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Chapter Thirteen
Wyatthadcalledameeting with Alessandra and her executive team to discuss the transition on Monday, January second. They were all due in the conference room at ten in the morning. Sailor had come earlier than the others to commiserate with Alessandra about the current circumstances.
“Need a shoulder to cry on?” Sailor asked.
“I’m beyond crying right now. I think I’ve accepted it. It’s hard to be mad at Wyatt, though. He got the place opened, and he made his investors a bit of money. Now they want out. It’s how this business runs.”
“I guess I just thought, with his son’s name on it, maybe he would be more inclined to keep it. And these CasinoMatch people. Do they even know what they’re doing?”
Alessandra shook her head. “I don’t know. I hope so, for your sake.”
“Wherever you land, boss, I’ll follow you. I’ve said that before.” Alessandra appreciated her loyalty but Sailor should be thinking of herself.
“I’d be thrilled to have you come work for me again, you know that. It’s just that I don’t know where I’ll be. I already told you, it wouldn’t make sense for you to go from The Benson to a small local casino—too much of a loss in your income.”
“If the new owners don’t know how to run this place, I’ll lose income, anyway.”
“Sailor, just because I’ll be replaced doesn’t mean you need to be as well. Resorts change hands all the time. It’s not like in the past when the majority of the Strip was owned by three big corporations. Magnum sold off two of their properties last year, remember? To the Chadwick brothers. They didn’t have a lot of experience, but they seem to be doing okay. Besides, the CasinoMatch folks will have you around to help them learn.”
“I hope they’re willing to listen,” Sailor said. “And speaking of listening to me, have you given any thought to your feelings for Beau Brooks?”
“Beau Brooks? Why would I give him any more thought—or any of my feelings? He left yesterday, right? Whatever we shared is over. If I meant more to him, he could have stayed and told me that. He didn’t.” All day yesterday, Alessandra had hoped Beau would reach out. They both had their reasons to be angry at each other, but she hoped maybe once he calmed down, he would call.
“Why didn’t you call him? You could have called him just as easily as him calling you.”
“Sailor, it didn’t end well. He thinks I used him. And you know what? I can’t say I blame him. I spent all this time with him gambling, but I kept my emotions to myself. How would he know how I felt?”
Sailor’s voice rose in exasperation. “You’ve just explained the entire problem, Alessandra! How would he know if you didn’t tell him?”
“I can’t, Sailor. What am I going to say? ‘Hey, Beau, yes, I wanted you to gamble and yes, I’ve fallen in love with you and no, I’m not giving up my career to move to Montana.’ Yeah, not. He already thinks I used him. Me trying to convince him otherwise will only make it worse. I’ve hurt him, Sailor. He won’t recover from that, no matter what I do, because he’s a man who doesn’t let himself get hurt. It won’t matter to him that I’m more miserable about him being gone than I am about being unemployed. He’s convinced that every emotion I’ve showed him was a ruse.”
Sailor moved to hug Alessandra. “If you love him, go to him.”
Alessandra shook her head. “It’s too late. And right now, Wyatt is expecting us. Let’s go join the others in the conference room.”
The rest of Alessandra’s team had already gathered. They already had a general idea of the meeting’s purpose. Looking at their serious faces, Alessandra felt sad she would be leaving them. They were like family to her. It was unlikely a new owner would affect their roles, at least not in the short-term. But they knew what it meant for Alessandra, so when she walked in, each of them stood to hug her and offer support.
Gavin, the gambling operations vice president, had returned from his vacation. “I’m so sorry, boss,” he said, his arm around her shoulder.
Geneva, the hotel operations vice president, offered, “I know you’ll find another amazing job soon, Alessandra.”
Her chief of security Zane, and chief financial officer Roland, joined in as well, both expressing their regret at what they knew was about to occur.
It was hard for Alessandra to stop from crying. She would miss this group—the days without sleep getting ready to open, the late nights working with customers, the many parties and celebrations they’d enjoyed as perks of their roles. The camaraderie they shared had kept Alessandra from feeling lonely. She hadn’t minded not having a serious relationship, despite her age, because this was her family.
Her tears started to fall. The thought of losing that connection with this group only amplified her sense of loss losing Beau. She would be alone, and she’d have to re-boot her career. Maybe that would help her get over Beau, put him from her mind.
As the others were hugging her, Alessandra heard the door open. Wyatt walked in, and she quickly brushed her tears away. Wyatt would understand, but she didn’t want him to worry. Everyone fell silent and took a seat around the table. Wyatt remained standing and took a deep breath.
“Hello everyone.” Polite murmurs from the executive team followed in response. “As you all know, the vision of my private equity firm, Holter Holdings, is to make strategic investments in newer businesses, ones that have the potential for a great deal of future growth. That is what we did with the former Golden Palace, growing it into The Benson.”
Everyone knew how Holter Holdings had ended up actually managing the hotel, renaming it to The Benson. Alessandra was curious why Wyatt was rehashing the events.
“We quickly realized that the Golden Palace owners, and the management team they put into place, did not have the skills nor the resources to build the resort, let alone reach long-term success. As most of you have heard, we’d done our due diligence before investing, but we’d failed to uncover some, shall we say ‘issues’ that had been deliberately hidden from our attorneys. You all know what happened after that. Mismanagement and misappropriation of funds nearly caused construction to stop. When that occurred, it made more sense to our Holter Holdings investors to finish building and run the resort for a period of time. With the economy the way it was, we were unlikely to find a buyer, and keeping the resort open was the only way to recoup some of our losses.”
Wyatt looked at Alessandra and smiled. “We hired Alessandra, and we changed the name to The Benson.” The small group made a show of clapping to recognize their leader as well as the resort’s name, which everyone knew held special meaning. Alessandra thought it was nice for Wyatt to give her praise, knowing she was on her way out.
“And then Alessandra hired you talented leaders to help turn the business around, and you did. I want to thank you for all the hard work you’ve put in the last two years to make The Benson as successful as it has been.” Alessandra appreciated the sensitivity with which he was delivering this difficult message.He’s almost making it seem not too bad, she thought.
