Page 6 of The Main Event

Now Levi glared at me, and it took everything I had to contain my laughter. He wasn’t going to put up with any crap regarding his best friend. I had to respect him for that. “Don’t let Tammy influence you on Daisy. She’s just jealous because she wanted to be the party planner and George told her she didn’t have enough imagination to do it. That’s why she’s the assistant to the owner.”

Oh, well, that made sense.

“You don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Tammy fired back. “I would be an excellent party planner.”

Yup. This conversation was definitely going off the rails. “I don’t plan on making any changes until I see how things operate here,” I assured Levi to get him to take it down a notch. He seemed more reasonable than Tammy. “I’m going to assume that my grandfather knew what he was doing when he installed people in certain positions. Since I’m new to the hotel game—and he was not—it makes sense to keep on doing the same thing so I can witness everybody in their positions.”

“I think that sounds like a fabulous idea,” Levi said, his glare never moving from Tammy’s features.

“You’re the boss,” she said primly, telling me she disagreed with my decision, but she wasn’t comfortable enough to argue with me yet.

Before I could fashion another response, a woman breezed through the door. She wore a pink sleeveless dress—it was one of those comfortable cotton numbers—and her long legs were on full display. Her hair was dark, and it fell past her shoulders, and her smile was bright. Unlike Tammy she wore almost no makeup. Her skin was bare and bright, just like her smile.

My hormones kicked me in the gut from that very first glance.

Pretty. Pretty.That’s all they said over and over again.

I brutally reined them in.She’s not for you. She’s an employee. You don’t do that with employees.

That was one thing my father and I agreed on. You didn’t crap where you ate. That meant no office romances. Not that I could tell I would want something like that with her after one glance or anything.

“Dais.” Levi leaned over the bar and hugged her. “These two were just talking about you,” he said when he pulled back.

If Daisy was bothered about being gossiped about, she didn’t show it. Instead, she offered up a bright smile—the type that could illuminate an entire city after the electrical grid went thanks to a hurricane—and extended her hand. “Daisy Reynolds. It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

I stared at her hand for what felt like an obscenely long time before my manners kicked me in the ass and told me to get moving. “Jax Hunter.” My hand felt as if it were catching fire when we touched, and I had to stop myself from pulling back because it would be construed as rude.

As for Daisy, her smile remained in place as she regarded me. We stared into each other’s eyes. For all I knew a year could’ve passed because time had seemingly stopped spinning.

Then Tammy opened her mouth and ruined the moment. I’d only known her a grand total of an hour, but it was already obvious she was good at that. “You’re late,” she announced.

Slowly, Daisy dragged her eyes from me and glared at Tammy. “I’m not late.”

I dropped her hand because it seemed like the thing to do and offered up a silent prayer that the spell I’d been momentarily lost under had dissipated.

“You were supposed to start an hour ago,” Tammy insisted.

“I don’t have set hours because I’m often here late at night on the weekends for the parties,” Daisy reminded her. “I’m not a clock-puncher.”

“Which means she probably only works half the hours she says she does,” Tammy said to me pointedly.

Daisy made a protesting sound. “That is not true. A lot of the time I put together the lists when I’m at home.”

“And bills us for an entire hour when she likely works five minutes,” Tammy added. “The position is not streamlined.”

Loath as I was to admit it, Tammy was probably right. It sounded as if my grandfather had let Daisy do whatever she wanted as long as she got results. I wasn’t necessarily opposed to that, but I didn’t hate the idea of Daisy accounting for her time either.

“Have a seat,” I suggested to Daisy. I was already tired, and the day had barely started. “Let’s have a talk about your duties here, what you do on any given week, and we’ll go from there.”

The look on Tammy’s face told me that she considered the order a win. Daisy, however, didn’t pout because she considered the turn of events a loss.

“Absolutely.” Daisy hopped up on the stool next to me. “Let’s get right into it. I like a man of action.”

“He’s your boss,” Tammy hissed. “He’s not a man.”

I took umbrage with that statement, but I was also leery because it was obvious Tammy was somehow marking her territory. That was going to be a sticky situation if I didn’t get it under control. For now, I focused my full attention on Daisy. Tammy could wait.

“Tell me what you do here and why it’s important,” I suggested. “We’ll go from there.”

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