“She is a he, and he is the linen supplier for the greater Chicago area,” Alex answered.
“You’re supposed to be retired,” Reese said.
“Six months.” His father pointed at him. Reese smiled. His old man. Retired but not dead, he often said of his future plans. Alex turned and left the conference room and Reese stood to do the same. It had been a hell of a long day already and was less than half over. He didn’t stop at five, unless it was five a.m.
“Explain to me why you have to marry Merina Van Heusen?” Tag asked, still lounging in the chair. Even dressed nicely, he resembled a lazy cat. He was damn good, though. Guest and Restaurant Services was not an easy part of the hotel business to keep running, but Tag did it flawlessly. And dressed like a bum half the time. Go figure.
“Because Kate Hudson is taken?”
Tag rolled his eyes. “Why not just date her?”
“The board needs to see I’m serious. Nothing is more serious than marriage. Once I’ve settled down, they’ll see I’m a changed man. Responsible.”
“No longer the consummate billionaire bachelor,” Tag drawled, quoting one of the gossip rags.
“Right,” Reese agreed. “It’s a business deal like any other deal.” He lifted his iPhone and tucked it into his jacket pocket, then straightened his shirtsleeves. “It has perimeters, an end date, and a goal. I’m going to give her a few days—maybe wait until next week to ask her. After she cools down, Merina will see. She’s a smart businesswoman, despite the fact that she’s in love with that relic of a hotel.”
“Sentimentality isn’t a crime.”
“It isn’t, but it’s a tool I can use to my advantage. Our advantage,” he amended. “This will be advantageous for both of us.”
“I’m all for you being in position of CEO, Reese; you know I am. This is your destiny. Your legacy. The board is making a mistake if they look elsewhere,” Tag said.
“I appreciate that,” Reese said, meaning it. The Crane men had always stuck together. His youngest brother may ride his ass on occasion, but in the clutch, Tag had his back.
“But,” Tag continued, his tone cautious, “blackmail is low, bro.” He finally stood, slowly, then crossed his arms over his chest. Tag was taller than Reese or Eli, standing close to six-five. Massive shoulders, huge arms, and tree-trunk legs came from their father’s side, the towering height from their mother’s father. Granddad Weller was huge. Eli and Reese liked to give Tag a hard time about his hair, but Tag refused to cut it. Either he had a Samson complex or he liked looking like a beached merman, it was hard to say.
“It’s not blackmail. It’s proper motivation.”
Tag swept the legal pad off the desk, not a word written on it. Reese had no idea why he brought a pad to meetings except that maybe he thought it made him look like he fit here and not on a biplane in a jungle. Tag scrubbed a hand over his heavy facial hair. “I’m going to grab a burger. You?”
Reese shook his head. He’d eat at his desk like he did every day. Didn’t keep Tag from asking. Which he appreciated. As brothers who were musketeers at heart, none of them would ever let the other one remain in solitude.
“I need to make a few phone calls,” Reese said as he opened the door.
“Guess so,” Tag said, walking out ahead of him; then he threw over his shoulder, “You have a wedding to plan and a bride to propose to. In that order.”
Chapter 3
Thanks, Heather,” Merina said to the Van Heusen’s new bartender-slash-waitress as she headed out the door. Flame, the restaurant in the Van Heusen, hadn’t been terribly busy tonight, but Heather had handled the bar by herself, and given that she’d only been working for the VH for two weeks, Merina was suitably impressed.
Nearly a week had passed since she’d barged into Reese Crane’s office, and neither she nor her parents, as far as she knew, had heard from him again.
After she’d left the hotel’s doorknob on Reese’s desk, Merina had stomped back into the VH, snatched a few towels off a passing cart, and gone into her office. After snagging a sweater off a hook on the wall and putting it on, she went to her mother’s office, only to find her father in there, too, leaning over the computer.
Merina hadn’t given them a chance to acknowledge her before she started in on them.
“How could you keep something like this from me?” she’d asked while wringing her hair in the towel.
Her father had straightened and held up a hand. “Honey, take a breath.”
“I can’t take a breath. I can’t even think! You sold the hotel without telling me? How much financial strain were you under? Did you consider asking me for help? How could you go outside the family with this?”
When her emotions got the best of her and tears welled in her eyes, her father eased her down on the sofa in her mother’s office and they flanked her on either side.
Then they told her how things had snowballed into an avalanche.
Her father, Mark, had insisted on doing the financials himself and had overlooked many opportunities for write-offs over the years. The new accounting firm discovered back taxes they owed. Then there were the repairs needed. An inspection that didn’t go well. A recent turnover in employees because a guy had stolen money from the restaurant cash register. Add in her father’s recent hospital expenses and it was a recipe for desperation.
“Big Crane was willing to buy it,” Mark had told her, one arm solidly around her back. “As it stood, we would have had to put thousands into it just to sell. And your mother and I would likely be out of jobs.”
“But you’ll be out of jobs soon!” Merina huffed her frustration. “And so will I.”
Her parents hadn’t known that part, which made her feel moderately better—at least they hadn’t kept that from her too.
“I spoke with him,” Merina had confessed. “He won’t fire me immediately.” She didn’t know if that was true, but she intended to speak with him further about it. Next time with a dry shirt.
That day she’d wanted so badly for her parents to share in her outrage. Instead her mother had encouraged her in her typical glass-half-full way by saying, “You’re young, you’re brilliant, and we have faith that you’ll find where you belong, even if it isn’t here.”
Which made her suspect they were resigned to their plight.
Merina paced through the barren restaurant now, her mind latched onto the past. Reese had made it clear to her he wasn’t keeping any of them. Not her parents, not Merina, and she guessed the rest of the building’s loyal staff would be in danger of losing their jobs too.
She wasn’t foolish enough to believe he’d forgotten about their discussion, but there were no further e-mails or appointments, and the locksmith had replaced the card reader on the hotel room door, only now there was a mismatched doorknob instead of the one she’d gifted to Crane.
No construction workers in hard hats had shown up to destroy the building during that week, so for that, she was grateful. The more Reese Crane dragged his heels, the more time she had to come up with a solution to save her job and the hotel from being turned into a glass shrine.