Hotel Vendome

by Danielle Steel

  “Something wrong?” She looked as though she had seen a ghost, and he assumed she’d had a problem with a guest. So far, she was handling even the most delicate situations extremely well. She had a wonderful way with people and was learning a lot about the business.

  She didn’t beat around the bush. She never did with him. “Mike says you’re selling the hotel.” She didn’t know what to think. First he got his wife pregnant with three babies, intentionally, and now he was selling her home. “Is that true?” She was still shaking as she stood on the other side of his desk.

  He hesitated for a long moment. Too long. And he answered her with a look of pain. But he knew he had to tell her the truth, or she’d hear it from someone else. “I wasn’t trying to. But if they offer me enough, I might. I haven’t decided yet. It depends on what they offer. It fell from the sky. I didn’t look for the offer. It found me.” He looked guilty as he said it.

  “How can you do that?” she blazed at him. “This hotel is our home. It was your dream. Now it’s mine. You can’t sell our dream.” Her voice was shaking with fear and rage.

  “I’m fifty-three years old. In a few months I’ll have four kids, not just one. And I have to think of all of you, your future, Natalie’s, and mine. If someone is crazy enough to offer me an insane amount of money, I’d be even more insane not to take it.” It was a concept she was too upset to understand. She had a lifetime ahead of her. He didn’t. And he had a lot more people to worry about now. His family was about to double in size and he suddenly felt old, and a little scared.

  “You have no loyalty to anyone or anything,” she accused him, so furious with him that she could hardly speak. “I’ll never respect you again if you sell,” she said vehemently, and he nodded. He suspected that would be the case. But if the offer was big enough, he had no choice but to sell. She didn’t want the money, she wanted the hotel. “I’ll never forgive you if you sell the hotel, Papa,” she said, looking him squarely in the eye, and then she turned around and walked out of the room.

  She didn’t talk to him for the next three days, and when she saw him in the elevator, she said not a word. The rumors were flying all over the hotel. She told Brad about it, and he knew how upsetting that was for her. She wanted to work there for the rest of her life and take over from her father one day. It was why she had gone to the École Hôtelière, and now he had made a mockery of her career and all she’d learned.

  It was a tense, unhappy time for her, and the only comfort in her life was Brad. Her father knew how upset she was and was staying away from her. And once again she blamed Natalie. She understood nothing of the hotel or their business, and she had no idea what it meant to both of them. Heloise could easily imagine her encouraging Hugues to sell just in order to make a lot of money. But the Hotel Vendôme was not about money to Heloise. It was about love and dedication, the people who worked there, and her father’s vision, and dreams, and now her own. You couldn’t pay for that with money. Her father had promised to tell her what his decision was as soon as he got the offer.

  She was at war with her father and Natalie again, and this time she wasn’t relenting. She had meant what she said about never forgiving him if he sold the hotel. And Brad had never seen her so determined. She didn’t talk to anyone but Brad about it, but he understood what it meant to her. Her father no longer did. And she refused to discuss it with anyone else. She was too upset.

  She was in her room after work one afternoon, and she and her father were living now on separate floors like strangers. She hadn’t spoken to him or Natalie since the day Mike had told her the news that her father might be selling. And she had no desire to speak to either of them again until she knew what he was going to do. Which made it surprising when she got a call from Natalie that afternoon, on her cell phone. She sounded like she was being strangled.

  “What’s wrong with you? Are you sick?” Heloise asked her coldly. “You sound terrible.”

  “Can you come up? Are you in the hotel?”

  “I’m in my apartment.” Heloise’s tone was as cold as she felt. Once again they had betrayed her. Or they were hoping to, if the consortium paid them enough money. She didn’t want the money. She wanted to live and work at the Vendôme forever. “Is something wrong?” Heloise asked Natalie, and she made a terrible groaning sound in answer.

  “I’m in a lot of pain … I’m bleeding … I can’t reach your father.”

