Page 310 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
I shook my head and went into my office on Monday morning. Another day without Adam on the mountain. I kept hoping that he would just drop by, or that he would at least call me. But he had steered clear. I couldn’t blame him, but it made me second-guess that kiss that we had shared the other day. Did he regret it? Would he have regretted it even if Ian hadn’t walked in on us? Where did we currently stand?
I didn’t dare call him, though. I didn’t know what I might find myself saying to him.
I froze in the doorway of my office, staring at Ian. He was seated behind my desk, on the phone with someone. And from the sounds of it, it was a work call.
“That sounds perfect,” he said while I stood in the doorway watching him. “We’ll agree on all the terms when you get here.” He was silent for a moment, waving a hello at me and gesturing for me to wait just a moment for him to get off the phone. “Yes, we’ll see you this afternoon,” he said. Finally, he hung up.
I could barely keep from yelling. “What the hell was that?” I asked, hands balled into fists as I jerkily crossed my arms in front of me.
Ian raised an eyebrow at me. “And good morning to you, too,” he said.
“This is my office,” I pointed out, not knowing what else to do.
“Sure,” Ian said, getting easily to his feet and gesturing for me to have my desk back. “I just had a couple calls I needed to make, in here where it’s silent. You know how noisy it gets out in the lodge.”
“Work calls?” I asked. “For the casino?” I hated that that clarification was necessary, but from the way that Ian had said that he’d see whoever it was that afternoon, I had to assume it was something to do with Brooks Mountain.
Maybe not, though. Maybe I was being too hard on him. Maybe he wanted to treat someone in the casino industry in favor for capital or something, and he thought that inviting them here was the perfect way to do it. I hoped that was all it was.
But Ian shrugged. “You know this business is growing,” he said. “And as it currently stands, one maintenance man just isn’t adequate. So I’ve hired a local company to come work full time for the business.”
I gaped at him, barely believing that those words had just come out of his mouth. Forget the fact that what he was saying was that he was aiming to put his erstwhile friend out of business, because this was more serious than that. He wasn’t just trying to help out around the business anymore. Now, he really was telling me that he was taking over for me, doing whatever he wanted with the business without any thought for who the real owner was.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down a little. But it was hard to do. “This isn’t your company,” I said in a low, controlled voice.
Ian raised an eyebrow at me. “You said that I could help you,” he said. “And clearly, you need the help.” He paused. “If you’ve forgotten, I run a successful casino business. Besides, you bought this place using Dad’s money. That means it’s still a family business, as far as I’m concerned. And, well, I’m family. I have a right to have a say in this.”
“No, you don’t,” I snapped. “I bought this place using my inheritance money. If you wanted to have a say in this, you should have pitched in some of your own inheritance money.”
Ian rolled his eyes. “You’re still a Peters,” he pointed out. “And as long as you’re using the family name in running this business, I’m going to make sure that the family name isn’t besmirched by a string of business failures. Because that affects the casino business as much as this place.” He looked around disparagingly. “More so than this place,” he corrected. “I know skiing costs a fair amount of money, but what you have to remember is that my clients sometimes throw down hundreds of thousands of dollars between accommodation, food, drinks, and gambling.”
I stared at him, trying to wrap my head around each of his various points. “So, what,” I finally asked him, “you want me to quit using Peters as my last name?”
“That’s not what I said,” Ian said, sounding frustrated. “But of course that’s the sort of inane detail that you would focus on.” He shook his head. But before he could say anything else, there was a knock on the door to my office.
“We’re not done yet,” I told Ian firmly, but I went to the door and yanked it open to see who it was. The last thing I needed was for any of my employees to overhear me having this conversation with my brother. The last thing I needed was for everyone thinking that I didn’t have any sort of authority here, that even my brother wouldn’t respect my position.
I took another deep breath, again trying to calm myself. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted more at the moment, to burst into tears or to continue fighting with Ian. The things was, everything had been going perfectly fine before he had shown up. But now that he had shown up, it seemed like everything was wrong, from my relationship with Adam to everything around the resort.
At the same time, though, I knew that everyone loved him, that he was really doing everything he could for the resort. I myself had thought about hiring someone else into a maintenance position so that Adam wouldn’t have to bear the brunt of everything that went wrong around the resort. Adam himself had declined, though, saying that he had a system in place and didn’t want anyone coming in and messing with that. I had to respect that.
Ian, it appeared, didn’t respect that. But then, he was sure that he knew what was best for the business. Sometimes, I just wished that I had his confidence. Only now, I was starting to see that that confidence and forcefulness wasn’t what this resort needed. This was a laidback, family-style place, and stamping all over that was only going to make things worse in the long run. I had bought this place to keep the culture alive. Ian was only looking at the bottom line.
That sudden understanding allowed me to smile at Adam when I saw he was the one on the other side of the door. “Hey Adam,” I said, stepping to the side so that he could see Ian was still there in the office.
Adam winced. “Sorry,” he said in a low voice. “I probably should have called.”
“I should have called you,” I said smoothly.
“Actually, can I talk to Ian?” Adam asked suddenly. I could see in his eyes that he didn’t really want to, and to be honest, I didn’t really want him talking to my brother right now. I wasn’t finished with my own conversation with Ian yet. And I definitely didn’t want Ian telling him all about how we had decided it would be best to hire an additional maintenance crew.
We hadn’t decided that, after all. Ian had. The only good thing was, thinking back to the phone conversation, I didn’t think any contracts had been signed just yet. I needed to make sure that they never were. And that Adam didn’t think I was trying to replace him.
So I shook my head at Adam. “You’re off duty today,” I said, but I lowered my voice so that Ian couldn’t overhear. “I’ll pay you for it, don’t worry. And there’s nothing serious for you to look at maintenance-wise, don’t worry about that either. I’ll call you tomorrow and we can talk about all of it, I promise you. And I’m sorry.”
Adam looked surprised, but slowly, he nodded at me. “Okay,” he said, shrugging and shoving his hands in his pockets. “I guess I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Call me if you need me.”
“I will,” I promised him. “Just bear with me.”
