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She stepped up to the microphone, ready for yet another take but Kevin’s attention had turned elsewhere. The door of the control room was open, and a grim-faced Foster stood on the threshold.
What? That’s all I need. More pressure.
Marta appeared at Foster’s shoulder. She brushed her fingers through her hair, before making a great show of welcoming him. They hugged one another. It was sickening. Especially since Foster being here could only mean one thing. Marta had got in touch and let him know that Jordan was coming to London. Her assistant hadn’t taken kindly to being told what to do and decided that some petty payback was in order.
Chloe puffed out her cheeks. She was tired. Tired of the album. Tired of the bullshit. Her only joy was the prospect of getting out of here and going to find her man. Sharing a night of passionate love making with Jordan was exactly what she needed. What she craved.
A horrible thought slipped into her mind. If Foster had just arrived, it surely meant he had come with Jordan on theChloe Jet. And if he was here then where was Jordan?
Chloe turned toward Kevin, sending him a pleading look. He nodded his understanding and held up his hand. Over her earpiece came the words she was hoping to hear. “Chloe, baby gal, let’s call it anite. I’mtiadand you need to rest your voice.”
Kevin moved away from the mixing desk and after hurriedly ushering Marta and Foster out of the room began to pack up his things. Typical of them they had rudely barged in and taken over the man’s creative workspace. Kevin Smith was a musical genius, but the members of her management and entourage had treated him as nothing more than a well-paid hack. Chloe slipped her headphones off and headed for the exit.
When she reached the lounge, she gave Foster a curt, “Hi.” Her gaze searched the rest of the room, hoping that perhaps Jordan had politely lingered outside the studio, waiting for her to come out.
“If you are looking for your toy boy, Chloe, he didn’t make the flight. Apparently, his daddy snapped his fingers and Jordan went running. Said he had more important things to do than go all the way to London for some stray pussy.”
Marta snorted at the spiteful remark. “Of course he did. He doesn’t see Chloe as someone important. Not like we do.” She handed Chloe her phone. “Silly me, I forgot to mention, he left you a message hours ago. It was so pathetic that it slipped my mind.”
The little spark of joy in Chloe’s heart flickered and went out. Jordan wasn’t coming.
When she got back to the hotel, she called Jordan. Her call went straight to voicemail. He’d put his family ahead of her. Of course he had. They were family.
And I am not.
CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE
According to the flight tracker app, Chloe’s plane was only an hour out of LA, so he should have been able to reach her. Seated at his temporary desk in the management suite of the Laguna Beach resort, Jordan had been trying to call Chloe for the better part of an hour. His calls kept going to voicemail. After six endless weeks separated from her, patience was not Jordan’s strong suit.
I just want to tell you how proud I am. Five All American Music Awards nominations is amazing.
The award nominations had been announced earlier that day and it seemed the rest of the world was calling Chloe. He would have to wait until her plane landed to share this fabulous day with her. Hopefully her new album would be received as well as the one she’d released the previous year.Five nominations, wow.She deserves to win them all.
The September opening day for the Laguna Beach resort was approaching much faster than he wished. Jordan was feeling the pressure. It might only be a soft opening, but resort reviewers and the press would still be sniffing about, looking for signs of success, and failure.
It seemed that every decision which had to be made somehow found its way across his desk. With Sheila flying back and forth from New York, he was finding it hard to manage the day-to-day process. How the hell Bryce handled the whole of Europe, and the UK was beyond him. Jordan was fast gaining an appreciation of his brother’s executive skills.
He’d resisted the temptation to call Bryce and ask for his advice, worried that the minute he did, his brother would wonder if he was up to the challenge. And despite all of this going against his better judgement, he couldn’t overcome his desperation to succeed on his own terms. To finally shake off his old reputation.
I wonder what Dad would say to me hiring an assistant manager. Someone to handle the annoying things, like staff rosters and guest supply orders.
But if he hesitated when it came to talking to Bryce, he was even more reluctant to confide in his father. Knowing Edward, he would start asking uncomfortable questions. Jordan’s history of messing things up still hung over him even after all this time. He wondered if he would ever be able to shake his past off, if he would ever come up to the exacting standards demanded by Royal Resorts.
I have to stop comparing myself to everyone else in the family and make some decisions. I shouldn’t ask, I should just do.
He penned a note to himself in his planner.Hire assistant mgr. urgently.If there was one thing, he did have in common with Bryce’s management technique it was his love of a good, old fashioned paper journal.
Sitting back in his chair, Jordan turned to gaze out the window. His office overlooked the seventh hole of the resort’s golf course—in the distance was the blue of the Pacific Ocean. He’d much rather be out there on the greens than in here, wading through a never ending stream of emails. His daily email count was well over two hundred. Every morning Jordan woke to at least one hundred more of them, all marked urgent, all vying for his attention.
His previous work with Royal Resorts had never had him down this much in the weeds. The amount of detail that went into launching a resort bordered on insane. He had department heads under him, and a functioning management team, but apart from Sheila, so many of his staff were barely past the stage of being raw recruits. He hadn’t expected to encounter the labor shortages which existed in LA. Inexperienced resort staff meant Jordan was left managing many problems himself.
“This is not what I thought this gig was going to be,” he muttered.
In one smooth move he turned back to his laptop and closed the lid. Rising from his chair, Jordan grabbed his jacket and cell. The emails, phone calls, and people who regularly cluttered the doorway of his office were all going to have to take a backseat today. He had other priorities.
Today Chloe was coming home.
He fired off a message to Sheila.
