I headed to the minibar, grabbing as many of the tiny bottles as I could hold. I dragged a chair over to the window and sat.
The door to Max’s room opened. "Are you done already?" He didn’t hide his disgust for me.
I lifted my hand, giving him the finger.
He walked over to me, grabbing one of the bottles and sitting on the arm of the chair. "So, what are you going to do now?"
What Icoulddo was the question. Kate was out of reach, and no matter how much I wanted to get her out of my system, she was there forever. "Maybe I’ll become a monk."
CHAPTERTWELVE
Kate
The entire rest of the day after the incident at Sam’s, I seethed with anger at myself for dropping my guard with him. But by the following day, I was proud of myself for pushing him away again.
Yes, I had a moment of weakness, but now I was strong again. My focus now was making sure that Sam and his brother didn't put me out of business by building their fancy techno club so close to me.
I went to the club early so I could start planning my strategy. I called Ethan and asked if he could come by and help me. He agreed, and now he sat with me at the back of the Sea Siren discussing business. It was after the lunch rush and before the arrival of the late afternoon crowd who liked to get drinks before heading home.
I looked down at my paper scrawled with notes, but none of them gave me confidence that I would succeed in competing with Sam.
"You know a lot of important people, Ethan. Maybe you could talk to some of them, and they could lose a building permit or something."
He arched a brow at me. "You really want to resort to cheating?”
“Says the man who talked his secretary, my best friend, into marrying him to cheat his way into Grandfather’s favor.”
“I didn’t win his favor or the company.”
No. He got happily ever after.
“You sure you don't want to beat him on your merit? Your success will be all the more sweeter knowing you beat him at his game.”
Dammit. "I do want to beat him on my merit, but I don't know how I'm going to compete with them." I explained to Ethan what I'd seen in the plans.
"I don't know that the people who come here are necessarily going to want to go there, at least not on a regular basis like they come here,” he said.
"You think our markets are different?"
He nodded. “From what you explained about his club, it sounds like it's going to be loud and full of gimmicks and games. The Sea Siren is a community place. People come here to hang out and talk. His place is probably going to be a bunch of single people looking to get laid, where people here might be single, but many of them are couples coming out to have a drink with a nice view of the beach."
I understood what he was saying, but until Sam's club opened, I couldn't know for sure that what Ethan said would be the case. A new and shiny venue was a powerful lure. I also couldn't sit around and wait to find out how his bar would impact mine without a plan.
"Their clubs in New York and New Jersey do really well." I sighed. I knew I was a competent and capable woman who’d built a successful business, but I felt out of my element when I learned just how successful Sam and Max were.
"Did any clubs around them go out of business once they appeared?" Ethan asked.
I shrugged. "There's one or two that are closed out in the Hamptons, but I guess I can't really know if it was because of Sam or something else." One thing I knew for sure was that restaurants and clubs weren’t the best businesses to go into. Many of them went out of business all the time because of a bad location or poor management. Or competition.
"I still need to be prepared for it to have an impact."
Ethan sat back, studying me. "It could draw new people to the area who then discover you.”
I smirked. “How can that happen over the noise and shiny objects?”
He laughed. “First, don’t underestimate yourself and what you have here. The answer is that you focus your marketing efforts on the community element of your place. Customer loyalty. Another idea might be to bring in live music. It doesn't sound like Sam's club is going to have that. From what you're saying, it sounds like a modern-day disco or techno club."
I nodded again. I looked down at my notes. "A live band is a good idea." Not only would a live band attract my regular customers, but bands had their own fans and street teams. They would bring in people as well.