“Brianna.” Hyatt Huntington didn’t get up from behind his huge, imposing desk. Having seen the invoice when the Louis Quatorze polished black desk covered in ornate gilded friezes of lions’ heads and acanthus leaves had arrived, Brianna knew that the cost had topped twenty thousand dollars. Paid for by gamblers like the angry, Yelp-reviewing physician. Not only had Hyatt not stood up, as he usually did, he hadn’t wished her a good morning.
“Mr. Huntington.” Her three-inch heels clicked on the miles of marble as she approached the desk. Then, unsure whether or not she should sit down, Brianna stayed standing in front of him.
“It’s Hyatt,” he said on an exasperated breath. “I told you when this place opened two years ago that you needn’t be so formal when we’re in here alone together.” His brows dove toward his blade of nose. “And would you please sit down and stop looking as if you’re on the way to the guillotine?”
Resisting mentioning that the furnishings brought to mind all those executions after the French Revolution, Brianna sat down in the neoclassic reproduction chair on the visitor’s side of the desk. His own high-backed baroque chair with its red velvet upholstery could have belonged to the Sun King himself.
He might not be about to chop off her head, but the fact that he hadn’t offered her coffee and his hands were folded tightly atop the gilt leather desktop told Brianna what was coming. But rather than volunteer and risk telling him something he might not yet know—like that damn Yelp review—she folded her own hands and waited.
“I received a call first thing this morning,” he said.
Still she waited.
“From a guest. Does the name Dr. Aaron Michaelson ring a bell?”
“Yes. He was unhappy about a less than satisfactory experience he had at Bombay Spice.”
“Which he says you highly recommended.”
“No.” Brianna was not going to back down on this point. “He came to me with a printed-out page of reviews. As you undoubtedly realize, online reviews only reflect that one diner’s experience. I told him that Bombay Spice was one of the better Indian restaurants in the city. Then, after asking him what his favorite restaurants back home were, in order to get more information on his personal tastes, which turned out to be all steak houses, I recommended a few of those, as well. Including our own Chops, but I could tell that his mind was already made up when he arrived.”
“He was angry because there wasn’t any meat on the menu.”
“It states quite clearly on the restaurant’s website and the menu that it’s vegetarian. Perhaps he’s never heard of the concept of sacred cows?”
Realizing she’d come off snarky, Brianna held up her hand and took a deep breath. “Sorry. Did he happen to mention that I offered him a free meal here?”
“On a day he was checking out.”
“If he’d first complained when he’d returned from Bombay Spice, Greg, the night concierge, would have done the same thing.” He’d even have had his overpriced dry-aged prime steak delivered to the doctor’s damn room, which could have prevented him losing a bundle on the tables out of pique.
“I get your point. But he’s insisting you owe him fifty thousand dollars.”
“To which you told him, ‘No way,’ right?”
“Of course. The idea is ridiculous. You didn’t drag him down to the casino and force him to keep throwing his chips around the roulette table.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. Not that she’d expected Hyatt to take that complaint seriously, but it was encouraging that he found the idea as ludicrous as she had.
Her relief was short-lived.
“We came to a compromise.”
Her knuckles whitened from the pressure of her hands being squeezed together so tightly. “Oh?”
“I offered him the Golden Treasure suite, on the house, the next time he’s in town.”
“I assume he accepted.” King Midas himself might have found the suite blindingly overgilded. Which undoubtedly would suit the status-conscious doctor and his apparently privileged wife to a T.
“He did. After I assured him that you’d write him a note of apology.”
“What?” Brianna crossed her arms. “No. Period. Way.”
He arched a blond brow. It was not often that they were at cross-purposes. And never, in her two years of working together, had she ever refused a directive.
“He called me a bitch.”
“That’s unfortunate. But it was obviously in the heat of the moment. He was a guest. And the single most important tenet of any business, but especially hospitality, is that guests are always right.”
“No, not always.” This one had been rude, sexist and wrong.
“Give me a break, Brianna. The guy might be an asshole, but he also just happens to be one of the biggest whales in this town.”
That she hadn’t known. Not that it made a difference in the treatment she would have provided. Still, while all the elderly men and women who came on the chartered buses to add some excitement to their retirement brought in a nice bit of change, it was the high-stakes gamblers, aka the whales—who couldn’t stay away, who’d keep betting, even when they were losing—that kept all those chandeliers lit and indoor fountains flowing. Not to mention paying her salary.
“Why didn’t I know him?”
She was familiar with all their regulars. She created files for every one with all their likes and dislikes. She never missed sending birthday or anniversary cards (not always easy to keep up with, considering the number of divorces many went through), enclosing vouchers for chips. Some took advantage of their status to the point her dentist had warned her that if she didn’t stop grinding her teeth, she’d end up eating baby food.
Others, more reasonable, nice ones, Brianna had become close with. Enough that she’d spent part of her Christmas holiday in Florence, shopping with a bond fund manager’s wife and taking care of their children while they’d gone on a Tuscany wine tasting tour. All expenses paid, of course, along with a nice check and a gold mesh bracelet the wife had insisted on buying her at one of the shops on Florence’s Gold Bridge.
“You don’t have him in your book because he’s from Des Moines and usually stays at Wynn Tower Suites or the Mansion at MGM Grand. Which, given his tendency to jump back and forth, suggested that he might be induced to make us his home base when in town.”
“He’s a doctor. Granted, it’s a good profession, but he’s not exactly the type of gambler either one of those places or we would be vying for.”
“Ah, but he’s a doctor who happens to have established a national chain of for-profit medical clinics and is part owner in three more hospitals in Miami, Phoenix and Honolulu. The guy’s rolling in dough. Which, as last night proved, he’s more than willing to throw around. We want him throwing it around at our tables.”
It made sense. And surely Doctor Dick hadn’t been the first rude or even obscene guest she’d dealt with over the years. But, as she sat across from this man she knew to be the son of two high school teachers in Mesa, Arizona, Brianna realized the incident yesterday was close to becoming her last straw.
“What happens if I refuse to write the letter?”
“Of course I can’t force you.” She could tell that Hyatt wasn’t enjoying this any more than she was. One difference was that she was single, responsible only for herself. While, with two kids in college, one of whom was currently in Italy, studying for her PhD in art history, her boss had a great deal more to lose if the gambling doctor went over his head to Midas’s