Hard Work

by K. M. Scott

  One day I woke up and Zane had already gotten into the shower. Usually, I would have joined him, but I felt kind of lazy that morning and chose to lay around for a few minutes before I stretched and lazily walked around the room to look outside at the beautiful day that awaited us.

  I caught sight of a manila folder on top of Zane’s desk and couldn’t help but stop and let my curiosity get the best of me. I’d never been a nosy woman, but Zane and I kept no secrets from one another, so I didn’t think it would be an issue. I could have interrupted his shower to ask him, but it seemed silly to disrupt the man’s moment of peace in the morning.

  I opened the folder, and a quick glance of the legal documents told me that Zane planned on selling the inn. With a frown, I set the envelope down, wishing I hadn’t given in to my curiosity so I could keep on living with the fantasy that maybe he was going to keep the place after all.

  Disappointed, I sat down at the edge of the bed. Not that his selling the inn would be a total deal breaker. A man was allowed to do what he wanted with his life, and the deal had only been to keep the inn for a year. To hold it against him would have been silly and unfair of me.

  Zane had to run into town on an errand, so I headed down to the dining room to have some breakfast alone. As I sat there savoring my bacon and eggs like always, Mandy walked in and stopped beside my table, but she didn’t look like her usual happy self.

  “Everything okay?” I asked as she pulled out a chair and sat down across from me. “You look like you just got bad news. Is everything okay? How’s the semester going?”

  It surprised me to see her so unhappy since she’d been in high spirits ever since Zane had promoted her to the position of manager, a job she’d taken to naturally and excelled at, as far as he’d told me.

  “I’m going to have to look for a new job, and I have no idea where to start. I’ve worked at The Gilford House Inn forever. I don’t know where to begin looking, and it’s all just too much right now. None of the other big chain hotels seem to be hiring for anything but maids, and I can’t afford to take the pay cut since I signed up for classes already and paid my tuition. It’s just a lot to handle right now.”

  Deidre Gilford had given Mandy her first job at the inn. She’d started her as a cleaning girl and had moved her up to front desk once she’d been old enough. She’d never left, and I admired her loyalty, especially when Zane had been being such a bastard to everyone there in the beginning.

  That made her leaving all the stranger, so I asked, “Why do you have to find a new job? I thought Zane was so much easier to work for lately. Aren’t you happy here?”

  “You don’t know, do you?” she asked, her eyes wide with surprise as she shook her head. “I figured he at least would have told you about it.”

  “Know what, Mandy?” I asked.

  “He’s selling this place as soon as his time’s up. He had to spend one year here, and after that, he gets to inherit all his mother’s money because he didn’t run the place into the ground,” Mandy said with more than a hint of disgust in her voice as she practically spat out the words.

  “Oh, I know, but he’s not the inn type anyway. I’m sure everyone here will love the new owners,” I explained, trying to comfort her.

  However, I saw no peace in her eyes, and she continued to shake her head and grimace.

  “So you don’t know. He’s selling the place, and the new owners are firing all of us. They want to start fresh with their own staff that they’re bringing from another hotel. We found out yesterday.”

  Instantly, I was horrified. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Does Zane know? We have to tell him. He’ll make sure the new owners can’t do that to you.”

  She frowned and shook her head again. “I doubt he even cares. This place was always a means to an end for him. We just never thought it would be the end of all of us too,” Mandy said as I saw tears well up in her eyes.

  I reached over and squeezed her arm in sympathy. “No. Stop that. We’ll get this all figured out. You’ve seen Zane over the last few months. He’s different. You even told me that yourself.”

  “I know, I know. I just…it’s too much.”

  She shrank away from my touch and rushed out to the front desk. I glanced around the dining room and saw by the sad looks on the staff’s faces that they knew their fate too. I couldn’t believe this, though. Zane couldn’t know what the new owners were planning to do.

  He couldn’t.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Becca

  It felt like Zane took forever to get back as I waited for him on the front porch of the inn. How could he not have told me? He had to be in the dark as to what the new owners planned to do to his staff.

  He had to.

  I just couldn’t believe after all he’d done to become a man everyone respected at the inn that he could just toss aside all the people who’d served his mother and him so loyally. I paced back and forth, wringing my hands, hoping that Zane didn’t know the new owners intended to let everyone go and would be as outraged as me.

  His car pulled up, and I watched him walk toward the porch wearing that same cocky yet sexy grin I loved. I wanted so much to hold on to the belief that he didn’t know what selling the inn meant, but I couldn’t dance around the subject.

  When he walked up, I point blank asked him, “Zane, did you know that your selling this inn means everyone will lose their job?”

  He stopped in front of me and nodded but said nothing.

  “They’re planning to fire everyone when they take over and put their people in here. Did you know that? Everyone, and I mean everyone, will have to leave this place and go somewhere new. It’s a small town, Zane. I don’t think they’ll all be able to find jobs very easily”

  He stood quietly for a moment, clearly thinking before he spoke, before replying, “Yeah. I know about it. It’s part of the deal.”

