Park Avenue (Book Six in the Fifth Avenue Series) (21 page)

On the sidewalk, he
kissed her on each cheek before he stepped into his limousine and moved down
Park.

Leana looked at her
watch.
 
There was one last thing she
wanted to do today.
 
She knew it was
a risk, particularly given their contentious relationship when they worked
together to open The Hotel Fifth three years ago.
 

Still, she knew he was
right for the job as general manager.
 
When they first met, she was hired to be the general manger of The Hotel
Fifth, which he resented because he thought the job was his and frankly, he
felt more qualified to pull it off.
 
If she was to be honest with herself now, she had to admit he was right.
 
She’d seen him in action.
 
He’d been in the hotel business for years
and he possessed skills she didn’t have.
 
If he was committed to managing a hotel of this stature, she knew he
would make it what it needed to become—one of Manhattan’s best.

She had no plans for
managing The Park.
 
Moving forward
with securing other properties was her goal―that’s how she needed to
leverage the money Harold had gifted to her.
 

She wondered if he’d be
interested in working with her now?
 
She hadn’t spoken with him in years, and she didn’t know where he was or
if he was even in the city.
 
But she
did have his cell number, assuming he still used the same one.

She reached into her
pants pocket, removed her cell and found his number.
 
She hesitated for a moment, gathered her
thoughts and then called Zack Anderson.

*
 
*
 
*

To her surprise, he
answered, but when he did, his voice was cool.
 
Her name likely appeared on his
phone.
 
“This is Zack Anderson.”

“Zack, it’s Leana
Redman.”

“Hellohoware?”

“I was wondering if you
and I might talk.”

“I’m fairly busy right
now, Leana.
 
You have no idea how
busy.”

“I’d like to extend an
offer to you.”

“What offer?”

“I’d rather do it in
person.
 
Are you available now?
 
I can come to you.”

“
You’ll
come to
me
?”

“Of course, I will.”

A silence passed.

“I suppose this is about
your new hotel, which is getting all sorts of flattering press today.”

He meant to sting, but
she wasn’t about to engage him.
 
“Zack, if we could begin again on equal ground and let go of the past, I
think you’ll be pleased with what I’d like to offer you.
 
Can we meet?”

“We can meet.”

“Where can I meet you?”

“I’m the general manager
of The Hotel Fifth,” he said.
 
“Your
father hired me.
 
You can meet me
here now.
 
And don’t worry—Pepper
isn’t here.
 
It’ll be just us.”

She closed her eyes at
the news that he was managing her father’s hotel, but then she remembered
Anastassios’ words.
 
She opened her
eyes, shook it off and focused on her goal.
 
“I’m not worried about Pepper,” Leana
said.
 
“You’re in my father’s hotel,
not hers.
 
I’ll be there in fifteen
minutes.”

*
 
*
 
*

When she arrived at the
hotel, she gave the building a quick appraisal, noted that the damage to the
top exterior of the building was repaired, and then looked at what was perhaps
the most striking part of the building—its sleek, modern sign.
 
It was so smooth in its conception, so
spot-on when it came to where Manhattan was right now with design. It looked as
if it were designed for the next century.
 
Centered above the entrance, shining in the sun, were three words in
ten-foot-tall steel letters:

The
Hotel Fifth

Just being here again
caused Leana to pause.
 
But not for
long.
 
She stepped inside the lobby,
which looked nothing like her lobby just as this building looked nothing like
her building.
 
Where hers spoke to
the past, this hotel, with its four thousand rooms, four restaurants, five
bars, two nightclubs, and theater that seated 3,000 and rivaled any on
Broadway, reached to the future.

Zack Anderson was nowhere
in sight when Leana entered the hotel, but neither was anyone else, which she
thought was odd since they were opening in a month.
 
Right now, her hotel was a hive of
activity.
 
She waited for a moment
by the revolving glass and steel doors before she decided to walk around the
lobby.
 
Given all that had happened
here, she moved through the space with mixed feelings, most of them
negative.
 
Some of them haunting.

Take yourself out of
it.
 
Assess the competition while
you still have the chance.

She focused on the
details.
 
The lobby was just as she
remembered it—huge, cavernous, and filled with seven floors of shops,
restaurants and bars.
 
Nothing had
changed, which stymied her.
 
Wouldn’t her father have gutted everything to mark this space as his
own, especially since everyone knew that Ryan had owned it?

She stopped to admire the
waterfall at the lobby’s center.
 
It
was designed so that the water appeared to fall from nowhere that was visible,
though in reality, it flowed from a concealed location high above in the
ceiling.
 
As it fell, the water
didn’t ripple.
 
It was just a wide,
pure band of shimmering light that slipped into an illumined abyss.
 

The sound of the
waterfall was the only thing she heard.
 
Where were the construction workers?
 
On the higher floors?
 
There was no buzz of people.
 
None of the chaos she expected.
 
It was just her, alone, in this spotless
space that appeared to be ready for business today, not in a month.
 

