In fact, extend it as long as you like, also on us. Full spa package, meals, whatever you need while I personally investigate your claim.”
Her chin lifts. “That’s more like it.”
From the side of my eye, I see phones lower. A couple peels off toward the elevators, one of them shrugging. The current resumes its slow, expensive flow.
I think Mrs. Langford is satisfied for the moment. It’s hard to tell with her face frozen.
She lists off a few demands, ticking each one off on her fingers and eyeing me shrewdly the entire time as if to see when I’ll give. Housekeeping twice a day, a private cabana, and coffee service at her door at exactly eight a.m.
Ms. Dupree is already keying in the requests on her tablet, color-coding in that way she taught our whole front-of-house: green for do this to retain your sanity, red for watch your ass.
I hold my smile.
“Anything you need, ma’am. We are here to serve.”
It feels dirty, pandering to her, but if it keeps her quiet long enough for me to figure out what’s actually going on, I’ll eat the cost.
Whatever she needs is still going to be a fuckton cheaper than losing any of our licenses.
She leans in closer, the hat knocking my nose and her breath reeking of cheap whisky. “And I expect the finest wine to be sent to my room, naturally.”
“Of course. I’ll see to that right away.”
She gives me a curt nod before shooting the spa manager what I think is supposed to be an evil look and then turning on her heel.
The second she sweeps out of the lobby—hat tilting dangerously close to an urn on a console—I turn to the day manager.
“Do you really want us to send up the best wine? It’s a ten thousand dollar bottle of—”
“Fuck, no. Decant a bottle of two buck chuck and send it up in an empty bottle of something French.”
Sally tries and fails to hide a smile as she puts in the order. She finally gives up and snorts out loud. “Serves her ass right.”
“Damn straight.”
“Mr. Masterson, we don’t offer—”
“I know,” I interrupt Bonnie. “But that crazy bitch is fucking two men who can make my life really fucking difficult. I will be doing a complete investigation, and until I figure out what’s going on—and have proof of it—this is where we’re at.”
Bonnie’s nostrils flare. She’s been working on razor-thin budgets since my father cut product lines to make a quarterly deck look pretty. I log her frustration for later because right now, we need proof, not pride.
She crosses her arms over her chest and stares at the floor, clearly pissed I didn’t stick up for her. She’s a grown-ass woman, though. She can deal with her feelings being hurt.
“What do you need?” she finally asks.
“Get me the CCTV footage from every angle in the spa and the front desk for the past seventy-two hours. Send it straight to Atticus.”
Her eyebrows rise. “You think she—?”
“I think I want every single person who works in that spa or at this desk on the premises for interviews by the end of the day. I don’t know why she thinks we fucked up her face, but I want proof we didn’t.
Then it’s Legal’s problem.” She steps away.
“And Bonnie? Make sure everyone clocks in and mark it for double pay for the day. Everyone gets a full day’s worth of hours.
And if any of the moms need to pay a babysitter, get the receipts and reimburse them. ”
She nods and walks away confidently while I head to my father’s old office, my patience gone. I pull out my phone and send a group text to the other Titans.
I need Atticus’s full attention, and if he’s in front of his computer, I won’t get it.
Con
Office. Now. Get eyes on Phoenix. Make sure she stays upstairs. I want her locked in the penthouse with Zeus.
I take my seat behind the desk that still smells faintly of his cologne and old bourbon and sex from just a short while ago, and picture the room the way it’s going to be in five minutes.
Storm posted on the wall like a bouncer who’s got my back.
Mav on the arm of the leather sofa—lethal charm within striking distance.
Atticus at the desk because he needs his surfaces to anchor and steady him.
And me by the window. I take the high ground, the habit of a boy who learned early to count exits.
We’re all life-size chess pieces, the board set for a game. It’s an ugly one, but we’ll play anyway. There’s no other way to win.