I pull the chair over to the desk and sit down across from her. “Let’s do this.”
It took a call to New York and a little scrambling, but I gathered the materials Maeve requested. Zenith is real, these records aremostlyreal, and as far as anyone is concerned, I’m an actual employee at the firm.
“Prospectus.” I offer her all the documents Rory painstakingly procured and that I spent a few hours printing in the hotel’s business lounge. “AUM list. Annuals. Portfolio. Everything you asked for.”
She eyes the binder, tracks its thickness, then lifts a file box from the floor. The tremor in her hands has vanished, the steelonce more apparent in her spine. “Two hours with mine. And we’re both staying right here.”
“Good.” That way, if that bastard comes back, I’ll be here to teach him a lesson.
Everything Maeve touches at the hotel is impeccably organized, so I’m not surprised by the meticulous documents she hands over. The whole system’s filled with enough tasteful labels and tabs to make a CFO cry with envy.
But she still only provides a single box. Just a carefully chosen selection. Thorough enough to keep arealinvestor in the dark about the sort of money that really funds this fine establishment.
I respect the hustle. Curation is control, and control is—in this room and in our world—survival.
A minor inconvenience, but one I anticipated. Maeve’s sharp, and I’d be lying if I claimed that her craftiness wasn’t a huge turn on.
I sit across from her as we pore over each other’s materials. Paper shuffling, pens clicking, and our inhales and sighs—now steady after the prior excitement—are the only sounds in the otherwise quiet office.
I pretend not to notice the glances she sneaks as she checks for my reaction to different pages.
My charming, easy smile remains firmly in place.
I’ll give her nothing and watch her squirm.
Eventually, the silence proves too much, even for me. When I spy her attention on me again, my smile widens. “I thought you kept all your paperwork in your room.”
She huffs and returns her focus to the profit report she’s skimming. “Since you’ll never get a mile within my bedroom, I guess you’ll never know.”
I cover the laugh that slips out with a cough. “I’m pretty sure I’m already within a mile.”
I wiggle my eyebrows, and for a heartbeat, surprise, amusement, and irritation war on her face. Her pretty lips nearly settle into a frown before a quiet chuckle wins by a hair.
Good. She’s no longer thinking about what happened earlier.
I want that bastard’s ghost eradicated from this room.
I flip open the P&L statement, because that’s where people snitch on themselves without meaning to. I scan for anomalies, any references to unexplained expenses, any new influx of money, any new moves. Information that might point to Declan Gallagher or Nolan Doyle.
I follow the money. Linen service up six percent with occupancy flat. Food costs holding at an admirable margin that suggests someone in the kitchen knows the difference between elegance and waste.
Spa revenue dipped against trend for this zip code. Interesting. Housekeeping overtime spiked where it shouldn’t but corrected with a neatness that snags my eye. Maintenance bled for two months, then behaved like choirboys.
Idiosyncrasies, but nothing too revealing yet.
As we bend over the papers, an extra hour ticks away without either of us realizing. She asks me questions, and I make up replies. The room grows warmer by degrees.
Every accidental brush of our gazes heightens the tension between us.
Focus, Kellin.
I keep digging.
The truth lives with the vendors. House electricians, historic consultants, a landscaping outfit that bills quarterly to maintain the rooftop.
Then I strike gold.
Security. In-house payroll is light, vendor coverage even lighter. Shift differential at night is anemic. There’s enough here for maybe two full-time guys at most: one day shift, one night.
