Page 51 of The Cowboy and the Bombshell
I closed my eyes against the sting of tears that surfaced as memories of my dad assaulted me from all sides. How much he loved being a police officer, and how, sometimes, people hated him for doing his job.
And what that job had ultimately cost him, cost us, as a family. As a city.
As a nation.
It was a price a lot of us were still paying.
When I opened my eyes, I found Stone staring at me intently, the look on his face one I couldn’t quite read. After a moment he smiled, one side of his mouth curving up. “Yeah,” he agreed. “That just might be the best after all.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Penelope
“Our new hire targets are behind in regards to our casino floor staff and dealers right now,” Gideon Langford, Gaming Manager forThe Alamostated flatly, looking only mildly annoyed by this fact. “The staff that we do have is scheduled to start their training in two weeks, but we are doing another wave of interviews before then, so I am hopeful that the remainder of the positions will be filled in time to join them.”
Those of us seated around the table nodded as I looked at each of them in turn. I had been here in Las Vegas for almost two months, and these weekly executive meetings had gotten more and more tense as the date of the Soft Launch crept up on us. There was just so much left to do, and time was running out. Gideon was not the only one behind on his hires, as all departments seemed to be scrambling for staff. Geoff Yates, the food and beverage manager, had complained that two of his sous-chefs had quit this week, leaving for other opportunities, and his server and bartender teams were not complete either. Operations manager, Curtis Jones, was still looking for appropriate people to fill the shift managers positions in both guest services and housekeeping, and Silas, who was head of hotel security, was in the process of doing background checks on everyone who applied for any position, but close to completing his own team of security staff.
All in all, things were behind schedule and heading towards being over budget, and the scowl on Stone’s face only supported what everyone in the room was feeling; stress.
“Let me know if you need to branch out as far as where you are looking for potential hires,” Stone said gruffly. “I want these positions filled as soon as possible. Our staff should all be well trained for our Soft Launch in six weeks so that every guest has the Pennington Hotels Experience, no matter how new this hotel is.”
Gideon nodded, his face showing no indication of how he felt regarding Stone’s statement. I had found that that was just Gideon, though. He was stoic, rarely showing anything beyond and eyebrow raise or a nod. Where Stone was a grouch, at least to most people, his face usually set in an expression of annoyance tinged with a dash of anger, Gideon was carefully blank. His features always looked carved out of marble, his dark skin and deep brown eyes barely moving as he surveyed the room around him. He was intimidating, that was for sure. Where Stone’s moods had raised a fire in me, prompting me to dish out his own crankiness right back at him, Gideon caused me to hesitate, never sure how to approach him or how any interaction would be received.
It was for all those reasons that I hesitated before I spoke now. “If you’d like, Mr. Langford,” I started, going for polite and respectful. “I could post on our social media accounts. Since we have started here, our follows have increased significantly. I’m sure, between our own followers and any corresponding shares, we could reach a few million people by the end of the day.”
Every head at the table turned my way, but I didn’t take my eyes off Gideon, willing myself not to falter under his intense gaze. His eyes roamed over my face, seemingly searching for something. After a moment, he pursed his lips and nodded. “That may be beneficial. Thank you.”
I shot him a full smile, pleased to have gotten a positive response. I really just liked being helpful, but getting a nod from Gideon seemed like an extra win.
“Thank you, Miss Lund,” Stone said, sending a smile of his own my way. “That’s an excellent idea.”
His comment received a derisive snort from Toby, and I turned see him glaring at me coldly.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Reynolds?” Stone asked, as the tension in the room rose another notch. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. I had a feeling I knew what was bothering Toby, but there was no way I wanted it discussed at the table.
“Nope,” Toby replied, popping the “P” and leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “No problem. I’m being totally professional, right Penelope?”
In reality, he was being totally disrespectful, both to Stone and me, and to the others attending this meeting. I glanced around, seeing confusion on the faces of the others, except for Gideon, who was looking at Toby with that same impassive expression, even if his eyes were narrowed slightly.
Everyone was quiet, watching as Stone and Toby squared off across the conference table. I could see Stone’s jaw muscles clenching, knowing he was doing everything he could to refrain from exploding at Toby. I had asked Stone when we first got together to please be discreet at work. Everyone knows what happens to a woman’s career when she sleeps with the boss. I can’t imagine that situation gets any better when the Human Resources Manager considers himself the spurned party. Stone was sticking to my request, even though I could see it was hard for him. I had to step in before things went from bad to worse.
“Of course, Mr. Reynolds is being professional. He has always been above reproach, and I am sure we all appreciate him for it.”
Toby rolled his eyes, clearly insulted by my comments. Stone stood up from his place at the head of the table and for a second I thought he was going to get physical. But he simply gathered his things, then leveled Toby with his best intimidating look and said, “I think we are finished here for today. If anyone has anything further they’d like to say, I’ll be available.”
Everyone took that as their queue to hightail it back to their respective offices, with Toby leading the way, slamming the door open in a huff.
Damn. That was becoming a serious problem.
Soon Stone and I were the only ones left in the room. He held his rigid posture until the door closed behind the last person, then exhaled a huge breath of air, leaning back in the chair and dragging his hand over his face in exasperation.
“Shit,” he breathed.
“Yeah,” was all I could think of to say in return.
“I gotta say, I didn’t expect that from him.”
“Neither did I, to be honest.” I chewed on my lower lip, nervously running through different scenarios in my mind. All of them ended up with me losing my job in disgrace. “Do you think he’ll say anything? About… us.” I hedged, wondering if there was an ‘us’ to be mentioning. Stone and I hadn’t had discussed what we were, both of us content to just enjoy the time we had together. But now that the end was closer than the beginning, it seemed like talking about it was inevitable.
