Chapter One
Olivia
I stand outside the frosted-glass door that says CATERINA CONTI — OPERATIONS, my palms damp and my carry-on still digging into my shoulder because I didn’t trust the hotel storage closet on my first day.
The carpet in this hallway is brand-new and aggressively neutral, the kind of beige that makes contractors and investors happy. It smells like glue and dust. Somewhere below, a drill whines, stops, and starts again. A man’s voice echoes, “Kill the breaker,” and then the lights over my head blink once.
I adjust the strap, wipe my hand on my skirt, and knock.
“Come in!” she calls. Same voice as a hundred late-night study sessions, same impatience that used to make me finish a case summary twice as fast because Caterina does not believe in wasting minutes.
I push the door open.
She’s behind a desk that still has a shipping label stuck to the underside of the glass. The office itself isn’t finished;half of one wall is exposed, showing the rough concrete behind the drywall. The window looks over the casino floor, which is nothing but plywood, wiring, and islands of black plastic-wrapped shapes that will become tables and machines.
But the desk is organized, because of course it is. Two monitors, a legal pad, three pens aligned perfectly. There’s a framed photo at the corner: Caterina in a cap and gown, arm slung around me, both of us sunburned from a day outside by the river after graduation. I feel the jolt in my chest before I can school my face.
“Liv.” She’s up and around the desk before I can say anything. I drop the bag just in time to catch her. She smells like expensive citrus, and I register how small she is, how not contained her movements are, which is unusual for her.
“You cut your hair,” I say into her shoulder. It’s shorter than last year; sleek now, resting just past her chin, ends razor clean.
“You grew yours,” she says, pulling back, and there’s a quick grin that cracks the controlled expression I remember from every one of those study sessions. “You look good.”
“You too.” I try not to stare at the photo. I fail. “Is that new?”
“It came yesterday.” She glances at it, then at me. “I wanted to start in this office with something I actually chose.”
“You chose the pens,” I say. “If I know you as well as I thinkI do.”
“I did choose the pens.” She mock-wince-smiles. “Just because it’s not ready yet doesn’t mean I can’t be organized.”
“Typical Cat,” I say fondly. “And no. I’m impressed you have a desk at all with that wall.”
She glances at the exposed concrete. “They swore the noise would stop by noon.” The drill starts again, as if it had heard her. She sighs. “They lied.”
I laugh, and with the laugh, the pressure flows out of me. “Thank you for calling me,” I say, quieter. “For thinking of me.”
Her eyes soften. “I told you at graduation I would, if the timing worked. It worked.” She tips her head toward the chair across from her desk. “Come on. Let’s make this official before someone else swoops in and steals you.”
We sit on either side of the desk. She opens a folder, and the tone shifts from friends to business. Not unfriendly but exact. “So. Olivia Romano. MBA, Wharton. Concentrations: Marketing and Business Analytics. Internships: Fitzroy Resorts, brand partnerships; Nectar, loyalty-life cycle modeling; Dewitt Events, experiential. You’re a California native, moved back home after graduation, and I just convinced you to trade your ocean for… our ocean.”
“I’ve heard the Atlantic is moodier,” I say.
“It is. So are the people. But at least we’re honest about it.”
There’s a glint in her eyes that reads as pride when she says it, and for a second, I get the urge to ask how that happened. How a woman our age can say the word “our” about a wholecasino. But I don’t ask. Not yet. This is the interview. This is me being good at what I do.
“Officially,” she says, “you’ll be Marketing Coordinator for The Regent Club, our hotel-casino, reporting to me. Unofficially, you’ll be my right hand, making this opening feel like we’ve been here a hundred years and everyone else is late to the party. I need a calendar, a pipeline, and discipline on spend.”
“I can do that.”
“I know you can,” she says, and there’s a brief flicker of personal again, like a hand squeeze.
Then she flips a page. “Let me talk to you for a few minutes, and then you can ask questions. We’re eight weeks out from soft open on the hotel side if construction stays on the schedule they promised.”
She tilts her head at the wall. “Big ‘if.’ The casino floor trails the hotel by another four weeks; target is to be fully operational before Memorial Day traffic.” She names the date, and I do the math automatically—lead times, vendor availability, press cycles.
“Two phase,” I say. “Hotel first, then casino. Soft open, then grand opening.”
