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She frowned. “Not much. I think the manager said five percent.”
“And you are down fifteen percent,” Nate said to Giorgio.
Giorgio put his hand on Mina’s arm as if she were a child in need of correction.
“It must have been more than five percent. Perhaps you have the numbers wrong.”
“No,” said Mina. “It was nowhere near fifteen percent.”
Giorgio sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you propose I do? Alter the economies of the western world? Manipulate the markets? We’ve upped the sales and marketing budgets. The effort is there, Nate.”
“The effort is ineffective.”
Giorgio’s face reddened. Silence fell at the table.
“What about repeat guests?” Mina interjected. “Your number is way down. What if you—”
Nate shot her a withering look. She sat back in her chair and closed her mouth.
“What is your plan of attack for them?” Nate asked Giorgio.
“We’ve done a whole discounted rate campaign. It isn’t moving rooms.”
“Then it isn’t compelling enough.”
Giorgio looked at Mina. “What were you going to suggest?”
Nate nodded tightly at her to go ahead.
“I was thinking of a ‘remember the memories’ type campaign,” Mina said. “I was here in Capri on holidays with my family years ago. When we arrived it brought back such great memories. So perhaps something more emotion based than financial.”
Giorgio steepled his hands together. “I like it.”
Nate liked it, too, but wished the idea had come from his manager and not his protégée. He continued to grill his top man until the end of the three-hour meeting, then mercifully ended it, ushering Mina up to their suite in tight-lipped silence.
“I know,” Mina said in a preemptive strike, the minute the door closed behind them, “I wasn’t supposed to talk. It’s just it was getting painful and I had an idea.”
“Painful is good. Discomfort shakes people up and pushes them outside of their comfort zone. Which, quite frankly, Giorgio needs desperately right now or he will be out of a job.”
Her eyes widened, color washing her cheeks. “I thought by offering up an idea, Giorgio might build on it.”
“And by doing so you undermined my attempt to teach him a lesson. After I told you not to talk.” Nate pinned his gaze on her. “When I put someone in the hot seat I’m doing it for a reason, Mina. So keep your mouth shut.”
She took a step back. “Mi dispiace. I—I didn’t realize that’s what you were doing. It won’t happen again.”
“No, it won’t,” he agreed, his voice sharp as a knife. “Because you will stick to my rules or you won’t play at all.”
She nodded rapidly, pupils as big as saucers, hands clenched by her sides. He did a double take. She was afraid of him?
Then he remembered what she’d just gone through... How intimidating he must look to her at twice her size towering over her. Furious. Mina wasn’t one of his toughened, worldly employees used to his rants. She was a baby chick who’d just taken fledgling steps out of the nest.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and blew out a breath. “Business isn’t the glorified interaction of a tea party, where everyone plays nice and leaves with a smile on their face. It’s a ferociously competitive playground where only the strongest survive. I could leave you in a back office, give you research work and not let you experience what it’s really like, but that’s no way to learn. So find yourself a thick skin, Mina. Learn to be a gladiator, because people’s feelings don’t matter in this game.”
A determined glint entered her eyes as the fear faded from her face. “I can and I will, Nate. I apologize again. I did not mean to undermine your authority.”
“Fine.” He nodded. “Go get changed for the party.”
She started toward her room.
