Page 6 of Made For You
An hour and a half later, I was nestled into the backseat of a town car, scrolling through my phone with one hand as my other tugged at the collar of my dress shirt. The clothing was something I was still getting used to. I’d worn sweaters and polos while attending boarding school and swore I’d never have a collar wrapped around my neck again once I turned eighteen. Yet, here I was, filling in for my absentee uncle and acting as CEO. It was all a ruse though. Without my grandfather’s permission, I could never take control of the hotels my mother should have inherited. And he was the reason I was about to do something crazy.
A year ago, I was spending my time on my houseboat, working on the financials and books, and now here I was, long hair slicked back away from my face and a suit incasing my body. I hated it, but I played the part as I needed. I saw the prize waiting at the end for me and my late mother.
My driver darted through the early-morning traffic, something that never seemed to ease in the city, as we approached our most popular hotel. I kept an office onsite, never wanting to step foot in the administrative buildings that I believed were a waste of money, since most of our employees worked remotely. But it was a futile argument with my relatives who believed they could only accomplish productive work in an office building surrounded by their peers.
The car jerked to a stop, and I exited before the driver could put it in park. He was on contract with the apartment complex and didn’t work for tips, yet I always leaned forward and slipped a couple of twenties between the front two seats to leave on the center console. I’d learned through his many one-sided conversations he was a single dad of four children and continued to work past retirement age to send his youngest to college. I probably could do more for him, but he seemed the kind who wouldn’t accept any handouts. So, my few hundred bucks extra a week would have to suffice.
I didn’t toss out a farewell as I slammed the door and hurried up the steps, my phone already pressed to my ear as I dialed my one and only friend, Dean. He didn’t answer, of course, not that I expected him to at 5:30 in the morning.
When his voicemail clicked on, I said, “I need an update and a plan this morning. My office at nine. Bring everything. Time is of the essence.”
There was no eye contact as I brushed past the doorman when I ended the call.
As always, I took the time to appreciate the renovations in the lobby. The first project I headed when I took over for my uncle was a complete overhaul of the outdated space. I replaced the washed-out pinks and creams with white and black. It made it feel like the high-end resort we should have been marketing all along. My grandfather had been hesitant to spend the dollars on the renovation, but our reservation numbers had tripled since the completion of the remodel.
I had my eye on the first Wilder Hotel, which had been left to deteriorate over the decades. It’s the one that had always been my mother’s favorite. But I had to wait it out before making that proposal, because there was a reason my family avoided the association with the old building. And a reason they held on to the building all these years.
Employees shuffled out of my way as I walked across the marble and down the hall toward my office. They knew I’d never return a greeting nor respond if they asked a question. Theyhad managers for that kind of nonsense. I was here to get the Wilder Hotel chain back on the map, not to make friends with the employees. Though I attempted to smirk at one of the front desk clerks as she stood behind it. A look of fear flickered across her face, and I immediately schooled my expression.
My grandmother always fussed at me for not smiling more. Clearly, she didn’t realize how terrifying my smiles came across.
The small office corridor was empty as I stepped inside. There were four more offices that belonged to the direct hotel staff and a desk just outside my corner suite for my assistant, Olive. She tended to leave me alone most of the time and was efficient in her work, but I never missed the flirty eyes she made toward me. Unfortunately for her, I never slept with my employees, nor someone fresh out of college. And there was no way in hell I wasdatinganyone—ever. At least not for real.
As I sat behind my desk, flicking on the lamp with a quick pull of the chain, the thought of what I was going to have to do for the next few months or even year left a nasty burn in my stomach. I was going to have to make a commitment of epic proportions, but it was worth it to rectify what my family had done to my mom.
She died before I could ever get to know her, but I had one solid memory of her from my third birthday. Our small house was filled with balloons, and there was a bright-red bow on the Power Wheels truck she bought me. My dad was by her side as they watched my reaction, and I remembered it being the happiest I’d ever seen my mom. Her smile was the best memory she could have left me.
Twenty-seven years later, I was determined to put that smile back on her face up in heaven.
“Here,” a familiar voice startled me from across my desk. A large coffee in a familiar white-and-green travel mug was gripped in the hand of his outstretched arm.
“Thanks. You’re here early,” I said to Dean as I accepted his offering. I knew without a doubt that it would be a black coffee with two sugars. After knowing me for the last twenty years, there was no doubt he knew how I took my early-morning beverage, in addition to my go-to drink order at a bar. Just like I knew both of his.
I glanced down at the corner of my computer screen and confirmed it was still well before the normal start of his day. My office space was still barren.
“Well, when I got your message, I assumed it was more urgent than not.”
Dean folded his large body onto one of my stiff office chairs. The wood frame creaked under the weight of his muscular form. I stood at six foot two, and he towered over me. Many times when we were out, people would mistake him as my bodyguard. The comical part was that he was a one of the kindest people I knew. I liked to think our friendship softened me a bit. Without him, I’d have grown hard years ago.
“You assumed right,” I replied as I sipped the hot liquid. Dean was smart enough to know we had very little time to get my plan into action, and we needed to start without the prying ears and eyes of my employees lurking about.
As he tugged a leather bag from around his chest and set it at his feet, he leveled his eyes on me. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“I don’t have any other choice. You saw the document just as I did.”
He sighed heavily as if it were him having to tie himself down with a ball and chain for the next few months. “I read it, and I even had my own lawyers look over the living will. It’s ironclad. You have to be married to take ownership of the business.”
That was only part of the stipulation. I also had to be married to take full control of my trust fund left by my mother. After six months of “wedded bliss,” everything would be handed over to me, the rightful heir to Wilder Hotels.
The contract in question was why my mother had excommunicated herself from her family. They’d called her a disgrace when she wound up pregnant with me out of wedlock, despite the promise from my dad to marry her before I was born, and he’d stayed true to that. It was that only a male could be promised the business. An old, misogynistic rule I planned to rectify when it became mine.
“It’s a burden I’m willing to bear. The business should have gone to my mom.Heknows that, and I have no doubt, even from his deathbed, he’s going to try to weasel it away from me. That’s why our plan is perfect.”
“But… no offense… you’re not really husband material. Your idea of a commitment is using the same driver every day and your weekly calls with your grandmother. I’ve never known you to be in a relationship of any sort. You can’t even commit to someone in your bed more than a handful of times.”
Though he wasn’t wrong in his assessment, his words still burned me with shame. But I needed to do this. Not just for me or for my mother, but for my family as a whole. My grandma was never the same when my mom left their family, and she held it against my grandfather since that day. She told me all the time that she would have divorced him if she could have survived on her own.
Survival. That’s all this is, I told myself.
