"I'm going to get me some tea and you some coffee. Why don't you open up the cards and see what we're looking at. Don't want to leave cash hanging around." Delaney says over her shoulder as she walks the short distance to the kitchen . I pull out the bag stuffed with wedding cards and walk over to the table by the ocean view terrace. I pull the curtains back slightly to drown out some of the light. It's beautiful but fuck this place can be bright as hell.
I notice a lot of cards and even some from people who weren't actually at the wedding. I pick up one from a cousin of mine and rip open the seal. It's a generic looking card but wrapped up in tissue paper behind the card is a tight stack of hundreds.
"Holy fuck." I gasp and pull it out. The stack is wrapped in denomination tape that says five thousand dollars. Did he really just drop off five grand in a card and not even come to the wedding? I'm shocked dan start checking the bills to see if they're counterfeit or tampered with in some way. That seems a bit excessive.
"What's wrong?' Delaney asks as she places a cup of coffee in front of me.
"Nothing, I mean… I just... my cousin gave us five grand."
"What! In US Dollars?" She shrieks and moves my hands to see the cash in front of me.
"Holy shit!' She reaches for another card and rips it open by passing the card and pulling out a single piece of paper." No, what the ... that's... no." Delaney stares at the paper that I can see is a check from the signature on the back.
"What is it? How much? Who gave it?" I say getting excited and watching her face get redder by the second. "Delaney."
"Eamon gave us fifty thousand dollars." She puts the check down in front of me and sure enough the check was written out for fifty thousand US dollars.
"What the hell is going on here?" I ask and push it to the center of the pile. I have my own funds so I know what it's like to have money but I'm not worth millions and millions of dollars. Delaney and I weren't expecting anyone to come to the wedding and now were getting money hand over fist.
We quickly go through the stack of cards and pull out the money, we've collected more than a hundred seventy five thousand dollars. Both Delaney and I just sit there looking at the checks and cash in shock.
"Baron."
"Yes, my love." I answer, and she looks up at me out of the corner of my eye.
"You know what this means?"
I blink and look up from the table to see her smiling brightly at me.
"We can get started on the renovations!" She rubs her hands together quickly before she starts pulling the money together.
She's right, this will be a great help in renovating the resort, of course we're going to need a lot more but this is a start.
"What do you want to work on first?" I ask her and sit back as she tells me about her ideas. I add in here and there about different ways we can make it more efficient and it's a pleasure to see how well we work together as partners. . BY the time lunch time rolls around we've discussed everything on hiring more personnel to getting a better social media presence for the resort. Delaney is determined to make this place a success and I'm more than happy to let her.
CHAPTER26
DELANEY
“I’m on the page, but it’s not looking right,” I say, squinting at my computer. “Everything’s off center. It’s all a little too far to the left.”
“I can fix that. Just a second,” The IT person at the hotel in London says; I hadn’t met him, but Tom was confident about hiring him to manage our websites. The resort’s website was out of date, and there’d been some major modifications to the services we provide. “The page will go down for a moment, but don’t panic. It’s just refreshing.”
“Speaking of refreshing,” Tom says, his voice flooding my office from the speaker on the phone. “I distinctly remember Baron promising me some vacation time. Do I get to stay at the resort in Costa Rica for free? Can I bring anybody? My mom, for instance? Maybe a few of her friends?”
“Um, are we talking about holiday?” I ask distractedly as I sit back in my chair.
“My mom hates the holidays, so no. I was thinking sometime in January or February.” Tom answers.
“Okay, send me an email about it and I’ll talk to Baron. I don’t see any reason not to have a special pass for our employees to take vacations between London and Costa Rica. A lot of the employees here haven’t been to Europe, either. Some of them have worked cruise lines, though,” I stroke my jaw thoughtfully as I ponder the issue. “But I think it’d have to be pretty basic, honestly. You and a plus one, but we can give discounts for extras, maybe? I don’t want to make it impossible, but neither the hotel or resort is in a position to do too many of these offers completely for free.”
“Cool, ‘cause I’ve been working up the courage to ask you for a couple days now, and I have a whole thing ready to go,” Tom chuckles sheepishly, and I smile. “I wasn’t sure if I should bring it up because. . . honestly, Delaney, just doing the job myself is so much easier than dreading someone else being brought in and doing it badly.”
“You can refresh the page, Delaney.” The IT guy interrupts hastily, and I lean forward again to do just that. This time, the resort’s web page looks centered, and I nod to myself.
“It looks good. How’s the creation of the events page going? Did all the photos I sent you get incorporated alright?” I ask.
“I have my friend working on that as we speak. He says it’ll take him another day or two. I’ll send you screenshots of the layout. It’ll be messy without any formatting, color, or photos, but the structure is the same as the template.” I blink at the disembodied voice telling me things I don’t understand. I’m not a step above ‘turn it off and on again’, for Christ’s sake. Formatting? Huh? I shake my head before Tom speaks up, continuing our conversation.
