CHAPTER TWO
I park my car and walk toward my hotel. How many people in the world can say they own a hotel? And I’ve built this place all on my own. It wasn’t like I was born into money. Well, my father had money, but that’s a different story.
I work damn hard and have taken some big risks to be where I am at the age of thirty. And it’s just the beginning. I have my hand in a couple more projects, developments in the Bywater and Warehouse District of New Orleans, but this hotel is my baby. She always will be. Nestled on the outskirts of the French Quarter, she was in bad shape when I bought her, in danger of being destroyed in the name of progress.
I look up at the windows that flank the entrance, extending high into the sky, knowing how much those custom suckers cost me, but it’s worth it to see the sunlight glisten off the marble floor. Besides, the bill I get every month for fresh flowers for the lobby, courtyard, and other common areas make the windows look reasonable. At least I don’t have to replace the windows every other day, but it’s touches like fresh flowers that are the difference between customers having a memorable experience or a forgettable one. A perfect example is leaving individually wrapped, bite size pralines instead of mints or chocolates at turndown service. Can’t tell you how many people note that on social media and comment cards. It’s all about the details.
I’m all about the details in everything I do—from the boardroom to the bedroom. The right spot on a woman’s neck, just how hard to suck, nibble, and bite. A half-inch to the left or right can be the difference in her clawing at your back or mentally running through her to do list. The devil’s in the details, and sometimes I think I’m Satan himself.
“Morning, Albert,” I say, greeting the old bellhop. Albert was one of the first people I hired, about eight years ago now. He was old even then, but he never misses a day of work, is a loyal employee and genuinely good with guests, so I’ve made him more of a greeter than anything else. He’s the type of man that’s worked hard his whole life. He shouldn’t be lugging other people’s bags around in his twilight years.
“Morning, sir. Our boys looking good this year.”
He’s referring to the New Orleans Saints, who are affectionately referred to as “our boys” by everyone in the city. Even though football season doesn’t start for a couple more months, the last draft and upcoming training camp have the city excited already. I stop and chat with him for a few minutes before walking inside to the front desk to check in with my other staff and see if everything’s on track for a couple big events we have coming up.
“Pierce?” Daphne slips her hands to my waist, and I push them away. She knows how I feel about PDA at work. I don’t know why she insists on testing my limits. Her nose wrinkles. “You’ve been with someone else?”
The woman has a nose on her. I swear she can smell another woman from ten feet away, and I am getting quite sick of it. I’m not about to tell her the “other” woman was a therapist. I keep women on a “need-to-know” basis, and that she doesn’t need to know. “What do you need?”
“Who? It’s not that new girl who works . . .”
“I wasn’t with anyone,” I say. She should know I’d be honest if I was. I always have been. “Can I help you with something? It’s a work day.”
“I know, but today is the kids’ play at school. Remember? We talked about you coming and us all going out for ice cream after.”
More like she talked, and I just kept my mouth shut. Daphne and I have been seeing each other for close to two years, so I’ve met her kids a few times, but that doesn’t mean I want to play happy family. I’m in no position to be anyone’s father or father figure. Why does she have to look so damn hurt? She knew the deal.
“They really want you to come.”
Sensing things are going to go south pretty quick, I take her hand and lead her to the sidewalk. I won’t stand for a scene in the middle of my hotel lobby. “Daphne, you want me to go. I’m sure they don’t care if I’m there or not.”
“They’re thirteen and eleven-year-old boys, Pierce. They know we’re sleeping together. They asked me why we aren’t married. Why we don’t do family things. I can’t keep doing this. It’s a bad example for them.”
“You knew going in that I didn’t want . . .”
“You’ll show up today, or it’s over.”
I’m not at all surprised by her threat, this has been coming for a while. I turn my head to see Albert helping a homeless person onto the bus. That’s just the kind of guy he is. I had to set up a separate little account just for him because he was giving away all his money to homeless people, street performers, and anyone else who asked.
I look back to Daphne and say, “Then I guess we’re through.”
“You can’t be serious? After all the shit I’ve put up with!”
My phone rings, and I pull it out, seeing my attorney’s name. “I’ve got to take this.”
She grabs my phone and declines the call—the nut job. “Damn it, you owe me more than this!”
“Hush,” I bark through gritted teeth.
“So basically, you’re telling me this is going nowhere. That the two years I’ve put into you have been for nothing.”
There’s a term in hotel business—length of stay. Is the guest just there for a night, perhaps a long weekend? Or maybe they have a prolonged business trip and need an extended stay. Relationships are the same way. One-nighters, repeat performances, or are you in it for the long haul? My perfect length of stay? Long enough to enjoy the sights, but short enough that they don’t overstay my welcome.
“I told you that two years ago. I told you I wasn’t going to marry you. I told you I wasn’t going to be a stepdad. Don’t act like this is a big surprise,” I say.
“I thought you’d change once . . .”
