Page 5 of Sunset Cove
Chapter Two
Chip stared at Claire’s back as she walked away.
Unbelievable.
Their first meeting had lasted all of fifteen minutes. When Steve sold the hotel, he assured Chip that he was leaving the place in good hands.
It didn’t seem that way. It seemed like Steve had gotten soft in his old age.
“No, he was always soft,” Chip muttered to himself. The old man had hired him ten years ago, even though he had no experience in hotels. Steve had taught him everything he knew – well, sort of. Chip always knew more about money than Steve did. Steve never cared about money, hence the state the hotel was in now.
Chip let out a sigh. Claire had left behind the papers he’d given her, and she didn’t pay for her breakfast. He debated adding her meal to his tab, but decided that would seem too much like he was kissing up.
He’d tried to be considerate of her when he decided to wear a “nice” shirt. Chip had regretted that from the moment he left the house. It was uncomfortable, and it felt weird. Why should he have to change how he dressed because of a new owner? Steve never cared how he dressed.
He paid for his coffee and walked out to the lobby, spotting a distracted Gigi at the front desk.
“Gigi. Off your phone,” he snapped. “I’m going to start locking it up if you can’t keep your eyes off of it.”
“Sorry boss,” she said with a smile. “Hey, did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
Her eyes brightened and she leaned forward. “That the new owner is a criminal.”
Chip frowned. “What?”
Linda, the events coordinator, popped up behind him. “I bet that’s how she got the money to buy the hotel. Do you think she’s in with the mob or something?”
“No, I don’t think she’s in with the mob,” Chip said.
Gigi nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. She’s too clueless. I think she’s just a rich lady who’s never worked a day in her life.”
Linda nodded. “I can see that.”
Gigi dropped her voice. “Did you know that she’s spending a night in every room? It’s driving housekeeping nuts. Every time I think they have a freebie because the room was empty, Claire messes it up.”
“Can’t wait for my meeting with her,” Linda said airily.
Chip said nothing and walked off. He had his questions, too, but he wasn’t going to join in the staff gossip. It didn’t matter who this woman was – they had to deal with her regardless.
She was the new owner of the hotel, the hotel that he had dedicated the last ten years of his life to, the same one that had been in a spiral for the last two years. A spiral that Claire seemed bent on accelerating.
When he handed her the numbers – the facts of her new situation – she looked at him like he’d dumped a glass of water over her head.
Chip smiled to himself. He’d sort of wanted that reaction. He wanted her to feel shocked, surprised, and overwhelmed. Sometimes people need to get a little jolt to move them into action.
He needed her to understand how serious the situation was at the hotel, how close they all were to being bought up by a huge company and their roles “streamlined” in the name of profit.
Fifteen minutes wasn’t enough to communicate this to her, though, especially when she had her own list of ideas for improvement. As if a week at the hotel was all she needed to figure it out!
Ridiculous. How could she think that she knew better than him? Because she’d hired a consultant?
Chip got back to his office and looked up the consultant, this Mr. Ken Gallon. The guy was clearly a grifter. His résumé read like a list of schemes, jumping from one strangely named company to the next. He used overly flowery language, saying that while employed at a bank he “managed portfolios totaling over fifty million dollars.”
What did that even mean? That the bank had fifty million? That was nothing for a bank. When Chip had worked at an investment bank, he saw hundreds of millions of dollars disappear like it was nothing.
And now the FBI was poking around his hotel. Despite not knowing for certain that it was Claire’s fault that federal agents were there, he was angry enough to assign her the full blame. He huffed around his office, shuttling papers, moving books, and muttering to himself.
In his fury, he knocked an old mug of coffee onto his copy of the financials.
“Well, that’s just great,” he said, mopping up the mess with a paper towel.
So much for his plan for the next year. He tossed the sopping paper towel into the trash and took a seat. “It’ll be a miracle if we even make it a year,” he muttered, turning to his computer.
