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I turned to try and figure out who was speaking but I couldn’t figure it out. I was forced to turn away from the crowd and towards the podium, battling with the sinking feeling in my gut.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Molly
“The restaurants are understaffed,” I said, as Tristan glanced down at his phone. “I want to start addressing that problem starting tomorrow.”
“Sorry,” he said, setting his phone down. “One of the suppliers contacted me. Can you repeat that?”
We were sitting in the dining area of my suite. The table was cut in the shape of a hexagon and perfectly mirrored the cozy little nook we were situated in, which afforded us a brilliant view of the ocean. Tristan had ordered the eggs Benedict, and I had gone for a breakfast of fruits, but neither one of us had made much progress with our meal.
“I’m looking to hire a few more waiters for the restaurants,” I told him. “Now that the resort is at full capacity, we need to make sure that we don’t drop the ball on service.”
“Right,” he nodded. “I meant to do that myself before the opening.”
“Well, now you don’t have to worry about it,” I reminded him. “That’s why I’m here.”
He smiled. “That’s right.”
“Does the resort have a budget that I need to stick to?” I asked. “I need to know how many people I can take on and at what cost.”
“Of course,” he nodded. “Ben will have all the details.”
“I had to push my meeting with Ben to this evening,” I said, glancing over at the schedule on my phone. “It’s the second time we’ve had to postpone.”
“Ben will be at my office in an hour,” Tristan said. “If you need to speak to him urgently, you can catch him there.”
“I have a staff meeting in half an hour,” I said, spearing some pineapple with my fork. “It’ll probably run me about an hour…at least.”
“Ah, shit, Ben and I will be in another meeting by that time.”
“I figured,” I smiled. “That’s okay; I can wait until this evening to meet with him.”
We were interrupted by Tristan’s cell phone. “Excuse me,” he said, as he left the table to answer his phone.
It had been two weeks since I’d officially started working for Tristan at the resort. I had jumped right into it and had found that I really enjoyed the work. It involved a lot of interaction with the staff, a lot of patience and people skills, but it was exhilarating and interesting and every day was different. The downside to my new job was the fact that it didn’t leave me with a lot of time left over to spend with Tristan. Which was just as well considering he was extremely busy, too.
The resort had been generating excellent reviews since the public opening, and Tristan and Ben were both thrilled about that. But I could sense that neither one wanted that reputation to slip. They didn’t want to get complacent, and that meant a lot of hard work, late nights, and endless meetings. As tiring as things were for me, I knew they were twice as bad for Tristan.
Our days had taken on a ritualistic pattern in the evening. Sometimes we would eat at Albero together, but most often we would just retire to my suite. We would make love passionately and then order in some room service to replenish our energy.
After dinner we would sit on the couch for half an hour and talk about our day; if we weren’t too tired, we would make love again, and then I would retire to bed and Tristan would tackle his never-ending load of paperwork or hold late night Skype meetings with his international investors in different time zones. Then he would slip into bed beside me and wrap his body around mine. We would sleep soundly until our respective alarms woke us up the next morning.
There was something cosmopolitan about the lifestyle we led, and as unfamiliar as it was to me, it was still comfortable. I was surprised by how quickly I had adapted to life in Hawaii. Granted it had only been a couple of weeks, but I could see myself living and working here indefinitely. It was a positive sign that I didn’t take for granted.
“I’m so sorry,” Tristan said as he returned to the table. “There was an issue with my hotel in LA.”
“Nothing major?”
“It shouldn’t be,” he sighed. “But I think the staff’s getting a little complacent. It’s been months since I traveled there to see to things. I’ve been so busy opening the resort here that I guess I’ve neglected everything else.”
“It’s understandable.”
“For everything, except you,” he said, looking up at me.
“What do you mean?” I frowned.
“I’m talking about what a terrible boyfriend I’ve been to you,” he said apologetically. “We’ve been together just a little over two weeks, and in that time, we haven’t even spent a whole uninterrupted day together.”
