Page 20 of Pilot's Virgin

Not that I thought it was wrong to raise prices on someone for the sake of making a buck, but when he was doing it out of greed, then refused to back down for me when I explained to him the fact that it was only going to make it so I couldn’t afford to buy from him, it was more than a little disappointing.

Not to mention the fact that I had to now go to Jason Weir and tell him that we weren’t going to be able to make the deal with the client after all, and that I was going to have to get back out there to see if I was able to find something that would work for his dream design.

I felt bad having to back out on the client. It wasn’t at all my normal way of doing things, and I hated that this was the client that I had to do this to. The fact that I had so much weighing on this already made me not want to rock the boat in any way, and now I was back to the very start of how to make him happy.

I felt that I had already bent over backwards to achieve what I had with him, and when he told me that he was happy with the selection of furniture that I’d chosen, I had been happier with that than anything else I had done in my career so far. I truly felt I had gone above and beyond with him, and to hear that he was really that happy with what I had achieved meant the world to me.

Then it all fell apart with the mere change of someone’s mind.

I wanted to be able to come to Jason and tell him that I had not only gotten the furniture he’d been happy with, but that I got it below budget, too. I wanted to make him thrilled with the entire service that had been provided to him from the company I worked for.

And now, I was going to have to go to him and my boss and tell them both that I had dropped the ball on this. I wasn’t sure how either one would take it at this point, and I braced myself for what the conversation would be. But, I also knew I was doing my best here, and I didn’t want to break out of being professional no matter what.

So, I’d bitten my tongue when it came to the guy at the furniture store, and I knew I was going to have to go elsewhere. But, to be able to achieve the same look with other furniture was going to require me being more creative with some of the other options I’d already seen.

And I already knew how I felt about those other options and what it would mean to me to be going back on what I had already chosen. It wasn’t the first time in my career I had done this, but it was the first time when I had ever had someone change their mind on such a big order before. It was frustrating, and as I walked back and forth with my sketchbook and the tape measure, I hoped I would get some sort of inspiration that would help me break through this entire situation.

With a sigh, I set my sketchpad down.

It wasn’t going to be easy to restart from the beginning, and I knew I was going to hold up the entire rest of the project by doing this. Not to mention the fact that I felt I had wasted a lot of my own time that could have been used for better things than just trying to argue with an old man who wasn’t going to change his mind.

Then again, there was the time I got to spend with Greyson.

He had been so funny, so charming, it was impossible for me to think of the time that I spent with him as a waste of time. No man had ever made me feel the way Greyson made me feel. There was just something about the way he understood me, the things he said to me and about the things we did together that were still funny enough to make me laugh from the memory alone.

And that made me feel a little better about the situation I now found myself in.

Even if I was going to have to swallow my pride and talk to both my boss and my client about how things had taken a different turn that I wasn’t expecting.

So far, I had only been delaying the inevitable with avoiding the conversation with either man. I was trying to decide which was going to be the lesser of two evils, and which I would rather deal with first.

I figured the one I called first was going to call the other.

Either I would have to tell my client that this was the situation, and he would call my boss to complain, or I was going to call my boss, and he would then call Jason to let him know that I had a setback but didn’t have the guts to talk to him directly.

Neither of those scenarios were anything I was dying to have happen, and with that being the case, I wasn’t sure how I wanted to approach this situation at all. I knew it would be better to get it over with before it turned into something that really did hold back the entire project, but with how good things had gone at first, and how happy Jason was with the way I had found the furniture for him, I didn’t want to be the one to crush his dreams and tell him it had all fallen apart.

The sound of a truck pulling up outside caught my attention, and I turned in surprise.

It was a large delivery truck, and two more were pulling in behind it.

I was confused.

I was at the new hotel, and if they were pulling up, that meant they were intending to deliver. But I hadn’t spoken with the man again after he told me he was firm on his new price for the hotel. There had to be some mistake. I wasn’t going to let him deliver the furniture if he was going to try to charge me the new price he’d set, and I worried that’s what was happening.

I rushed out of the hotel, waving my arms and frantically trying to stop the man from pulling into the loading dock around the back of the hotel. The other members of the crew were already getting ready to pull the furniture off the back of the truck, but I was trying to get the attention of one of them so I could talk to the person who was in charge.

“Hold it, wait a second!” a familiar voice said.

I turned to see the owner of the furniture store walking over to me. He had driven to the hotel in his own vehicle, and he was now motioning to his truck drivers to keep moving toward the loading dock.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Mr. Thompson, I told you we can’t afford the new price you named for the delivery. I’m going to have to cancel the order and take my business elsewhere.”

“I understand that’s where we were last night, but I need to apologize to you for the mistake that I made. I spoke with that other man you sent to talk to me, and he explained to me all the different bonuses I was getting with selling my furniture to this chain.”

“Wait, what?” I asked, not even bothering to hide my surprise.

“That’s right,” Mr. Thompson said. “I know with the exposure I’m going to get with this hotel chain, I’m going to get far more business with my company in the long run. I could charge more for this up front and lose out on the business, or I could take the cut that I’m getting right now, and I could have a lot more growth in the years to come. I didn’t look at it with the big picture in mind. I was just looking at the profit for today. I don’t know why I was being so small minded about the whole thing, but again, I am so glad that you sent your other man to come in and talk to me.”

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