Page 15 of The Player + The Pact = I Do

“We do,” I say, standing and picking up the papers I have to present to him. “It’s just twenty minutes.”

“You’ve gotten me a fiancée?” he asks.

“I’ve got someone for you to meet.She’ll be here in about twenty minutes. But I wanted to talk to you about something first.”

He looks at me and I stare right back, my face blank, like I’m not a little dizzy from the intensity of his gaze. I’ve really got to get out of here.

“Okay,” he says. “What’s this about? You after a pay raise?”

“Kinda,” I mumble under my breath. “It’s about The Mayfair.”

He groans. “What’s happened now?” He actively avoids calls from Louis, so I’m not quite sure why he’s acting like he’s constantly bothered by the hotel.

“I want to run through a few things with you.”

“You do?” he asks.

I pull in a breath. This is it. This is me shooting my shot. “I don’t know if you know this about me, but my background is hotels.”

“Right,” he says, turning back toward his office. He’s not shutting me down, just moving us to a location that will be more comfortable for him. I follow him. “I’ve had experience in almost all departments, from housekeeping to reception, and I’ve acted as deputy manager.” I don’t add that I was one of three deputy managers. It’s not unusual in a hotel to have more than one.

“Right,” he says again, taking a seat behind his desk and glancing at his computer screen.

“And I’ve worked at The Mayfair.”

That gets his attention, and he finally looks at me. “You did?”

I nod, glancing away as I sit. “And I got to see how things work—and don’t work—up close. I have some ideas.”

“I don’t run the place,” he replies. “Speak to Louis. I’m sure he’ll appreciate your input.”

He’s trying to get rid of me, but I’m not going to let him. Right now is about me, not him. “Louis isn’t the right manager for The Mayfair.”

Leo sighs. He couldn’t be less interested in this conversation if he had Margot Robbie in his lap. “But Louisisthe manager of the hotel.”

“But he shouldn’t be.”

He raises his eyebrows like a warning that I’m about the step over the line. But there’s no point in me working this job unless I’m prepared to say what needs to be said.

“You might not want to hear it but it’s true, and I think you agree with me. Louis isn’t setting the place on fire by any stretch. But he hides from his responsibilities and has no energy to implement new ideas. He’s cut the marketing budget to a tenth of what it was in order to improve profitability, and I guess it’s kept him in a job until now, but that lack of marketing budget is having an impact. Bookings are down for the third year in a row. He hasn’t asked you for any capital investment for refurbishments, despite a significant number of rooms showing signs of wear and tear.” I pause, but Leo doesn’t respond, so I go on. “He’s running the place into the ground and he doesn’t care. This is what he does. I’ve had a look at his history and talked to people in the industry. He’s done it at the last three places he’s managed.”

Leo sighs. “The Mayfair isn’t a priority for me.”

“Clearly,” I say, and immediately wish I hadn’t. “Then why don’t you sell it?”

“It’s complicated. I can’t.”

“So you’re going to watch it get worse and worse until… when?”

“Have you scheduled this entire meeting so you cancomplain about Louis, or are you here to propose a solution?”

I pull my shoulders back. “I have a solution for you. It will require some investment and you’re not going to see an uptick in profits for two years, but…” I pull out my financial forecast. “After that, you can see that profitability should increase by twenty-three percent in the following two years.”

“You think the marketing budget should increase?”

I set in front of him the budget and capital expenditure plans I developed. He starts scanning the numbers, then flips a page and sees my proposals for increasing the use of the event space and refurbishing the rooms to justify higher room rates. “Increasing the marketing budget alone won’t do it. We need to do some capital works. We need to be smarter about advertising. Practically everything Louis is doing needs to be done differently.”

He takes his time to look through the financials, tracing his fingers down columns and across rows of figures. I sit, watching, pressing my palms together as hard as I can to keep from fidgeting.

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