Page 373 of Seasons of Love
“Hmm, I love it when you go all caveman on me,” I said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Too bad because you made a promise, and I’m collecting.”
Our eyes met in the mirror, and my heart skipped a beat.
Whatever challenges life threw at us, I knew we were strong enough to face them together. As he always did, Mal would excel in his new job because he cared about people and made sure they felt at home in his resort.
What we didn’t expect was to arrive in LA days later to be told the resort Mal was going to manage wasn’t Silver Palm, just south of Santa Monica, but their sister resort, Silver Sands on La Catarina Island.
The same resort we’d visited six months ago.
The same resort where Jake worked.
3
MAL
“We need to have more flexibility…”
“So you want me to move people who are good at one job to somewhere else? Who’s going to cover their job?”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Pete.”
“What are you saying, Hailey? Where am I supposed to get the manpower?”
I’d been listening to the same back and forth between Pete, my HR manager, and Hailey, one of the supervisors, for fifteen minutes.
It was a technique that had served me well throughout my career. Let them talk it out, and they’ll come up with the solution. But this seemed an impossibility at Silver Sands.
I looked out of the shared office window toward the Pacific ocean. This was by far the best office I’d ever had in all the resorts I’d worked in. It was all open plan, which I loved even more because I never cared much for the whole boss-employee division. I didn’t need an office of my own when there was plenty of space in the resort and a conference room to hold meetings in.
We stood right on top of the main restaurant, and the round shape of the building allowed me to look down at the guests, enjoying the pool and some of the activities, or out to the ocean and our beach.
As Pete and Hailey’s discussion continued, my mind drifted off.
When Frank Marlow, my boss and the owner of Silver Resorts, called me a month ago—a day before we moved from Florida—I thought he was making sure everything was going to plan.
Finding out his plans had changed was…unexpected.
The resort was bigger. The pay package was better. The career opportunity was the best I could have hoped for.
The location?
How could I put it…? I was about to manage the same resort Jake worked at.
Griff had listened in to that conversation, and as Frank happily delivered the news, he was completely unaware that I was having a silent conversation with my husband over his excited voice.
For the first time in four years, neither of us could utter a word. I was terrified of meeting Jake again, and especially of being his boss, but what was really getting to me was that little flutter at the pit of my stomach that felt a lot like excitement.
Griff had bit his lower lip almost raw. His dark eyes saying what he didn’t or couldn’t.
I’d always been able to read his mood. Griff was a book with see-through pages and bold writing, and only I had access to the key to translate all the scribbles.
That time was no different. While his face showed worry, his eyes were full of the same excitement I felt.
