CHAPTER26
One Month Later…
“Ican’t do this anymore,” Andi mumbled hollowly as she looked up at the large, rundown hotel that he’d dragged her to and…
Nope.
She couldn’t do this, Andi decided with a firm nod as she turned around to make her way back to the car only to have Devyn, who’d been making her life a living hell over the past month, grab hold of her shoulders and turn her around with an absently murmured, “You’ve got this.”
“I really don’t, though,” Andi said, sniffling at the end there as she once again found herself heading towards another long night of searching through files and trying to come up with a way to improve the hotel’s bottom line as she kept an eye out for anything that could help them figure out who the mysterious James Jamerson was.
When Devyn found out that their mysterious VP had found a way to intercept the audit files, he’d taken steps to put a stop to it, ensuring that every hotel manager knew to deal with the investigation team that he’d hired to look into the matter directly. He’d hired private investigators, forensic accountants, IT specialists, and a slew of experts to tear through everything they’d found and figure out who was behind this mess.
So far, the only thing that they knew was that whoever was behind it had access, which meant that every member of the board and several high-ranking executives at the company was a suspect. Until the investigation was complete, he was keeping this information from the board and focusing on stopping any more damage from occurring, which is where she came in.
Over the past month, they’d visited every single one of Carta Hotels’ holdings that was struggling to show a profit, starting with their five-star hotels and ending with their economy hotels, sometimes several of them a day, leaving her too exhausted to do anything more than pass out at the end of the day only to grumble when it was time to move onto the next hotel. Devyn was determined to turn things around and make sure that the board had no choice but to renew his contract, which she couldn’t blame him for, but…
She missed him.
Every day was the same, he went to meetings and when he wasn’t in a meeting, he was on the phone, and if he wasn’t doing that, he was going through emails, files, and her notes. He made every minute count, finding ways to get more done so that every single minute of the day was accounted for while she did her best to stay out of his way. She had plenty to keep her busy, going over the audit records, looking for something, anything, that the team could have missed, trying to figure out ways to make Carta Hotels more profitable until she couldn’t see straight and was forced to call it a night.
As soon as she crawled into bed and closed her eyes, Devyn was there, pulling her into his arms and pressing a kiss against the back of her neck and as much as she would have loved to do more than just pass out in his arms every night, she was too exhausted to do anything more than that.
“Last one,” Devyn said as the automatic doors slowly slid open only to reveal an empty lobby with water-stained walls and a clerk that didn’t look happy to see them.
“Welcome to Cheraton Hotel. How can I help you?” the clerk that really didn’t look happy to see them muttered as Andi’s gaze darted to the other side of the room, taking in the bookshelf sparsely filled with a few mini boxes of cereal, shaving gel, shampoo, and two small bags of chips before her gaze landed on the mini-fridge next to it with one single serving of chocolate milk, two red sports drinks, and a bottle of water that looked like it had already been opened, and-
“Is…is that aftershave?” Andi found herself wondering when she reluctantly headed towards the disgruntled employee at the front desk when she was suddenly hit with what smelled like a gallon of cheap aftershave.
“I believe so,” Devyn murmured as they made their way to the front desk. “Reservations for Devyn MacGregor.”
With a put-out sigh, the woman shifted her attention to the computer and looked up their reservations while Andi stood there, taking it all in and couldn’t help but wonder if there was anything that they could do to fix this place. It had the lowest and angriest reviews of all the hotels, countless health violations, and-
What the hell was this? Andi found herself wondering when she spotted the photocopied brochure listing all the things that they shouldn’t expect while staying here. The pool was closed indefinitely, the bar, which was poolside, was only open during the weekend, two of the elevators were broken and it was highly recommended that they avoid the stairs on the south side of the building, the dryers in the laundry room didn’t work, there was a five-dollar charge for towels, which had to be ordered by two pm, but the hot tub worked, which probably would have been a plus if there wasn’t a warning about infectious diseases in bold letters and underlined in red ink five times. This was going to be fun, Andi thought as she noted that air conditioning was not guaranteed.
“This isn’t going to end well,” Andi mumbled weakly as she finished going through the list.
“It will be fine,” Devyn promised as he picked up their keycards.
“If you need anything, don’t bother calling the front desk. The phones don’t work,” the clerk said, shrugging it off.
“Is Mrs. Travis here?” Devyn asked as Andi watched that muscle in his jaw begin to tick, the one that told her that he was really pissed.
“She usually stops by sometime during the night shift,” came the answer along with another shrug.
“When she finally shows up, tell her that Devyn MacGregor, CEO of Carta Hotels, is here to do an inspection,” Devyn said evenly.
“I’ll let her know,” the clerk said, sighing heavily as she pulled her phone back out and dropped down in a chair while Devyn stood there, looking angry enough to give her hope and-
“Let’s go,” he said, gesturing to the elevators and destroying her last hope of sleeping in her own bed for the first time in a month.
“But-”
“It will be fine, Miss Dawson,” Devyn murmured as he handed her a keycard before gesturing for her to head upstairs. “I’ll go grab the bags,” he said, that muscle in his jaw working double-time as he turned around and left, leaving her with no choice but to see this thing through on her own.
Really wishing that she’d left this hotel off their list, Andi made her way to the elevator and pushed the cracked call button before resigning herself to another long night when the elevator doors opened and-
She decided to take the stairs when she was hit with a really disturbing combination of body odor, feet, old cigarettes, and other things that she couldn’t identify. Decision made, she opened the stairwell door and was immediately hit with what smelled like a public toilet.
“I-I really don’t think that I can do this,” Andi mumbled weakly as she let the stairwell door slam shut and turned around, nearly sighing with relief when she spotted Devyn standing behind her.
“It’s just for a few nights,” he bit out as she stood there, shaking her head only to grumble when he herded her onto the elevator.
The entire ride to the tenth floor, that muscle in his jaw kept ticking as he glared ahead, clearly determined to see this thing through as she held her breath, telling herself that they could go home after this and-
“Why does it smell like aftershave again?” Andi couldn’t help but wonder when they finally stepped off the elevator and into a dimly lit hallway.
“It could be worse,” Devyn said as they made their way to the first room and after several failed attempts to get the keycard to work, they stepped into the room and she quickly realized why everything smelled like aftershave.
“For fuck’s sake,” Devyn snapped, dropping their bags by the door as Andi stood there, taking it all in from the heavy scent of mold in the air to the rugs that made a squishy sound every time they so much as breathed, and everything in between.
The mini-fridge door had been torn off at some point, the curtains were stained various degrees of yellow and had what looked like cigarette burns on them, the comforter on the bed was covered in small white stains that left little to the imagination, there was a used condom on the floor, a roach taking a leisurely stroll along the aged wallpaper and-
“I really don’t think that I can do this,” Andi stressed as she continued taking in the room that they were expected to stay in.
“It’s just for a few nights,” Devyn repeated hollowly.
Absently nodding, Andi said, “This hotel isn’t worth saving.”
“There’s potential here,” Devyn said, rubbing the back of his neck as he looked around, not really sounding like he believed it.
“For a massacre?” Andi asked, blinking innocently up at him as he leveled a glare on her.
“We can fix this,” Devyn bit out, only to frown when his gaze landed on that used condom.
“So, I couldn’t help but notice that there was a lovely hotel on the way here,” Andi pointed out, already reaching for her phone.
“No,” Devyn bit out as she did a search for nearby hotels and found the one that she was looking for.
“Looks like they only have one room for the night. That’s lucky,” she murmured absently as she made quick work of booking the room.
“I’m not staying at a competitor’s hotel, Miss Dawson.”