I’m interrupted in my looking for a pack of paracetamol in my bag, by my temporary personal assistant, Molly King, a very lively young girl, who had not only managed to cut off three phone calls, but she also swore like a trouper at another clients assistant, it was quite funny really. She thought the speaker had been turned off on her end, but it hadn’t and she began a tirade of swear words aimed at the personal assistant of one of the other CEO’s attending the hotel sales negotiations, not knowing she was on speaker and to top it off, his boss was listening in to the call. He wasn’t taking no as an acceptable answer from her, the assistant who asked her out on a date, was left with a slapped face for being too forward, and was now making her life miserable, until his boss sacked him, he was none too pleased with how his staff tried to get their information in his attempted take overs, but Molly is not dumb, mouthy yes, but far from a push over, she saw right through the guys assistant. Blacked his eye and stormed off.
She is a firecracker who makes me laugh, she knows when she is being conned and she leaves a lasting impression on everyone she sees! I can’t help but smile or forget the legal representative for one of the companies who yes was an ass too. He’d changed his mind three or four times when he was asked by Molly did he want either coffee and tea, he’d changed his mind mid-sentence the last time and for pissing her off, he received a delightful half and half coffee/tea concoction and was promptly told by her, “shit man I thought it was what you foreigners drank.” I’d had a fun day with her. She is good for a last minute substitute, if only for the comedic element she is adding to these fraught negotiations.
“Miss Humphries, there’s a call for you, shall I put it through to you here?” I so wanted to say no put it through to the pool side cabana, but knowing her she would, my lord this girl was as useless to me as an assistant, as dance shoes on a donkey. She was fun to be with and got there in the end. She will learn how to do the job, eventually.
“Yes Molly, and after that can you send Dom to me please, have him wait in my office and thank you for stepping into the breach as my assistant at such short notice, what do you normally do here in the hotel?”
“I am a chambermaid, Miss Humphries.” I asked Dom for a skilled personal assistant who spoke French, Spanish or Italian and he sends me someone to change my sheets, that bastards going down, so I guess she’s not a bad personal assistant then, if all she has done is change sheets and clean bedrooms.
“So, do you speak any languages?”
“Why is it a prerequisite for me getting the job fulltime? Only Mr Jarret, said if I played my cards right, I could be your new personal assistant, taking over from Kendal?”
“Well now that’s good to hear, that everyone knows Kendal has left us, that too was supposed to be confidential. So differing languages do you speak them?”
“Sorry, damn it... I really need... I forgot you asked the damn question, shit sorry for swearing, oh crap I mean, yes, I speak several. Not that Mr Jarret knows or even cares that I do, as long as his sheets are changed daily, and that I don’t tell you he and the manager are at it like rabbits in the big management suite, morning noon and fucking night, sorry I will transfer the call, and hand in my notice.”
“No, please wait for that, transfer the call here, get a drink, a tissue and wait in my office for me, hold off on getting Dom to my office, we need to talk first.”
I bloody well knew there was something more to Kendal’s sudden departure, that bastard I will have his peanut sized balls fed to the lions in the show here. He has done it this time. She goes to transfer the call and cuts me off, umm chocolate tea pot, she’s kinda useless, oh hell, I need a personal assistant, and one I can trust…
“Sorry for that, I did not cut you off, your sister said before she hung up on you, she was fed up of waiting she had things to do, and I quote, sorry for this. ‘For fucks sake, I have a life and you are on a fucking holiday, I will not file reports as soon as possible. I am not your fucking slave, I am pissed off and angry shove this up your butt. I am going home to see my mother, get yours to fucking do her bit, I have done mine.’ I hope I got it all, but she spoke rather quickly and some of it was in Hebrew?” I laugh.
“Please come in and sit down. Why do you want the job as my new personal assistant, Molly?”