  Horrified, I stepped back away from him. “And you’re okay with this? All those people who worked here for years, dedicated their lives to your mother’s inn, will now just be disposed of after all that? Do you even care about what happens to them, Zane?” I asked, trying to keep my cool but quickly failing.

  How could anyone be so dismissive of other people?

  Zane leaned in to kiss me, but I simply turned my head. The nerve he had, trying to kiss me when I was trying to discuss something so important with him. These were people whose lives were about to be completely upended.

  I pulled away and backed up towards the door as I said, “Please answer the question, Zane. Now. Are you okay with this?”

  Once again, he nodded. Running his hand through his hair, he said flatly, “It’s just business, Becca. They want their people to work here. I can’t blame them for that. I’m sure all these people will find work. They’re good at what they do. I’ll be sure to give them all nice references. I won’t just leave them high and dry.”

  His ability to be cavalier with the futures of all those good people who worked so hard for him disgusted me. I took another step backward, putting more distance between us as I felt more and more revolted by his dismissive behavior. These people had given their sweat and, thanks to his attitude and anger at times, tears for The Gilford House Inn. His mother would have never done such a thing, and deep down I think he knew that by the troubled look on his face.

  “How kind of you to bother, Zane. You’re upending all their lives, but do console your conscience by giving them all nice references. God knows your mother would have put everyone on the street but with nice references, right?”

  He stepped forward to close the gap between us and reached out to take me into his arms. “Becca, come on now…”

  I couldn’t let this just pass, so I stormed off to our room to get my things. I rushed past the check-in desk and up the stairs as tears welled in my eyes.

  Selling the place I could have handled. I could have. I’d hoped he would keep the inn, but I could understand him not wanting to.


  But the man I had seen on the front porch was far too much like the one who had bailed on me years ago. I truly thought Zane had come to understand that the inn was more than just a place to survive for a year and that the people who worked there were more than just the help, as he used to call them. I thought of the cooks with their funny little pissing contests about who was the better chef. I thought of the maids who quietly but diligently kept the inn in a condition Zane could never handle on his own. Most of all, I thought of Mandy, the sweet college student who had just enrolled in extra credits thanks to her boost in pay and who was so excited to be living in her own apartment, sustaining herself.

  It was all just too much. I couldn’t tolerate it a second more, so I packed my things in a hurry to get away from the disappointment and hurt that now felt like it had taken over The Gilford House Inn.

  Zane caught up to me and closed the door as I stuffed my clothes into my suitcase. “Becca, don’t you think you’re making a big deal out of something that really isn’t that big a deal at all?”

  I stopped packing for a moment and looked at him in shock. “Not a big deal? You’re being heartless, and you know it. Where are these people going to work? Have you thought about that at all?”

  “It’s not like they can’t find other jobs. There are other hotels around here. It is Vermont. You’ve noticed all the other hotels, motels, and bed and breakfasts in the area, right?”

  God, he was so thoughtless!

  “You’re acting like the spoiled brat everyone thought you were until a few months ago. Where’s that kind man you’ve been convincing everyone you are? Where’s the guy who told me the other night that he was starting to understand where his mother had been coming from when she spoke of how valuable the staff here was?”

  Then the truth dawned on me, and my shoulders sagged. “You already knew at that point that you were selling this place off to the highest bidder regardless of what they were going to do with these people and you said that to me anyway?”

  A sheepish look came over his face. “It’s just business. That’s it.”

  All the disappointment and hurt I felt from believing in him and once again being wrong spilled out of me, and I didn’t try to stop it. “Just business? People aren’t just business! What the fuck is wrong with you, Zane? Why is it so easy for you to be such an insufferable dick to people without any regard to how they might feel?” I screamed.

  “Enough. You don’t get to stand there and claim I’m a spoiled brat and an asshole after everything I’ve done to change for you. You wanted me to be nice, so I was nice. You wanted me to care, so I cared. Don’t look at me now like I’m a bad guy.”

  “Like what, Zane? Like what you are? You don’t care about anyone but yourself. How can you sell this place off and not even care what happens to these people? The people who, by the way, put up with you when you were an insufferable prick to them. The people who tolerated your grumpy and belligerent self before you supposedly changed. Those people earned the right to be treated with more respect than this, and you deny them even an iota of it.”

  He paced for a minute before choosing his words, but then he turned around and snapped, “You know what, Becca, how is this any of your damned business anyway? I’m sure if I show them how well your ads have worked for the place they’ll be happy to give you more work. Is that your worry here? That your precious getaway from your life in the city will be lost forever? You’re acting like you’re a fucking co-owner here, but you’re just…”

  He stopped talking and looked away. I waited for him to finish his sentence, but he didn’t. So I did.

  “I’m just what, Zane? Just the woman who shares your bed?”

  Turning to face me, he shook his head. “You don’t own this place, and you don’t know what it’s been like. So how is any of this your business?”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? You think that’s what this is about? How can you be so self-centered as to think that is what is going on here? And how is it my business? I thought we were moving toward something, but once again, you proved me wrong.”

