After taking a seat in the chair across from her desk, Penny glanced at the candy wrapper and said, “Since Chef André didn’t walk out like he keeps threatening to do, I’m guessing that guy Hawke is the reason you deep-sixed the new diet. Who is he, Laura? And what did he want?”
Laura gave her assistant a quick rundown of the situation and the stunned look on the other woman’s face mirrored her own feelings when Jackson Hawke had dropped the bombshell on her an hour earlier. But now that some of the shock had started to wear off, she knew she had to figure out a plan to stop Hawke. “I know this is a shock, Penny. It was to me, too. But I need you to keep quiet about this—at least until I can find out exactly what our position is. If word were to get out, it could cause a panic among the staff and I can’t afford that. It’s been difficult enough getting workers since Hurricane Katrina,” she said, referring to the storm that had nearly destroyed New Orleans in 2005. Not only had the city lost more than half of its population, but the destruction had claimed entire neighborhoods and depleted the workforce. “And any buzz in the marketplace about management changes could set off a run of cancellations, not to mention that we’d probably lose out on any contracts.”
“I won’t breathe a word,” Penny assured her. She paused, worry clouding her brown eyes. “But what if what this guy Hawke says is true? What if he really does own the hotel? Do I need to start looking for another job?”
“Hawke didn’t strike me as a stupid man. Regardless of what happens, he’ll need someone who knows about the day-to-day operations of the hotel, where and who to go to for the emergencies that pop up. And that person is you. I don’t think you need to worry about your job, Penny.”
But her assistant’s concern made her realize that if Hawke did take over the hotel, Laura would need to do everything she could to ensure the job security of her employees. It was what her grandfather would have done, what he would have wanted her to do. If only her grandfather were here now, she thought.
“What about you? If Hawke is telling the truth, what will you do?”
“I don’t know,” Laura told her honestly. She thought about her childhood, of moving to new places each time her mother married and started a new life. But come summer, she had always returned to New Orleans, to her grandfather, to the Contessa. Even when she’d gone away to college and then had gone to work for other hotels out of state, she had known that the Contessa was still there, waiting for the day when she would return home for good. Only now when she had finally come back, her grandfather was gone. And Jackson Hawke was here, trying to take the Contessa from her. She wouldn’t let him.
She couldn’t. She looked at her assistant. “But I can tell you what I’m not going to do and that’s roll over and play dead. Try Benton’s office again, then get my attorney, my mother and my sister on the phone for me.”
If Jackson Hawke wanted her hotel, then he was darn well going to have to fight her for it.
Two
So far, she’d struck out. Sighing, Laura put down her pen and stretched her arms above her head. She still hadn’t spoken with her attorney or her sister. And her conversation with Benton had not gone well at all. She still couldn’t believe her mother had actually used the Contessa as collateral on a loan and not told her. Benton hadn’t given her much in the way of details. Instead he’d referred her to her mother. Unfortunately, the time difference and distance between New Orleans and France had made reaching her mother difficult. Glancing at the clock, she calculated the time overseas and concluded it was now after two o’clock in the morning in France. Aware of her mother’s love of the night life, Laura tried the number again.
“Oui,” her mother answered on the fourth ring, her voice breathless.
“Mother, it’s Laura.”
“Laurie, darling,” she replied, genuine pleasure in her voice. “Philippe, it’s Laurie calling from America.”
She could hear Philippe shout out a greeting from the background and Laura made the obligatory hello to her mother to give to him. “Mother? Mother?” Laura pressed when her mother began to converse with Philippe in French.
“I’m sorry, darling. Philippe wanted me to tell you how well things are going here with the new club and to see when you can come for a visit. He’s eager to show it off to you and Chloe.” Without waiting for her to answer, her mother went on, “Do you think you girls could come? Why, it’s been nearly a year since I’ve seen you, Laurie. And it would be so lovely to have my babies here for a visit. We could…”
Laura closed her eyes a moment as her mother rambled. She didn’t bother trying to explain to her that at twenty-six and twenty-two, she and Chloe could hardly be considered babies. Finally, she said, “Mother, please. This is important. I need to know if you used your stock in the Contessa as collateral for a bank loan.”
For a long moment, her mother was silent. Then she said, “It was just as a formality. A guarantee, until I paid back the loan.”
Telling herself not to panic, that not even her mother could have spent all that money so quickly, she asked, “How much of the money do you have left?”
At her mother’s silence, the knot that had formed in her stomach when Jackson Hawke had walked into her office tightened. Just when she thought her mother wasn’t going to respond, she said, “I don’t have any of it left.”
Laura felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her. There was nothing left? All of the money was gone? Suddenly a roaring started in her ears. Her stomach pitched. Feeling as though she were going to be sick, Laura leaned forward and put her head between her knees.
“Laurie? Laurie, are you still there?”
When the initial wave of nausea had passed, Laura straightened and leaned back in the chair. Lifting the phone receiver she still held in her hand to her ear, she managed to say, “I’m here.”
“Darling, you sound…strange. Are you okay?”
No, she wasn’t okay, Laura wanted to scream. Her foolish, reckless mother had placed the Contessa at risk. And because she had, Jackson Hawke might very well be able to take the hotel away from them, away from her. “You’re sure it’s all gone? There’s nothing left?”
“I’m sure.”
“What did you do with all that money?” Laura demanded.
Her mother explained how she had invested six million dollars into the nightclub that Philippe had been so keen to open in France. “I used some of it to pay for repairs to the hotel that the insurance didn’t cover after the hurricane and the rest of it went to pay the back taxes on the hotel.”
Laura knew the hotel had been underinsured at the time of the hurricane and, as a result, not all of the repairs had been fully covered. But the taxes? “The taxes couldn’t possibly have been that much,” Laura argued. “Since the hurricane, the assessment values have decreased, not increased.”
“The taxes were from before the hurricane…from when your grandfather was still alive and running the hotel.”
Laura frowned. That didn’t make any sense, she thought and told her mother so. “Granddad always paid the Contessa’s bills—even if it meant using his own money to do it. He would have made sure the taxes were paid.”
“Apparently, he didn’t. Or he couldn’t. Evidently, the hotel wasn’t doing well for quite some time before your grandfather became ill and he got behind on some of the bills. The tax assessor came to see me not long after the funeral and told me the taxes were three years in arrears, plus there were penalties. He was going to put a lien on the hotel. So I went to the bank and borrowed the money to pay them off.”
Once again, Laura felt as though she’d had the wind kicked out of her. She’d known the hotel had gone through a rough patch and that her grandfather had hired a marketing