Page 3 of Taste

I would add to those conversations too, loudly entertaining my captive audience with dramatically different ground-breaking concepts and brilliant ideas while I was throwing back shots and buying rounds like I owned the place. I could perhaps agree that my suggestion to rename our breakfast restaurant ‘The Hangover’ didn’t quite suit our current business model, but no one could accuse me of being dull and boring.

Finn Christensen, though, was just that. Textbook dull and insanely boring. The man only owned slick, grey suits, wore the same black tie every goddamn day and needed to learn how to grow a beard. Despite probably being well into his forties, he had a babyface and a crown of almost angelic blonde curls on the top of his head. He must have mislaid his halo at some point because there was nothing angelic about him.

He never spoke to me, apart from random snide remarks and the trademark eye-rolls he seemed to have honed on me. His thick curls were always a mess of natural perfection, his lips always pursed in a tight scowl, and there were definitely firm muscles showing through the fitted shirts that were his preferred attire. I’d caught him staring at me a few times during these meetings, just a glance, and then he would take a swig of his water bottle and look away. I knew he disliked me. Fuck that—he bloody hated me for some reason I didn’t fully understand.

The problem was, I couldn’t really peg him down, however much I wanted to. He was way above my league professionally, having worked himself up from the ground, gaining experience on the back of some posh hotel management degree. His office displayed an impressive wall full of hospitality diplomas from well-known establishments, and he always looked immaculate, in his bloody posh suit-and-tie combos, while I was happy to slum it in one of my favourite floral shirts and black jeans. I’d heard whispers he’d wanted the F&B gig, but I didn’t believe that. He was the front-of-house manager, which held a lot more clout in the management world than the dude who fiddled around with room service yields and made sure the breakfast service made a profit.

And still, he hated me.

I knew he was gay. Everyone did, like they knew I was an equal opportunities kind of guy, swinging freely from having a hot girlfriend to being the man-whore of the moment when I felt that need. We didn’t hold back with those personal need-to-knows in the Clouds hotel world, so we knew most things about everyone in the company. I didn’t even have to fill people in or ask for the low-down because my wait staff were the biggest gossipmongers in the world and happily kept tabs on all the current drama, telling me before things got out of hand, which they did, on a daily basis. Not only did my happily bed-hopping staff shag like rabbits and fall in and out of favour at the drop of a hat, but I had to reluctantly admit to having caused some of that drama myself. My last bed partner had been a woman, but that little affair had conveniently come with no strings attached, like my thrusts usually did.

Hence, there I was, staring back at him across the table, noting how his hair was, as always, on the edge of needing a trim. How his angular face lit up in a rare smile at a particularly complimentary comment. The squareness of his shoulders in that well-cut suit. The pout of those lips just made for, well. Ahem. Activities between the sheets, preferably of the kind where he was on his knees with my cock in his mouth. That thought had already been well and truly entertained and had made me ejaculate into my own hands more nights than not these days.

I couldn’t quite pinpoint the time when I’d realised I fancied him. Perhaps even a small part of me wanted him. Yet I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up whenever he was in the room. His voice grated on my nerves to the point where my teeth would grit, and his pompous PowerPoint presentations in these weekly meetings made me sigh a little too loudly.

Which made him stare at me with murder in his eyes. Yup, the feeling was mutual.

Instead of displaying my own totally professional PowerPoint presentation, I found myself standing up and throwing numbers off the top of my head because I was a cocky twat. And all the while, the almighty Mr Christensen sat scowling with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Christensen, don’t you agree?” I smiled at him. He didn’t smile back. “Was my prediction for the new lunch menu not right on track? You were the one who disagreed with the proposed changes. I’m pleased to see that, once again, I was right.” I sprinkled the words lightly, maintaining my pleasant smile as I took in the room, which was mostly amused stares. This showdown had become a weekly thing, and everyone was eagerly awaiting what would most certainly be a brutal comeback.

Right on cue, Finn Christensen raised his hands in a deliberately slow clap.

“Mr Quinton, congratulations on the one per cent profit you added from last week. Less than one per cent. I am more impressed with the massaging you must have done to come up with those figures, because according to Saffiya’smore truthfulcalculations, looking at last week’s accounting breakdown, you made a further 392-pound loss on the food side.”

Damn. Now Saffiya, our immaculate financial controller, was nodding as well. So yes, we’d made a bit of a loss, but I’d cooked the numbers well, and the reduced staffing figures and portion size reductions were more than covering those numbers for next week.

