Page 23 of Wrong Room, Right Billionaire

“I know how it happened. I mean, what could anyone have possibly found wrong with a Bale Resort?” I ask as we ascend. “Especially the Sapphire. I mean it’s right down the goddamned street. How could it be lagging?”

“These articles are usually just fabricated stories aimed at people like us from people below us that think you can take down an empire with a toy slingshot. I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” he says as he looks at his phone. “Well shit.”

“Well shit, what?” I ask as we step into my office.

“Nothing. It’s nothing. Alex just wants me to stop at Whole Foods for guac ingredients on the way home from work today, which means I’m going to get stuck for a solid twenty minutes on South Dixie. Yay for me.”

“You can’t say oh shit and then lie about avocados,” I growl.

Donovan sighs. “The views are up to eight hundred K, and the comments are a disaster.”

I sit down at my desk and press my fingers against my closed eyes. “And the other numbers?” I ask, knowing Donovan knows what I mean.

“Well, the good news is no one has canceled reservations. The bad news is no one has booked a room in the last twenty-four hours,” he says.

“Across the board!?” I demand.

“No, no, just Miami. And New York, San Diego, Maui, and maybe Cabo. Oh! Cabo has one! We are not without a paddle!”

I look up at him. “But we are still up shit’s creek.”

“A little bit. Yeah,” he admits.

This time I am the one letting out a persecuted sigh. I lean back in my chair, arms crossed, lips between my teeth. Donovan pulls out his tablet and is busy trying to figure out disaster relief, no doubt. Meanwhile, the keywords from the article play over in my head.

Overrated. Overpriced. There were even complaints about the glassware? I mean, shit, even dive bars can keep their glasses clean.

But those details, details that could have been easily fabricated as Donovan pointed out, are not what’s grinding on me.

It was the last part.

In an age when people want to experience travel at its roots by immersing in the true culture of new places, the infamous Bale brothers would be wise to go back to their roots. To what Bale used to stand for twenty-five years ago. Because if I had to guess, the original founders would be rolling over in their graves if they saw everything being swept under those Persian rugs.

Donovan, being the intuitive assistant he is, seems to know that. “Little do they know, our rugs aren’t Persian. They’re Turkish Oushak. Obviously.”

But it’s not the rugs that are bothering me. It’s a reference to the late founders. To my parents. It’s a low blow that the author of the anonymous article clearly knows nothing about.

Running a brand like this may look like a paradise job. But little do the guests and anyone on the outside know, it’s no beach vacation. Quite the opposite, really. So where anyone gets off poking holes in the company I throw seventy hours of my week into upholding, I can’t begin to understand. They’ve got a lot of gall, both the writer and the slime that hired them. And I will figure out who is behind both.

“I have some thoughts,” Donovan says gently. Donovan is a problem solver, which is arguably half the reason he works for me. That and he personally knew my parents, so there was no need for catching him up in the beginning when I brought him on the team. I didn’t need to relive the trauma, and he understood that.

“Shoot,” I tell him, still staring at the wall behind him as he swipes through his tablet.

“We up the advertisement. Show amenities no one else has. Maybe even some vacation specials and–”

“We are not an amusement park with three-day passes,” I cut in. “We are a luxury resort line. We don’t do specials. And that would probably look like a band-aid on a bullet hole, given our current situation,” I say, and he nods.

“True, true…”

I shake my head, scratching at my shaved jawline. I keep it short, partially for professionalism and partially because with every passing day, more silver hair pops up. I blame my younger brother for it. That and little surprises like this.

“No, we don’t want to look desperate. Whatever we do needs to look more organic. Like random five-star reviews written in contrast.”

“So pay some customers to leave them,” he says. But again, I don’t want it to look obvious.

“Or…we hire a travel journalist. Someone people know and love. Someone with a good name for themselves that people trust,” I say, and Donovan agrees.

“Yes. That’s good. Someone we work jointly with to polish up this little fender bender. Maybe an influencer…”