“The truthful answer, or do you want the spiel about bringing my great ideas to the table, and being able to do the job 24/7/365? How it’s my goal in life to run a successful hotel chain, or better still use the my art history degree at last, a degree that cost me a fortune in student loans, loans I am still paying off. All thanks to my ugly twin step-sisters using my college fund, to pay for their over the top gash-fest, dove shitting on guests, wedding from hell, that was their double wedding to the twin wankers, I mean bankers, Tim and Tom Dolby.
I could even do a job in accounting, or interior design, those I gained as I sat at home waiting on my step-mother hand and foot, yes, I had too much time on my hands, so between time spent nursing my father’s second wife, who had Parkinson’s and needed around the clock care, which neither of her daughters wanted to do, so because they decided they had a life and family, and I would look after their mother, seeing as I had nothing and no money, they were doing me a favour.”
“Your sisters?” I ask stupidly.
“Step sisters, ugly step sisters, but do not call me Cinders!”
“I won’t. Please carry on.” She did too.
“I had to care for my step mother, as I needed the good money that looking after her would pay. They agreed to pay off my loans in double time, if I nursed her, but silly me they weren’t actually paying off my loans, oh no they were spending her money on their new lifestyle, and when I found out my loans were going unpaid, they said oops what are you going to do? We can’t possible ask our mega rich husbands to help again, as they’d already paid thousands into an account, we set up to pay her bills, only oops we used it for our bills how silly of us.” My god she is a speed talking pissed off, hilarious girl.
“There was no money in looking after their mother for me, they said I had to sort it out myself. They actually had the nerve to tell me I needed to get another part time job as well as my full time one looking out for their mother. I was informed I would need it to pay back property taxes too!”
“What property taxes Molly?”
“My family home, where their mother still lived. My mums home.”
“So why not put her in a home and get your home back?”
“All good questions I asked the sisters.”
“They didn’t help you at all?”
“They wanted me to move out of my family’s home, they said and I quote, ‘we could then sell it, and get rid of all your debts. How cruel was our stepdad being to us and mummy, in allowing you to live in the house for the rest of your life, after he died? He should have left it to our mum free and clear, from a squatter. So when she died, she left everything to us including the squatter, and as we can’t sell it with you stuck in it, we cannot pay your debts off. Damn him putting it that in the will, now you get to live in it for life.’ They wanted my home. One my useless father left to her, the wicked forgetful witch and her two bitch daughters.”
“I am sorry for your troubles, so what did you do?” As I said she is hilarious and chatty.
“I may have hit twin one, and punched twin two, but hey, don’t judge me. I’m a hot headed Italian like my dad, or is it from my mother, who was a fiery Spaniard. Then again, it could be from my Grandmother, the stereo typical Jewish grand-mama. A straight talking hard woman, and she is where I get my chutzpah attitude from, and I get my use of the vernacular, from my Irish grandfather. But because of hitting them both, I’m in the process of being sued for hitting the twins, they are also trying to get me out of my mother’s family home. Yes, so I am fighting being shafted, first by my bitch arsed step sisters, the same sisters who shafted me out of my college funds, I was then shafted by my father, who left me to look after his second wife, whilst
he was busy dying of a heart attack. Which he got when he was screwing his would be third wife, his secretary.” She took in a lung full of air.
“So, Miss Humphries, besides my life being one giant cluster fuck botch up of bad relatives, I am also multi faithed, multi lingual, multi cultured and I’m knackered. Sorry, but I’d been up all night doing my second shift, and was due in bed at ten this morning for a couple of hours. All before I start at the cafe, this was meant to be a hold the phone, and grab a little overtime for an hour thing, instead I’m due back in housekeeping in an hour, and I have still yet to sleep. So do I get the job, which I actually I do want, to get away from all the above shit in my life?” Oh my God, I have never laughed so much in all my sodding life. She can have the job if she makes me laugh every day like this.
“Oh hell, do I say sorry explain all that again, or welcome to my world? Yes, you get the job. Here are the keys to the smaller of the management suites on the top floor, go wash up and send down for pj’s and new clothes from the shop. We have a function to attend tonight, a black dress is required, so get one of those too and have them put it on my tab and get some sleep and join me for dinner, before we head down. I will have your contracts here for you to sign, and a laptop phone and iPad all awaiting a fresh from sleep Molly Kent, to be my personal assistant and I will sort out your ex-boss too so don’t worry.” She is quieter now, than she has been all day.
