Angelica turned her gaze onto him now. “What fib?”
“That there was an emergency,” Mrs. Kartali started. “We wanted to speak with you in person since you’ve been ignoring our other communications.”
Narrowing her gaze, Angelica stilled.Other communications?What the hell were they going on about? “What communications?”
“About selling the franchise,” Mr. Kartali jumped in.
“Right, you did tell me you were looking to sell.” Angelica tensed again. She didn’t exactly want to break in new owners who would definitely have an issue with her also owning another hotel. It’d be a conflict of interest for sure. The only reason she’d managed to get away with it with the Kartalis was because they knew her and she’d worked for them, and her new hotel wasn’t in any conflict with theirs.
“We want you to buy them,” Mrs. Kartali simply stated.
“You… you what?” Angelica’s eyebrows rose in shock, her lips parted in stunning surprise. “You want me to buy all your hotels?”
“Yes,” Mr. Kartali confirmed. “We thought when we told you that we were looking at selling that you would jump at the opportunity.”
“Oh.” Angelica relaxed slightly into her chair and then tensed again. “I haven’t even completed the purchase of Mountain View West yet. Acquiring an entire business takes time.”
“It does.” Mrs. Kartali canted her head to the side, her salt-and-pepper hair brushing against her shoulders. “And we’re prepared to wait for you.”
“For me?” Angelica nearly squeaked out those words, but she managed to catch herself finally. She focused on her breathing for a second and then settled herself. “Surely it’d be faster if another already established company were to buy out?—”
“That’s not what we want.” Mr. Kartali pointed at her with one finger. “We’ve discussed, and we want you.”
There it was again. That accusation along with the expectation that she was just going to fall in line. “I don’t know if I want more than Mountain View…”
“We’ll give you time to think about it, Angelica, but we expect an answer by the end of your filming adventures. We need to know what we’re up against when it comes to our future plans.”Mrs. Kartali gave her a hard look as if that was going to make all the difference in the world.
Angelica felt smaller by the second. Pushed into a corner where she was forced to make a decision that would indeed change the course of her life. If she owned these hotels that lined the coast, then how much time could she reasonably spend in Colorado or filming?
Why was there never enough time?
She nodded at them slowly. “I promise I’ll think about it.”
“You have three weeks to think about it, until the end of the month. Then we want your answer.” Mrs. Kartali held her hand out, palm up. “And Angelica, when you think about it, know that you can’t be everything for everyone, and when you own, you’ll have to step back in some of your duties.”
Probably the ones that she loved the most, which was the unfortunate part. Angelica already knew that. She’d never fully contemplated owning hotels, and it hadn’t been until Tatum had insisted that she’d truly toyed with the idea.
And now this?
“We trust you implicitly,” Mr. Kartali added. “That’s why we want you to carry on the legacy you helped us to shape.”
Fuck, why did he have to throw that in there?
Angelica nodded, though she struggled to meet his eye. “I promise I’ll think about it.”
“Good.” They both grinned. “For now, you can give us an update on how everything is going.”
“Right.” Angelica put her iPad onto the table and started to pull up reports. This hadn’t been what she expected to come back to, but she wouldn’t be caught off guard. Not when it came to this at least.
Episode 3
VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA - BEACHES
Chapter
Twenty-One
“Holy crap this menu,”Hope mumbled under her breath even though she knew the microphone would pick up absolutely everything.
