Heron's Landing. JoAnn Ross

Чтение книги онлайн.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      ONE OF THE things Brianna loved best about her profession was that, on any given day, she never knew what was going to happen at work. Which typically was nonstop. She needed to be ready for any question, any request, because, as she’d discovered, any guest could ask her anything. This morning, as she arrived at her office, her assistant, Brad, was waiting with her coffee. Something she’d never requested, but since he’d started the habit his first day and was inordinately proud of his French press, she certainly wasn’t going to turn him down.

      “The man called,” Brad said before she’d even sat down at the cluttered work desk guests never saw. Which, because she’d insisted she couldn’t work on something that looked as if Marie Antoinette might have chosen it, was simply painted a fresh, clean white. The Cape Cod style reminded her of her Honeymoon Harbor roots and helped keep things in perspective when she spent sixty hours a week in a gilded palace. “He asked to see you as soon as you got in.”

      That, in itself, wouldn’t have triggered any concern. Hyatt Huntington, general manager of both the resort hotel and the casino, was even more of a workaholic than Brianna, often boasting that he had no trouble getting by on three hours of sleep a night. There were many days when she’d arrived early to find a stack of messages already waiting. She had, after several weeks of sleepless nights, convinced him that she didn’t have his superpowers and could do her job much better if he stopped texting her all night.

      Still, she couldn’t miss the seeds of worry in Brad’s normally smiling blue eyes. “Sure. Would you let him know I’m on my way?”

      “Of course.”

      With his romance cover model looks, Brad could have made a bundle in tips if he’d chosen to work on the casino floor. But, as she’d once done, he’d opted to work his way up the ladder, learning the ropes at previous hotels before this one, that would hopefully someday earn him entry into the prestigious Les Clefs d’Or. It had been Brianna’s membership in the international organization of concierges at the pinnacle of the profession, along with stellar recommendations from previous employers, that had won her this job, which had been the most sought-after position in the city.

      Grateful for the burst of caffeine before meeting with the high-energy hotel manager, she took a sip of the perfectly brewed coffee. Oh, yes, with his ability to anticipate every need, Brad had a successful career ahead of him.

      “Did he mention what it’s about?” The general manager usually sent her a blizzard of messages every day. Ones that Brad, who had to triage them by importance, had taken to calling Huntington’s snowflakes.

      “No. But he didn’t sound very happy.”

      “Then it’s situation normal.” Brianna never got called to her boss’s inner sanctum to be rewarded for a job well done. She was expected to provide guests with perfection. Anything less was unacceptable. Wondering if her furious physician had followed through on his threat to report her, she paused before leaving the office.

      “Would you please check the latest Yelp reviews?” she asked Brad. “And text me if we’ve got a new negative one?”

      “Sure. Let me do it now. It’ll just take a sec.” Without missing a beat, not bothering to inquire why, he began tapping on his computer.

      Hopefully he wouldn’t find anything. But it was always good to be prepared.

      Unfortunately, the review was already there. As soon as she got back from her meeting, she was going to have to take several deep breaths, switch from coffee to more calming tea, and respond. Bad reviews were never a good thing. But letting them go unacknowledged suggested the hotel didn’t care about its guests, which was even worse.

      Brianna buttoned her jacket over her ivory silk blouse, smoothed out nonexistent wrinkles in her black pencil skirt, and ran a hand over her hair, which she’d coiled into its usual tidy chignon. Then, after changing from the flats she’d worn for driving into her official work pumps, she squared her shoulders and headed toward the express elevator leading directly to the executive floor.

      Her boss’s secretary waved her right into his private office. The sympathy in the woman’s eyes was not encouraging.

      The office, which was spacious enough to hold Brianna’s entire apartment, was situated at the very top of the Vegas strip high-rise, which not only offered real-time viewing of all the hotel’s public places on the multiscreen СКАЧАТЬ