“Isa,” my father says, his voice pleading. “The hotel is a gem. A hidden gem. There’s this window in the private dining room overlooking the Rhine that is absolutely stunning.”
“I believe you, Dad. That’s not the point. We can visit the hotel all you want, but Bradley Hotels doesn’t need to acquire it. We already struggle with the municipal requirements on our properties in Munich and Frankfurt. Another hotel would mean more oversight.”
“The legal department can handle that,” he says, his tone dismissive.
And they can handle it. While hiring more lawyers specializing in international law, raising our baseline costs, and swallowing into the profit margin of a small hotel. “I’m sorry, but the numbers don’t add up.” I pause for a moment. “You could invest some of your own money.”
When Francisco demanded controlling interest in his contract, that meant he gets the final say in any major deals or decisions. He cedes management to me, which means I get the final decision. It’s almost like he purchased Bradley Hotels as a wedding gift for me.
I still deal with my father and Robin, but I have the final say.
My father pauses. The air over the phone feels heavy. “Is this coming from Francisco or you?” he finally asks.
I look out the beveled windowpanes. The angled glass sends through a profusion of color—endless green with pink and blue flowers. Fields of lavender beyond. My office is smaller than Frans’s. More delicate. Feminine. It has paintings on the ceiling like his, angels instead of demons. Wolf splits his time between us. Right now he’s snoring gently by the white marble fireplace. It would be easy to make Frans the villain in my father’s story. But it wouldn’t be true. “It’s coming from me,” I say, my voice gentle but firm. “It would be a bad move for the business. It might not be right away, but we’d be heading for another bailout, another loan. We’d end up laying people off, and how would that help the hotel? Better that we do what we do well. The company is financially stronger than ever now that we have Frans’s backing. We need to keep that momentum, not derail it.”
“He’s changing you.” My father’s voice sounds small. Petulant.
Maybe he is changing me. Or maybe I’m becoming more myself. I soothe my father’s ruffled feathers and end the call. Wolf rests his head on my knee, as if he knows that I’m troubled by the accusation. What if I’m becoming someone else here?
“Problem?” comes a low voice.
My husband stands at the door, his body leaning against the frame. Even though we work from home most days, he wears a suit every day. It fits him as comfortably as another person might wear worn jeans and a threadbare sweater.
“No problem,” I say, keeping my voice light. “There was a hotel in Bonn that my father fell in love with, but it doesn’t fit into our portfolio.”
“I saw the numbers this week. Very impressive.”
It’s ridiculous that I flush when he compliments my spreadsheets. “Thank you.”
“You don’t have to do this work, you know. I have managers if you want to step back.”
“Oh no. I love the hotels. I mean, maybe someday I’ll stop working, once I—” My cheeks heat. Once I become pregnant. I don’t say the words, but he hears them anyway.
“Once you give me an heir?”
My nose scrunches. “Do you want a boy so badly?”
His expression softens. “A girl would be fine. If she was like you.”
When he says things like this I can almost forget that this was an arranged marriage. That this was a financial contract. I’m falling for my own husband. It’s a dangerous place to be, because he’s clearly holding back. “I’d like a boy, too. If he was like you.”
His expression closes. “Right. Someone to carry on the family name.”
He turns and departs as abruptly as he arrived. Wolf gives me a guilty look before he abandons me to trot after his master, leaving the room empty and painfully quiet.
Chapter Eleven
Francisco
The weeks that follow are a blissful state of marriage. Better than I could have imagined.
Naturally they come to a terrible, crashing end.
Isabella comes into my office with high color in her cheeks and a frown on her gorgeous face. That’s enough to put me on alert. No one in this household should be making her feel this way. No one but me. “Are you busy?” she asks, her voice tight.
“Too busy for you? No.”
Isabella turns up the corner of her mouth. It’s not a reassured smile. “My dad needs my help.”
I arch an eyebrow at her. “Your help?”
“Yes.” She looks at her hands in her lap. This is the least composed I’ve seen her since the day she fled to the ballroom. Isabella might lose control in the bedroom, but rarely elsewhere. “He’s gotten into some kind of deal that’s gone south.”
“The hotels?”
“No, it’s another investment. This private jet company he signed with his personal money.”
“He wants you to leave your home and your duties here to renege on a deal he signed?” My god. The man seemed nice enough when I dealt with him leading up to the wedding, but he’s an incompetent fool. What kind of man has his daughter run to cover his ass? “No. You won’t be doing that, Isabella. I forbid it.”
She blinks. “You forbid it?”
“I do.”
“Who gave you the right?” Isabella’s tone has gone sharp enough that I wonder if I’ll have to bend her over the desk. But there’s nothing playful in her eyes. There’s nothing to indicate she would submit. “You don’t tell me what to do during the day.”
“I absolutely will give you direction if you’re running back to your daddy every time he calls.”
“It’s only been the once.” Isabella’s eyes come up to meet mine, determined and dark. “He hasn’t called me about anything since we’ve been married.”
“In a month. We are still, for all intents and purposes, on our honeymoon. You’ll let your father handle whatever mess he’s made.”
No matter the impression I had of Isabella’s father during the wedding planning process, one thing remains true. He’s terrible at business. He let his daughter arrange a marriage to save him from ruin. How many times will she run back into the burning building of their hotel empire?
Harris Bradley was a great hotelier. Put him in charge of a boutique hotel; he’d make the guests happy. It’s the millions that caught up to him. The billions. He wasn’t made to manage that kind of fortune, which is why he squanders it. Isabella’s been saving him from himself, but she won’t be doing that anymore. He sold away his greatest asset when he gave me her hand in marriage.
Isabella glares at me across the desk. There is no lightness whatsoever in her expression, only a piercing betrayal. “This is insane.”
“He doesn’t have any discipline,” I tell her. “And with no discipline, that makes him unpredictable. It makes losses for his companies inevitable. That kind of man can run through any amount of money if he has the chance.”