AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She tried. But every now and again throughout the day she had to find some quiet corner and simply gloat. Maybe her emotions were swinging high and wide like a batter too eager to score, but she just didn't care. If there was a pang now and then when one of her treasured trinkets slipped away in a gold-and-silver box, there was also a sense of triumph.
People had come. And for every one who snickered there was another who admired, and another who bought.
By three, when there was a lull, she poured two cups of the tea they'd offered to customers throughout the morning. "I'm not hallucinating, am I?"
"Not unless we both are." Laura winced as she wriggled her toes. "And my feet hurt too much for this to be a dream. Margo, I think we've actually done it."
"Let's not say that yet. We could jinx it." Carrying her cup, she walked over to straighten a vase of roses. "I mean, maybe this is just fate's way of sneering at us. Giving us a few hours of success. We're open for three more hours, and .. the hell with that." She whirled around. "We're a hit. We're a smash!"
"I wish you'd be more enthusiastic—and I wish I could stay and ride the next wave with you." Wincing, Laura looked at her watch. "But the girls have dance class. I'll wash out the cups before I go."
"No, I'll take care of them."
The door opened, letting in a group of teenage girls who made a beeline for the jewelry counter.
"We have customers," Laura murmured and gathered up the cups herself. "We have customers," she repeated, grinning. "I'll try to be here tomorrow by one." There were so many obligations to juggle, and she worried about how long it would be before she started dropping balls. "Are you sure you can handle working the shop by yourself?"
"We agreed from the start that you'd have to be part time. I'm going to learn how to handle it. Get going."
"As soon as I wash these." She stopped, turned. "Margo, I don't know the last time I had this much fun."
Nor did she, Margo thought. As she measured her young customers, a smile began to bloom. Teenage girls who wore designer shoes had generous allowances—and parents with gold cards. She crossed to the counter, took her place behind it.
"Hello, ladies. Can I show you something?"
Josh didn't mind long hours. He could handle being chained to a desk and being buried under paperwork. Though it wasn't as appealing as zipping across continents to fine-tune the workings of a busy hotel chain and its subsidiaries, he could deal with it cheerfully enough.
But what really pissed him off was being played for a fool.
The longer he remained in the penthouse and studied the files generated from the California Templetons, the more certain he was that Peter Ridgeway had done just that.
He'd done his job. There was no way to accuse him, legally, of mishandling funds or staff, of cutting corners. Though he had done precisely those things, Peter had documented it all, in terms of his rationale, his position, and the increase in profit that his alterations had generated.
But Templeton had never been an organization that was motivated exclusively by profit. It was a family-owned operation steeped in two hundred years of innkeeping tradition that prided itself on its humanity, on its commitment to the people who worked in it and for it.
Yes, Ridgeway had increased profits, but he had done so by changing staff, cutting back on full-time employees in favor of part-time ones. And thereby squeezing people out of benefits and slicing their pay stubs.
He'd negotiated a new deal with wholesalers, produce distributors, and as a result had lowered the quality in the staff kitchens. Employee discounts in reservations and in Templeton hotel boutiques had been cut back, reducing the incentive that had always been traditional for Templeton people to use Templeton services.
In the meantime, his own expense account had increased. His bills for meals, laundry, entertainment, flowers, travel, had steadily grown. He'd even had the gall to charge his trip to Aruba to Templeton as a business expense.
It gave Josh great pleasure to cancel Peter's corporate credit cards. Even if he did consider it too little, too late.
Should have aimed for his balls after all, he thought, and leaned back to rub his tired eyes.
It would take months to rebuild trust among the staff. A huge bonus and a mountain of flattery would be necessary to lure back the head chef who had quit in a huff at Ridgeway's interference. Added to that was the resignation from the longtime concierge at Templeton San Francisco that he'd found buried in Peter's files. There were others as well. Some could be lured back, others were lost to competitors.
None of them had come to him, Josh mused, or to his parents. Because they'd believed, justifiably, that Peter Ridgeway was a trusted, highly placed member of the Templeton group.
He tugged at his tie, trying not to think about the amount of work that still lay before him. Someone was going to have to take over his responsibilities in Europe, at least temporarily. He wasn't going anywhere.
Already the penthouse suite was more his than Ridgeway's. The fussy furniture had been replaced with Josh's preference for the traditional. American and Spanish antiques, with deeply cushioned, generous chairs were more in keeping with the scheme of Templeton Monterey. After all, the hotel and its decor followed the history of the area. The resort was more truly of California Spanish design, but the hotel echoed it in the ornate facade, the musical fountains, and lush gardens. The lobby was done in deep reds and golds, offering heavy chairs, long, high tables, winking brass, and glossy tiled floors.
There were potted palms, like the one he'd chosen for the corner of his office, in a huge hand-thrown clay pot that took two men with beefy arms to lift.
He'd always thought Templeton Paris more feminine, with its mix of the airy and the ornate, and Templeton London more distinguished, so British with its two-level lobby and cozy tearoom.
But Monterey was perhaps closest to his heart after all. Not that he'd ever pictured himself settling behind a desk here, even if it was a Duncan Phyfe, with an eye-blurring view of the coast he loved only a head's turn away.
