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Desperation threatened to cloud his judgement. He had to know if Vivian was still at the resort. His feet ate up the distance from the lobby to the hotel’s entrance in a matter of seconds.
Reaching the entrance to the resort parking garage, Bryce shoved his hand into his pants pocket and retrieved his bill fold. Valets were not the most well-paid of staff, they relied heavily on tips. He pulled out a fifty dollar note, looked at it, then grabbed a hold of a one hundred dollar bill. “Come on Ben Franklin, I need you to buy me some information.”
To his relief, the valet from last night was on the morning shift. The man recognized him and gave Bryce a friendly wave. “Good morning, sir.”
Having grown up around the hotel and resort business Bryce had learned early the value of a welcoming smile, and a warm hand shake. “Good morning to you, too. I was wondering if you could help me. Do you remember the lady I was with last night? You parked her rental car when she and I came back from dinner. I meant to catch up with her this morning, but we seem to have missed one another. Could you maybe look and see if her car is still here?”
He held out his hand, the corner of the note poking out between his fingers. The valet glanced around, then came close and they shook hands. “Ms. Holte left about fifteen minutes ago, I think she was headed for the airport.”
“Oh. That’s a pity. Not to worry, I will send her an email. She and I can catch up later. Thank you.”
Racing back to his room, Bryce quickly snatched up a few things and threw them into a bag. He didn’t have time to pack everything or bother with check out. The airport and Vivian were his priority. If he could catch her before her flight left, he might just be able to salvage things between them.
The second his ass hit the seat of a cab, he dialed Patrick’s number. The flight attendant picked up on the second ring. “Hi, Patrick. This is a bit of an emergency. Could you go to the front desk of the Silver Havens resort and ask for a key card to my room. Pack the rest of my belongings and take them to the plane. I’m…” He paused for a moment, unsure as to what he was actually doing.
He met the gaze of the cab driver in the rear vision mirror. Vivian had come in at Houston Hobby, so she must be headed there. “Houston Hobby airport please.”
As the cab pulled out of the resort driveway, he went back to his call. “I am trying to catch a friend at the airport before her flight takes off. Just tell our pilot to be ready to leave once I know what is happening. I think. Yeah. Um. Thanks, Patrick.”
Bryce hung up the call. His brain was as scrambled as his words. All his plans for a leisurely breakfast with Vivian, including a long conversation, and hopefully a repeat of their day at Laguna Beach, had flown out the window. She thought him a duplicitous bastard. Again. And now she was on her way home, determined to have nothing to do with him.
That damn article inLeisure Line. Someone had to have tipped them off about a pending law suit. If it wasn’t Edward, then who else would have done such a stupid thing?
It might be super early in Los Angeles, but Bryce didn’t care. The voice on the other end of the line was less than cheery in its greeting. “Do you have any fucking idea what fucking time it is? We had a wedding here last night, I didn’t get to bed until almost three,” growled Jordan.
“Yes, I am well aware of the time. And good morning to you, too. I trust you were overseeing the celebrations, not partying with the guests.” That was a spiteful thing to say, but Bryce was currently running out of patience with the world. “Do you happen to know anything about a lawsuit and LHRW?”
Jordan’s deep resigned sigh crossed the fifteen hundred miles which separated them. “Yeah. But I didn’t instruct them to go ahead. I just rattled the chains. You said I needed to do something to let Dad know I was in control.”
Bryce’s gaze drifted to the window. The beach view was quickly turning into one of trucks and cars on either side. A road sign read Gulf Freeway, three miles. He took a deep breath as he struggled to keep his temper under control.
I meant talk to Dad, and convince him to give you another chance, not blow up my world.
“What did you actually say? And please be specific. Your future at Royal Resorts could well depend on what you said to our lawyers.”
“Seriously? I took the initiative, like you suggested. So, I went and spoke to our legal eagles. They suggested I could do a few things, legal wise but then cautioned against it. Besides, anything legal has to go via Dad.”
It quickly became apparent that Jordan hadn’t thought his little chain rattling would go any further than the conversation he’d had with the company lawyers. But someone in the New York office had leaked the confidential discussion toLeisure Line. Once he was back in the office, Bryce was going to pay a visit to the in house legal team and find the source of the leak.
“But, um. There is something else I might have done...did do.”
Bryce closed his eyes. “What did you do?”
“Everyone was so angry after the meeting where the reviews were read out, I figured it was worth letting the people at LHRW know that we were not just some mom and pop trailer park that they could dump on. The next time they thought to write a bad review of one of our properties, they might think twice about it.”
Bryce slowly opened his eyes. The sea came into view out the window, and the cab changed lanes as it moved toward the highway which crossed over onto the Texan mainland. The bright sun had Bryce regretting his oversight of leaving his sunglasses behind in his hotel suite.
“Jordan. What did you do? I need it in plain English.”
“It was nothing really. Once I got out here to California, I sent a polite email to the magazine’s editor. Some guy named Lionel. But all I did was ask him to come back to Laguna Beach in a few months and give his readers an update on how the resort was going.”
“Ok, thanks, Jordan.” He hung up the phone and moaned. “Why. Why.” He couldn’t bear to think what Jordan had put in that email. Whatever his brother had said, combined with the suspected leak from the New York office, had led Vivian’s boss to believe legal action was pending against his magazine.
He rubbed at his temples. A dull headache had begun to throb at the back of his head. Lack of morning coffee was quickly taking its toll.
Jordan. Jordan. What have you done?
Two years ago Bryce been so full of confidence in his brother’s abilities that he hadn’t hesitated to back Jordan for the California project. And from what Edward had told him earlier in the year, things were going well at Laguna Beach.