“Those losses are already considered, and we look forward to a profit-making food side next week with the introduction of ourIncredible Dessertsconcept. The test customers were raving about them last week, and, as always, we welcome visits down to our kitchen to sample our wonderfully talented head chef’s new creations. Ben and his team are truly an incredible asset to the chain.”

In another of his signature moves, he was on his feet before I’d even finished the sentence, showing his displeasure by going to stand against the back wall of the room. It made him look taller, angrier, more confident, as well he knew.

“Come on, Quinton,” he droned. “You’re deluded, and we all know it. Demand for in-house meals is high, but unless you want our customers to cross the square and grab McDonald’s from the corner, you need to up your game. We’ve had several complaints about the lack of comfort food on your menu, and Mr Proctor once again demanded we comp his bill due to the lack of fish and chips. You know how important our premium customers are, don’t you, Quinton?”

He banged his head back against the wall as he spoke, clearly annoyed with my dumbass attitude and overbearing confidence. But that was the way I rolled, and the fact that it seemed to annoy him just egged me on.

“No need to speak to me like I am a child.” I smiled demurely. “But if you want me to break down the figures for you…” I paused deliberately. “Then I can explain like I would my five-year-old niece’s maths homework. We made a profit overall and scored 4.92 on customer satisfaction. Seventy-two per cent of last week’s guests took one or more meals in our restaurant.”

“We offer free breakfast, mate,” he cut back. “Which means twenty-eight per cent of our clients couldn’t face our breakfast. Not a particularly good score.”

I hated him. I hated him so fucking much.

“In-house revenue was already down forty per cent since occupancy was shit after that weight-loss conference was cancelled,” I countered. “I realise this was out of your control, Christensen, but cancelling the weekend rates andnotfollowing through with the proposed flash sale to rescue those rooms had quite the impact, didn’t it?” I looked down at the printout of the week’s figures on the table, drawing my finger slowly over the profit lines per department, just to prove a point. “So, quite the loss for room revenue last week. Empty hotel rooms don’t make for good bonuses, Christensen. At least I filled those empty tables. We were actually fully booked both for lunch and dinner over the weekend.” I nodded. So did Saffiya, bless her. And Mr Proctor, could go fuck himself. I was not putting his precious fish and chips back on my menu for anything.

“Boys, boys,” Natalie scolded. Our sales manager and bitch of the century, she was, I had to admit, extremely good at her job. “Numbers look good to me, despite that unfortunate cancellation. Now, Finn, I believe you had an HR issue on your agenda?”

That made him light up, taking his seat again before leaning forwards over the table with a clearly fake sympathetic stance. I rolled my eyes and snagged another Viennese whirl.

“Unfortunately, yes. We had an in-house colleague complaint last week, and a rather serious one. As you’re all familiar with our HR rules, I will ask Amelia here to advise how we handle this latest…breach of confidence.”

I cringed at his choice of words, the biscuit hanging dryly from my lips when Finn Christensen smiled at me. It wasn’t a nice smile, and my neck hairs were on full alert again.

Amelia, human resources manager extraordinaire, face flushed from the sudden attention, switched her work mode on and threw a supportive glance my way like she wanted to apologise when I knew full well she didn’t.

“Can I firmly remind all colleagues that remaining on the premises after work hours is a breach of your employment?” she said in her best ice-queen voice. “Colleagues are not to frequent our establishments as guests unless entertaining clients. Nor are they permitted to stay in our guest rooms unless they are duty manager or undertaking previously assigned overnight duties. I am shocked to have found that one of the management team was seen visiting a regular guest in their room, and that they were both observed arriving and leaving in the early hours of the morning. This has been noted, and the person in question will be spoken to privately.”

And there it was. His newest attempt to push me off my tiny insignificant throne. So what? It was nothing new, and it probably wouldn’t happen again. After a few civilised drinks, the gorgeous Belgian flight attendant had kindly offered me the use of her bed for the night. I’d been discreet, so how he’d found out…well, I’d probably never know. But I had actually brought this one on myself. That was me, in a nutshell. Risk taker, laugh maker, ridiculer, hard-as-stone boss. The friend who sometimes turned bully.

I was also an idiot. I needed to be more subtle in my attempts to rile him. I openly questioned his decisions in an overfriendly tone. Queried his calculations while readily admitting my inability to comprehend his thinking. Mocked his choice of words to get a laugh at my ‘friendly banter’. Of course, he retaliated. Who wouldn’t? In the past, he’d pulled up my accounting discrepancies, my loss-making homemade ice cream menu, my inability to conform to the company business attire, and now, officially, the fact that I screwed around with our guests—in the nicest possible way.

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