Why do women always think they can change a man? Piece of advice, ladies: the man you meet is the man he is and will be until the day he dies. If you don’t like him when you meet, move on. Save us guys from being the asshole I’m forced to be right now. It’s not fun for anyone. “I’m sorry, Daphne.” And I really am. I don’t want to hurt her. That’s why I always try to be honest.
“Everything alright?” Annie asks, walking up to us.
Annie is my right hand, my assistant, and the best friend I’ve ever had. I love her. We’ve known each other forever. I’ve seen her practically every day of my life except for those few months in high school when her parents sent her away. She was a bit of a wild child back then. She should really be doing more with her life than being my assistant. She’s an amazing artist, but I think I believe in her more than she believes in herself.
“Annie, can you make sure Daphne gets home alright?”
Daphne looks at me, her mascara running down her cheeks. No matter how hard I try, breakups are always messy. We don’t have keys to each other’s houses. We don’t have stuff there, either. We don’t share a dog. It should be a clean, easy break.
Annie puts her arm around Daphne, walking her down the street. I head back inside, passing Albert. He pats my shoulder. “Women? Can’t live without ’em.”
“Nope, but why do they always change the game?”
“That’s your problem,” he says. “You think they’re playing your game, but really, you’re playing theirs.”
Maybe he should go have a talk with my new shrink. They can spout fortune cookie advice together.
I pull out my phone, dial my attorney back, and head up the stairs to my office. “Please tell me you got me out of this therapy shit,” I tell him.
Opening the door to the office, Annie’s desk comes into view. I head into my personal office, leaving the door open between the two spaces, listening to my attorney rattle off excuse after excuse. My office is supposed to be where I call the shots. I picked out the sofa, the desk, the chairs. Hell, I even installed a private bathroom. But being master of my own universe isn’t working today.
Collapsing into my chair, I let loose a string of f-bombs and throw down a pen as Annie comes walking in. She strolls into my office and plops down on the sofa. “You’ve got to be able to do something,” I continue.
Annie smirks at me. She seems to be outright enjoying herself. I slam the phone down on my desk. “Should I schedule your next therapy session?” she asks.
“I guess so.”
“It was that bad?”
“She wants me to go without sex for a month.” You might think this is an odd conversation to have with my assistant, but Annie knows everything about me.
“Wouldn’t kill you,” she says.
“It might.”
“Blue balls aren’t fatal.”
I bust out laughing. Annie is one of the few people who know what actually went down, and the only one who can tease me about it. She’s the best. My mom and I moved next door to Annie’s family when she and I were just kids. She is the one woman in my life who never changed. I hand her a piece of paper, asking, “How was Daphne?”
“I offered her the usual severance package.”
I laugh again. Annie thinks of the women in my life as employees. She believes that I hire them for a job, and then fire them when their usefulness expires, so a few relationships ago, she decided the women needed severance packages. Mostly to protect me, I think. I have a bad habit of continuing to pay their bills long after their duties are done.
For Daphne, that will include her car and her kids’ tuition for next semester. Her ex-husband is an asshole and refuses to cover the whole amount of their kids’ private school tuition. Hate men who dodge their responsibilities like that, so I’ve been covering it for her. Makes me wonder how many of her tears were over me, versus how many were over my credit card.
Annie always handles the details when things end. She says it lessens my guilt. She thinks I’m a much nicer guy than I am.
The door to my office suddenly opens, and in pops the only girl who has a higher opinion of me than Annie. She’s wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, her blonde hair pulled up in a baseball cap, making her look even younger than her fifteen years.
“Tawny!” Annie says, pulling her into a hug. “Isn’t it a school day?”
“Off for some teacher in-service thing,” Tawny says.
“I didn’t think we’d see you until Friday night,” I say.
Her blue eyes smile at me. “Then you’re still coming? Because the owner says I have to have an adult family member with me, and play early before the rowdy Friday night crowd starts.”
“Of course,” I say, getting up and wrapping an arm around her shoulder.
“Good,” Tawny says, pulling on her cap a little. “I’m kind of freaking out. I need my big brother for support.”
“Is Vicki not coming?” Annie asks.
Tawny shakes her head, and I don’t ask why she’s not coming. Vicki – Tawny’s mother and my stepmother – is a real piece of work. Let’s just say that my shrink could have a field day with her. But since my dad is dead, Tawny is stuck with her. I guess I am, too—though if it wasn’t for Tawny, I’d never see that woman again. There’s no reason on the planet good enough to miss your daughter performing in front of a live crowd. Even though her performance is at a bar in a competing hotel, I’m still damn proud of her.
“You know the offer to perform in the hotel bar here is still open,” I say.
She rolls her eyes at me. “It’s not the same when your brother gets you the gig. Besides, this is how Daddy started. Playing gigs whenever and wherever he could.”
My father, Ashton Kingston, was the very definition of a one-hit wonder. Still, he spent his life devoted to music and led the lifestyle to match—complete with a side piece, my mother, and the bastard son, me. He even managed to keep my mom and me hidden from Vicki for more than a decade of my life.
“I’m proud of you,” I say.
She beams at me, planting a kiss on my cheek. “Don’t be late. Show starts at seven.”