“Thank you, no shitting me I got the job after that lousy interview?”
“Yes, Cinderella, because you told me the truth I love that you can still laugh after all those step-sisters of yours have put you through.” I watch her face.
“I do feel like Cinders some time, the uglies have ruined my life. I have a feeling they are up to no good.”
“I will get legal to run over your mother and fathers will, as I have a funny feeling there’s something hooky about their urgent need to get you out, how old are you?”
“You have got to be shitting me, right? Hell yeah, I wouldn’t put it past them, and err I’m twenty, twenty one in three weeks why?”
“I have a feeling you inherit at twenty one, unless your father sold it first? I heard a guest talking about this to a client the other day, saying it was illegal the things she was doing. I listened in, and the young woman wanted it done and as quickly as possible, she was about thirty, had a black bob and painted on eyebrows, her tale was similar to yours, her mother was left a share of a house in a will, the husband’s first wife dies, leaving it to his daughter and him?
The attorney told them the daughter had the bigger claim on the property, and her attorney would tell her that too. He wasn’t for breaking the law, and unless you signed it over to them willingly, it was not theirs to sell legally, as the daughter had two thirds, if not all the property. If it were indeed her mothers and not fathers to sell, the bobbed haired woman would only get her mother’s share at most. It’s strange the things I hear in that damned bar.”
“No shitting me, you have just described Portia, had you said red head and a bob that would have been her sister Pilar, the two pouty portly princesses? Yeah shit this day just gets fucking better, oops sorry. It has been a particularly wonderfully blessed day and I am happily frolicking and rolling in bovine grass decorations.”
“What?”
“I’m as happy as a kid in cow crap Miss Humphries.” I may have to reel the ‘no shitting me’ in thing she says, but I like her a lot.
“Get some sleep, then bring me the paperwork you have and before we leave for Spain, in two weeks I too still have more arseholes to see before we leave. Oh you are alright relocating to Spain, right?” I heard her squeal again, wow ear plugs needed. She leaves and looks really happy she is going to be fun to work with! I ask reception to show Mr Jarret into the conference room, and have security wait in the outer office to escort him out, and then I want to see the manager and the mangers secretary. I had already fired their arses, her for lying to me and him for having sex on company time in the company bedrooms, poor Kendal, I wonder if this was the real reason for her sudden departure back to home to Louisiana?
I sip the coffee Molly made me and it’s quite good, laughter and decent coffee she’s a keeper. My headaches after that talk, and it is not helped with the mess of selling our American hotels has brought, it is killing me, and I’m selling the Australasian ones too, that’s not a trip I am looking forward to. I am an architect not a hotel magnate like our father. I am the best he had to offer, and I was made temporary CEO, when Daddy became ill. I am downsizing the American ones as they take up far too much of my time and are too large and too far away to manage from a distance.
I still want to keep to those we have in Europe and expand outwards. But now the hard work of negotiating begins. It seems everyone and his son wants them. I’d done the ground work for splitting up the company and assessing their true worth, and Luis had done the legal work. There were three hotel chains who wanted the fifteen hotels we had here in America. I wanted to sell them as one job lot out right, but in today’s market, it was harsh ask of any one hotel group to do, they are worth a fortune and I am not willing to sell for anything less than their true worth, as all our hotels were pretty large in the scheme of things, and all were profitable, the buyers were scrutinising everything, because why would we sell a profitable part chain, were there hidden issues?
If I had a dollar for every time I was asked that, I could buy another hotel. Most knew my father was ill, and most when I explained, realised the hotel side was neither in my blood or would ever be in it, the same went for poor Luis. We were not the formidable hotel magnate, Hugh Humphries, we were just his children. So they were being split up, all in all it was a better deal for us. I had just negotiated with Labyrinth Hotel Group for the east coast ones and the Vegas ones, cutting out Holland Holdings, as they only wanted certain ones. Mr Holland’s lawyers were livid, tough it’s a dog eat dog world. He couldn’t even be arsed coming to the meetings and that said something to me. He perhaps remembered the huge row he and Dad had at my non-engagement party, who cares how mad he was, I didn’t?