  More than angry, I stood there shocked and hurt. I felt tears begin to well in my eyes and struggled to hold them back. Zane wasn’t going to see me cry. He was going to see what happened when I walked away from him.

  All of a sudden, I felt like I was back in the hallway with that poor maid, back when I had just seen him berating someone over nonsense. It hurt because at that moment I realized he saw me very much like he saw her.

  For all that I’d thought we’d become, he’d never changed from that bastard who didn’t give a damn about anyone but himself. He truly thought it wasn’t any of my business despite the fact that I thought our lives had become intertwined enough that it was our business what the other one was dealing with and going through. I’d told him all about the townhouse issue with Dustin and about every other problem or good thing in my life, and he had been keeping this secret from me.

  It hurt, but I wouldn’t let him see that inside I felt broken.

  And betrayed. Again.

  “Becca. I didn’t…it’s not like that.”

  I shook my head and backed away from him. “I guess I just thought that we were moving toward a future together and that would mean that the big things in your life were my business,” I said, my voice smaller than when I had been yelling but no less defiant.

  Jamming more clothes into my bag, I looked around the room for anything I might have forgotten. Now as I glanced at the four walls and everything in there, it all felt foreign, like I didn’t belong there.

  I picked up my bag and turned toward the door where Zane stood staring at me like he couldn’t believe how upset all this made me.

  “Becca, don’t do this. Don’t throw away everything we have together.”

  “Everything we have together? So were you planning on leaving again? Were you at least going to say goodbye this time or were you just going to drive off into the sunset without a care in the world for the woman who you’d just been sleeping with. I’m so glad that’s all you thought I was.”

  Zane said nothing for a moment, looking at me with sadness in his eyes before saying, “I didn’t mean it like that. I swear. I just meant…”

  His voice trailed off and then he said, “It wasn’t going to be like that. We can be together. I wanted us to be together forever. It just doesn’t have to be here.”

  “You don’t get it, Zane. I can’t be with someone who is so thoughtless. You’re exactly the person you always were. I just convinced myself you’d changed because I wanted you to, but you didn’t. You’re the same asshole who left me without even a goodbye after all we shared, and I don’t want to be with that guy.”

  He gently touched my arm. “That’s not true. What we have is still great. Don’t let this ruin it. I’m the man you thought I was. I swear I am, Becca.”

  “What do we have? You kept this a secret from me because you knew. You knew I’d have a problem with what you’re doing because it’s not right. It’s not the right thing to do, and you know it.”

  He didn’t respond and simply nodded as I pushed past him to leave. After everything, he had nothing to say.

  Why should I care? He hadn’t changed at all. Everything had been for show, and now that his year at the inn was nearly up, he had no more reason to pretend.

  I walked out without another glance at him. Back down the hallway, down the stairs with the one that creaked near the bottom, past the front desk, and out the front door I walked as a feeling of emptiness took me over.

  As I started to feel wistful like I always did when I left The Gilford House Inn, I opened my car door and thought back to what Amy had said.

  “Leopards don’t change their spots.”

  How right she’d been. I made a mental note to never ignore the advice of a good friend again as I threw my things in the car and drove off, The Gilford House Inn looking sad on its mountain behind me as if to say that it too wanted to go with me.


  My phone vibrated over and over, and then it began to ring. Glancing down, I saw every message and call was from Zane. I knew what he wanted to say. That we could still be together and things could be great like they had been for the past few months. That we were more than the inn.

  That he loved me.

  I so wanted to believe that. To believe Zane was the person I thought he was. To believe that I hadn’t let myself fall for him again and been wrong again.

  Driving back to the city, I sobbed and grieved the end of the relationship as anyone would, but I had the realization somewhere along the interstate that I should have known better. Nobody changes. Not really. Not unless they want to for themselves. It was a very simple truth that I finally needed to accept.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Zane

  Life offered few things better than a nice warm day when a man could drive with the top down and enjoy the sun beating down on him as he tore down the highway at top speeds. The rest of the world faded away in those moments, so I knew to take advantage of them when they came along.

  The wind caught my hair and rang in my ears, and I turned up the music and pressed my foot on the gas pedal as I looked toward the horizon. I drummed my hands on the steering wheel and bobbed my head to the beat. Things were good, and even though I was alone, the sun and the music were good enough company for me.

  Sadly, a phone call interrupted my bliss, and through the speakers I heard, “Mr. Gilford, the attorney called. She needs to speak to you as soon as possible.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “No, but she sounded like things were about to be finalized.”

  “Fine. Thanks,” I said, hanging up before turning my music back up to enjoy the rest of my drive.

  When I pulled up to the office, I put the top up and checked my look in the mirror before I strode in, full of good vibes and an even better mood and outlook. The receptionist welcomed me and ushered me into the attorney’s office before handing me a glass of water and leaving. An especially efficient attorney, Kristen Jacobs came in a minute later. She had an all-business look with her short blonde bob, glowing tan, and stern expression.