Angelica pursed her lips, flicking her gaze toward Hope. “And you want them to just accept that it was a mistake and move on?”
Elsie nodded.
Hope bit her lip and jumped in. “Part of making a mistake is owning it, which I believe you’ve done. But part of moving on from that mistake is to work toward restitution and reconciliation. You have to prove that you’re trustworthy and that you learned a lesson from this.”
Ronan’s cheeks reddened and he shook his head. “They’ll never accept that.”
“You’ll never know if you don’t try,” Hope said.
Angelica nodded her agreement. “Which does play into a bit of the plan that Hope and I have talked about for this place. You can’t keep doing everything on your own. You’re going to run yourselves into an early grave if you do that.”
Elsie frowned at that. Perhaps Angelica was getting through to her, even if just a little.
“In order to fix this hotel, we have to deal with your reputation.” Angelica placed her hand flat on top of the table. “Because you need this town behind you in order for the hotel and restaurant to thrive.”
Ronan swallowed hard and shook his head. “I don’t think it’s possible.”
“You’ve survived this long after it somehow, and I’m sure you can do it again.” Angelica looked at him directly. “Let’s put out a call for housekeeping, we’ll increase wages dramatically to make it competitive to entice people in. And then we’re going to make that job the cushiest and best job in town. This will be the best hotel to work at.”
“W-we can’t afford that.”
“I think you can.” Angelica tapped her iPad. “I’ve been playing with the numbers and looking into them, and I think this is manageable. We can go through more of those details later.”
“Elsie,” Hope jumped in again, “you and I are going to make a bunch of bite-sized foods and we’re going to take them to the local farmers market tomorrow, and then we’re going to starthanding them out on the street. We want to entice people into the restaurant with your food.”
“We’re giving away food?” Elsie seemed skeptical now.
“Yes.” Hope crossed her arms, taking a harder stance with Elsie than she typically would.
When they’d come here, everyone had thought that Ronan would be the hard nut to crack, but it was definitely his mother. She had protection written all over her, and Ronan was so broken that he didn’t have any more shits to give.
“That’s a waste of money.” Elsie pouted.
“Sometimes you have towastemoney in order to gain respect.” Angelica was going to take this hard stance because she’d done the work, and both Elsie and Ronan had to be fully in on the game plan to see it through. But she wasn’t convinced that they would push hard enough to make this work. “You both need to commit to this. If you don’t, then Hope’s suggestion, along with my own, is that you plan to foreclose and abandon the hotel business.”
“The food and service aren’t the issue. You’re right when you say it’s reputation and the fact that you can’t seem to make any headway on it. It’s time to stop waiting for people’s minds to change about who you are and it’s time to start giving them a reason to want to change their minds.” Hope looked from Ronan and Elsie directly at Angelica, raising her eyebrows at Angelica, as if she was talking to her and not to them.
But she couldn’t be doing that, could she?
Angelica’s lips parted in surprise, and she nearly stuttered out her next comment. “You have to get ahead of the PR nightmare while you can. Burying your head in the sand isn’t going to do anyone any good.”
“You’re right. It’s not.” Again Hope was looking directly at her.
Damn it. Hope wasn’t just talking about Ronan and Elsie.
Anger burned its way into Angelica’s chest, but she pushed it back down and focused on the reason they were even here in the first place. “I’ll give you thirty minutes to talk it over and tell me what you think. Here’s the plans we’ve made up.” Angelica turned on her iPad and slid it over to them.
She stood up and walked away, needing to put some space between her and Hope. Whatever that was, was uncomfortable.
Hope said a few more words and then followed Angelica back toward the main lobby. “Angel!”
Angelica ignored her. She didn’t want to hear more of what Hope wasn’t directly saying to her.
“Ange, wait up.”
Sighing heavily, Angelica slowed her pace and steadied herself. No, it wasn’t that. She braced herself. Because the reality Hope was going to bring down on her was exactly what she didn’t want to hear. She pulled the microphone from her waistband and tugged the line out of it. Hope did the same in silence.
They couldn’t go anywhere outside of this building. They’d be accosted as soon as they stepped outside, and the last few days of being stuck inside without ever seeing daylight, without ever feeling the wind on her cheeks was too much.
