Page 12 of Forty and Fighting Dirty
She faced me fully, her eyes narrowed. “The design pitch clearly stated that you wanted to integrate this place with the local population. How does that fit with the luxury crowd? I haven’t seen many seven-star resorts around here.”
“I’m telling you what you need to deliver. Something refined, luxurious, and fresh. We won’t alienate the locals because they’re happy with the concepts we’ve presented to them.”
She glanced at me then, and I had the sense she saw more than I wanted her to. “I thought you were one of the locals,”she finally said.
“Doesn’t mean people can’t turn on one of their own.” I’d learned that lesson young; it wasn’t something I ever forgot. The people closest to you could be the ones to cause the most damage.
Huffing, Piper nodded. “Todd mentioned in the interview that you wanted to open the lodge this season.” Her lips pursed. “That seems…ambitious.”
“Not the worst thing I’ve been accused of.”
“That goes without saying,” Piper deadpanned. She walked toward the far end of the cavernous room, where the seating area would be located. I watched the movement of her hips as she paced the length of the room, her eyes scanning the walls, ceiling, and windows. Leaning against one of the bare concrete columns, I waited for Piper to do a full loop of the room before coming back to stand in front of me.
She gave me a sharp nod.
“You think you can do it?”
“Depends on lead times for materials and how quickly we can come up with a final design for the space. I’ll be honest, it’s highly unlikely that this will be open at the start of the season, but we might be able to target the start of next year. Even that will involve a lot of luck, and probably some sacrifices if we run into procurement issues.”
She didn’t sugarcoat it, which I appreciated. She wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. I nodded. “Want to take a look at the rest of the space?”
“Lead the way.”
We went to the cafeteria and toured the kitchen. Beside the eating area was a place for a gift shop, and across the widehallway were restrooms, which were just waiting on cubicle doors to be completed.
We stood outside the cafeteria kitchen and surveyed the dining space, walking it slowly before turning back toward the stairs. Piper glanced down at a little lump of something in the middle of the walkway. “You might want to get a pest guy out,” she noted. “There’s a dead mouse over there.”
I clicked my tongue. Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I let out a tired sigh. “Not again.”
Then, right on cue, I caught a flash of orange in the corner of my eye, followed by a familiar yowling meow.
FOUR
PIPER
If I’d thoughtRhett had looked annoyed at my little stunt in the coffee shop, it was nothing compared to the irritation blasting across his face when a green-eyed orange cat came slinking out from behind a column toward us.
His aggravation was delicious.
“You’re back,” Rhett said through clenched teeth, glaring at the cat. “I thought I told you to get out of here.”
I looked at him, then at the cat. The cat paused, then let out another meow.
The expression on my boss’s face was grim. He stood with his hands on his hips, his jaw clenched so hard that a muscle bulged in his cheek. Rolling my lips inward, I held in the laugh trying to escape. It felt like high noon outside a saloon in the Wild West, except the dangerous outlaw facing offwith Rhett was a kitty.
Apparently my new boss was so used to having his way that he couldn’t even handle one little ten-pound animal. The cat meowed.
“Yeah, yeah,” Rhett said, then pointed to the stairway. “Go on. Git!”
The cat looked at the mouse, then at Rhett. Rhett glared.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed standing up to the big bad boss, because the cat sat down and blinked at him. Its fur was subtly striped in shades of orange, tail curled around its body as it stayed there, considering its next move.
Rhett’s cheek bulged. He was truly put out by a little ginger cat. I stole a glance at my new boss, delight sparking through me like a Fourth of July firework. The big man around town couldn’t control everything in his domain, could he?
I probably shouldn’t have found this as amusing as I did. His anger should have been a glaring red flag that working for this man was a bad idea, and an indication that I needed an exit plan. After all, if he didn’t like animals, that said a lot about him. And if he couldn’t handle anyone standing up to him—not even the orange creature a few feet away from us—then it didn’t bode well for my tenure as his company’s interior designer.
I’d already discovered that I wasn’t good at holding my tongue when he was around. Maybe that was why, when the cat looked at the mouse again before blinking up at Rhett, I couldn’t help saying, “Aww. He wants to feed you.”
