Page 7 of Fierce Family

When I address her she squints at me. Marisa is rolling her eyes behind her, signalling to me this is a guest to be wary of.

“Where’s Tommy? I said I want to speak to the person in charge,” she sneers at me. I try to keep my customer service smile on my face.

“I’m the General Manager, Miss Lloyd,” I spotted her name on the guest registration form in front of her. I wonder if she’s one of Tommy’s groupies. Tommy is agood-looking man and some guests and staff have always fancied the pants off him. Not that he ever looked at any of them in any other way than professionally. Well aside from Ella, his new wife.

“Last time I stayed here the fire alarm went off. Can you guarantee me that it won’t happen again?”

I’m stunned for a minute before I find my voice. “I’m sorry, no. The fire alarm is there to keep you safe and if there is a reason for it to go off then we need it to.”

“But it was a false alarm.”

“It was probably set off by a guest smoking, and in that case the alarm was doing what it was supposed to do.” I try to stay calm and hope she’ll be satisfied with that.

“Well that’s not good enough. I don’t want to be disturbed by the fire alarm.” She doubles down and glares at me.

“Well Miss Lloyd I can’t guarantee that.” What more can I say?

“But—” she stops talking and stares behind me. I turn and spot Tommy strolling through the lobby, Nicky cradled against his shoulder. Her big, baby eyes take in everything while he talks to her and gently rubs her back. When he notices us, he turns Nicky around and uses her tiny fist to wave at me. I wave back, and he grins before heading towards the kitchen. His latest routine is taking Nicky on his rounds around the hotel. Since becoming a new dad, he's mellowed considerably. He still expects the hotel to run smoothly and with excellence, but he's also proud to show off his baby and his softer side. The staff adore Nicky; she's going to be a pampered little princess as she grows up.

“Is that Tommy’s baby?” Miss Lloyd asks with disappointment in her voice.Yup definitely one of his groupies.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” I ask without answering her question. I will not discuss anyone’s personal life, let alone Tommy’s, with a guest and I’m pretty sure it was a rhetorical question anyway.

“No,” she mumbles before grabbing the key card from the counter and stalking off towards the lift.

“Sometimes I think this job could be glorious if it weren’t for the guests,” Marisa whispers to me. But we both know the majority of guests are absolutely fine and every so often you have special guests that make it all worthwhile. “Wonder if she’d be so opposed to the fire alarm if she saw the firefighters,” Marisa winks at me whilst tidying away the guest registration form. “Especially your Josh.”

“He’s not my anything,” I whisper back.

“Stop fighting it Sheila, and snap him up before someone else does.” Her words do make me feel a twinge of jealousy, even though I know I have no right to be.

“I—” Before I can reply, the phone on the desk rings. Marisa picks it up, giving me the perfect chance to slip away unnoticed.

“Sheila,” Marisa calls after me and holds out the receiver. “It’s about your son.” Those are the words every mother dreads.

“Hello?” I hold the receiver tightly to my ear.

“Sheila hi, this is Nora from the Scouts.” Kieran is on his emergency service day today and her call can’t mean anything good.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yes, no, well, Kieran fell down the fire pole and we think he may have broken his leg. The team here have givenhim first aid but he needs to go to hospital,” Nora explains, sounding flustered. “I can’t leave the kids.”

“Oh. I’ll be there in 10 minutes,” I assure her, already moving to end the call.

“Everything okay?” Marisa asks.

“Kieran broke his leg at Scouts. Can you please ask Tommy to cover for me? I have one meeting this afternoon but if he’s not free to step in we can reschedule,” I reply hastily.I need to calm down. It’s just a suspected broken leg, it could be worse.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get Tommy to take the meeting. You focus on Kieran. Go, go!” she calls after me as I head towards the stairs to get my bag from the office.This is so not what I needed today.

Chapter 5

Josh

“How’re you doing, mate?”I kneel down in front of Kieran, assessing his condition from his expression.

“Okay.” He’s still pale, but the shock is slowly wearing off. In a few hours, he’ll start noticing the pain more.

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