I walked into the conference room and sat there waiting was Dominic Jarret, self-styled playboy, and the biggest dick this side of the pond. He sure as hell was slippery eel, and if you looked close enough, the slug trail he left when he walked made me cringe. This man was a slimy bastard, and the ex-boyfriend of Kendal my last personal assistant, and new fling of the ex-manger here it seems.
“So here you are Dom, a copy of your contract with the Humphries Group of Hotels, please turn to the page with the first post-it-note.”
“Inter work place romances are not permitted.” He read the sentence perfectly.
“Do you know what that means Dom?”
“Yeah, I can’t screw with the employee’s, right? Why you showing this to me, I know the policies.”
“Argh, but do you follow policies Dom?”
“They are for kitchen staff, porters, maids and shit, not management surely?”
“They are the same for everyone, from a humble hard working cleaner right through to all management including the head casino host, even that lazy bastard, that’s you by the way, has to adhere to the rules. My father has always given no preferences to the position held in the company you hold, each rule is for each employee, management should lead by example and should not tap any ass that they want, and certainly not in the management guest suite in the hotel, do you see where I am going with this?”
“I guess a certain birdy told you she caught me ‘tapping’ as you so crudely put it, the mangers ass here then? Damn that woman, she should have kept her mouth shut, seems I’m gonna have to teach her some manners.”
“No, you moron, I didn’t need anyone to tell me you were a work place slut, you did that all on your own. I saw the camera feed in the larger of the penthouse management suits, on the night I got here, apparently, you had given permission for a whale to be stopping in it, and as to you being a whale hunter? I wo
uld say your more seal hunter, judging by the lacklustre numbers of whales you have landed for us. That’s another issue I will deal with, however back to the misuse of company property, when I did a check there were none of our whales in town. So I did a scan of the video and what did I see you and the old manager Mateo, fooling around. Perhaps if Kendal had said something, I wouldn’t have accepted her resignation and I would have sacked you a month ago. I will take your keys for the hotel, and the car. Anything owing you will be paid into your bank account, and your things have been packed and are in storage, tell the desk where you want the things sending and I will arrange delivery. You are now banned for the period of twelve months, from any and all Humphries Hotels.
Mateo and his secretary, who got you the job and as she faked the references we asked for, from your previous employers, both of them were let go earlier. I would say it has been a pleasure working with you but it hasn’t. Please, don’t ask for a reference as you’re a lazy talentless liar, and can’t do the job you were employed to do, but you are good at pretending you can and are really good at talking the good talk, and you are good at getting my staff to cover your worthless arse. Steve Cyr, you ain’t, so do yourself a favour and leave now, before security have my permission to kick your arse from here, right down the strip.” He came around the desk as quick as his slimy arse would carry him. To be stopped by security.
“You bitch, you fucking sour faced fucking bitch, you will get yours Miss Humphries, and then you’ll know about it.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before, and oh the fee for the larger of the management suites is twenty thousand dollars a night, how much do you reckon you owe us?”
He was thrown out of the hotel kicking and screaming. Wow, what a day for throwing out the trash. I had my own suspicions about Dom’s sexual preferences, but he had fooled Kendal. Had Molly not had her little outburst, I wouldn’t have known for sure, as the tapes stop recording when the managements, or a guests card is used to gain entry, only when a cleaner or porters cards are used do they continue filming, so I wasn’t sure who had been in the room, I was just calling his bluff. I phoned down to see if Molly had picked up a little black dress for tonight and she had, along with shoes and all the finishing touches. I went for a bath and get ready in my room, I peeled out of the power suit I’d put on, and I ran the bath and soaked my tired body in it. My phone bleeped and I reluctantly answered the damn thing…
Soul Mates. The Beginning. Page 29