Page 7 of Never Too Late
‘She has a joyful soul,’ Ashok remarked, looking the way she had gone.
‘Yes, she does. She always has done; even as a baby, she was almost always smiling. Almost.’ I gave him a meaningful look. ‘I’ve been so lucky.’
‘From what I see, she feels the same.’
‘Do you have children?’
He shook his head. ‘Much to my mother’s disgust, I’m afraid. Luckily, I’m still her favourite son.’
‘Ah!’ I grinned. ‘How many brothers do you have?’
‘None.’ His laugh was warm and infectious. ‘But three sisters so I have enough nieces and nephews to make up for it.’
I took another sip from the delicious cocktail and placed it down on a coaster on the glass side table next to me.
‘Do you live here? I mean, in the hotel? Or are you just visiting?’
‘Visiting. I’m very hands on with my businesses. I find that’s important so I like to drop in and meet with the staff, listen to any concerns or ideas they have, etc.’
‘How long have you been in the hotel industry?’
‘About twenty years now.’
‘You obviously enjoy it.’
‘I enjoy seeing other people enjoy it. But I also want the people I employ to be happy. I’m sure that sounds like a cheesy line but I really do believe that if your staff are happy, then most of your problems are already solved.’
‘That’s very enlightened.’
‘It makes sense to me.’
‘So what did you do before you built your hotel empire?’
Ashok laughed. ‘Hardly an empire.’
‘Yet,’ I teased.
He paused. ‘Yet,’ he replied with a broad smile. ‘I was a corporate lawyer before this.’
‘Ah. Not too much opportunity for dinner with your feet in the water there.’
‘Not much opportunity for dinner full stop unless it was billable.’ The handsome features momentarily took on a look of strain. ‘I hated it but my parents worked hard to pay for me to get a good education; I owed them.’
‘But surely if you were unhappy…’
‘I didn’t tell them. As far as they were concerned, I was living the dream. I graduated in the top 1 per cent of my class at Cambridge, was scooped up by one of the top law firms in the city and then two years later was headhunted by a firm in New York. My apartment had a view of Central Park and I wore four thousand dollar suits every day.’
‘Wow. The shiny, polished surface was perfect…’
‘Exactly. But beneath all that, I was miserable. I barely slept, my diet was appalling and exercise was almost non-existent.’
It was hard not to notice that something must have changed as the impeccably tailored clothes he wore now only enhanced that Ashok apparently kept himself in pretty good shape.
‘So what happened?’
‘My parents came to visit. I’d planned a couple of days off but at the last minute, my leave got cancelled. I was so mad.’ A shadow dimmed the smile behind his eyes. ‘I’d barely seen my family since I’d started work and then that happened. I tried to keep it together, brush it off, but they weren’t buying for a moment.’
‘It’s hard to hide things from people who know you well and care about you.’