Behind her came Zack
Anderson’s voice:
 
“So, what do you
think?” he asked.
 
“Surprised by the
changes?”

She turned to him.
 
Anderson was a slight, good-looking man
with silver hair cut stylishly short.
 
He was in a black suit and wore a gold tie.
 
He was in his forties, but there wasn’t
a line to be found on his tanned face.
 
Must pay his toxes
, she thought.

“Surprised is an
understatement.
 
I was expecting
something new.”

He continued to move
toward her.
 
“Your father thought it
was unnecessary.
 
With the exception
of opening night, the lobby and the hotel have never been used.
 
Everything shut down when it all went
wrong.
 
Obviously, there was a lot
of repair work that had to be done to the higher levels, which took time to fix
due to the extent of the damage.
 
But even when the repairs were finished, the hotel sat empty for months
before the board at Manhattan Enterprises decided to put it up for sale.
 
Your father stepped in and bought it.”

“When was this?”

“Five, six months ago?”

“Was it publicized?”

“Your father kept it
quiet.
 
He wants a major reveal when
it opens.”

Of course, he does.
 
“Is anyone working here?”

“Starting next week, a
complete crew arrives to begin preparations for opening day.”

“Why the wait?
 
You could have opened months ago.”

She saw it when she said
it, and once again, she felt betrayed.

“When you bought The Park
a year ago, your father knew it.
 
He
decided to wait to open his hotel to coincide with your opening.
 
Pepper told me he knew he could get more
press that way.
 
‘It’s Redman Versus
Redman on Opening Night.’
 
Or
something like that.
 
It was a savvy
move, but I bet it doesn’t sit well with you.”

“It’s business,” she
said.
 
“That’s what our relationship
is.
 
Would I prefer that we weren’t
opening on the same night?
 
Sure.
 
But my father is
right—it will bring headlines.
 
Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t have what I have.
 
I’m going to crush him on opening
night.”

“What do you have,
Leana?”

“Hopefully you, to begin
with.”

“I figured that was
coming.
 
Why do you want me to run
your hotel?”

“Because I saw how good
you are.
 
We didn’t get off to a
good start, Zack, but that doesn’t mean we can’t build a solid business future
together.
 
I’m prepared to pay you
triple what my father is paying you.
 
I might own the hotel, but you’ll run it.
 
She’s yours.
 
And instead of managing a shiny new
building like this, you’ll be managing an elegant, renovated piece of Manhattan
history.
 
Beyond that, my brother,
Michael Archer, is preparing to help me make the opening an exclusive event.”

“Big movie stars?
 
Pop stars?
 
That sort of thing?”

“Mostly movie stars, but
nothing too hip because we want to appeal to society.
 
Anastassios Fondaras also will assist to
that end.
 
We need the Park Avenue
set to embrace the hotel for a host of reasons.
 
Mostly, we want them to view the hotel
as the place where family and friends can stay when they come to visit.
 
We need to show them a standard of
excellence on opening night.
 
Michael will come through with an A-list crowd of older celebrities, and
a few key younger celebrities who are making the right movies.
 
He also has friends who are forces on
Broadway.
 
He has contacts who can
get the best of those who headline at the Met.
 
It’s going to be done right and it’s
going to be big.
 
I’d love to show
it to you and see what you think.”

At that moment, someone
entered the hotel.
 
Leana turned and
saw that it was Pepper Redman, still in her white Chanel suit, her red hair
curling up from her shoulders and her shoes striking the floor with such force
that it sounded as if bullets were being fired into it.

Bemused, Leana watched
her.
 
“Oh, Pepper,” she said.
 
“And just when I thought I’d had my fill
of you.”

“What are you doing here,
Leana?”

“It’s my father’s hotel.
 
I don’t recall him issuing a restraining
order against me to stay out of it.”

“That will change in
about fifteen minutes.
 
Get
out.
 
You don’t want me to call
security.”

“Oh, please, Pepper.
 
You are so out of your league, you don’t
even know it.”
 
She turned to
Zack.
 
Her eyes sparkled.
 
“Pepper here is from Arkansas—”

“Atlanta!”

“It’s Arkansas, and don’t
let her tell you differently.
 
She’s
one of our poorer relations.
 
It’s
my impression that her idea of security would involve the Klan, torches, a group
of starved, vicious dogs, the distinct smell of moonshine hanging in the air,
and, somewhere, some idiot charged with waving the Confederate flag and another
charged with firing a pistol at the ceiling.”

Pepper nodded at Zack
while she reached into her oversized Dior handbag to find her cell.
 
“Thanks for telling me that she was
coming.”

Leana kept any sense of
surprise from her face.
 
She simply
looked at Zack in disappointment.

But then he returned the
surprise when he spoke to Pepper.
 
“I had a feeling why Leana was coming by today, Pepper.”

“To check out the
goods.
 
To steal our ideas.
 
It’s all so obvious.”