  “Oh shit,” Heloise said as she ran out the door of the apartment and tore up the back stairs with her phone still in her hand. She didn’t want to waste time waiting for the elevator. And luckily, she had her passkey in her pocket. She let herself into the apartment and ran into the bedroom and found Natalie lying on the bed, writhing in pain. “Should I call an ambulance? How much are you bleeding?” She had taken advanced first aid as part of her training. She approached Natalie and could see there was blood on the bed where she was lying, and she didn’t want to frighten her. “I think you’ll be more comfortable going to the hospital in an ambulance, Nat,” she said gently, their battle over the sale of the hotel instantly forgotten.

  She went into the other room and dialed 911 from the landline. She explained to them clearly and precisely that one of the guests was hemorrhaging, and she was four months pregnant with triplets. They promised to send paramedics and an ambulance immediately. She gave them the room number, and then she called the front desk and told them, and told them to find her father. They called her back immediately and told her that her father was out of the hotel at a meeting, and his phone was still on voice mail.

  “Keep trying him, and get the paramedics up here immediately when they get here.” She went back to Natalie then, sat down on the bed next to her, and stroked her hair.

  “I don’t want to lose my babies,” she was crying, and then Heloise remembered to get the name of her doctor and called her. She said she would meet them at the hospital as soon as they arrived. Natalie was sobbing; she knew that at four months they couldn’t save them, while Heloise did all she could to reassure her.

  The paramedics were there in less than ten minutes, and they asked if her husband was around or if someone would go with her. Without hesitating for an instant, Heloise said she was her daughter. And as soon as they put her on a gurney and covered her with a blanket, Heloise followed them into the freight elevator, holding tightly to her stepmother’s hand.

  “It’s going to be okay, Nat. I promise,” she told her blindly, with no idea what would happen. They took her out the service entrance so as not to frighten people in the lobby, and Natalie was sobbing loudly, while one of the paramedics asked her questions. And they started an IV as soon as they got in the ambulance, turned the sirens on, and took off for the hospital at full speed. There was an obstetrical team already waiting for her, and her own obstetrician arrived twenty minutes later. They wouldn’t let Heloise stay with her. And it was a full hour before they found Hugues, and he called Heloise on her cell phone.

  “What happened?” he asked, sounding panicked. He was already in a cab and had come straight from the meeting.

  “I don’t know. She called me in my room, she said she was in pain and that she was bleeding. I called nine-one-one immediately, and they’re working on her now.”

  His voice was hoarse when he asked, “Did she lose the babies?”

  “I don’t know,” Heloise told him honestly, “they haven’t told me anything, but she was bleeding pretty heavily when we left.” It didn’t look hopeful to her. “Her doctor is with her.”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “I’m in the waiting room outside obstetrics.” They had moved her up from the emergency room in case she delivered. But at eighteen weeks there was very little chance the babies would survive, and if they did, not in decent condition.

  Five minutes later she saw her father fly past her and disappear into the treatment area beyond where she was sitting. He waved as he went by but didn’t stop to talk to her, and for the ne
xt two hours Heloise had no idea what had happened. She didn’t know who to ask, and it was six o’clock when her father came to find her.

  “How is she?” She didn’t dare ask him if she’d lost the triplets. He looked worse than Natalie had when she came in, and Heloise could see then how much they mattered to him, and even more how much Natalie did, and she felt sorry for him.

  “She’s okay. And so are the triplets for now. They did a sonogram, and she didn’t lose them. She may have placenta previa or some other condition. But she’s hanging on to the babies. They’re going to keep her overnight, and if nothing else happens, they’re going to send her home with a monitor and keep her on bedrest. She’ll probably be in bed for the rest of the pregnancy, but if she can keep them for another month or two, they might make it.” It sounded like it was the most important thing in the world to him, and Heloise reached out and hugged him. “Do you want to come in and see her?” Heloise nodded and followed him through two sets of double doors, down more hallways, and finally to her room, where there were monitors all over her, and Natalie looked terrified and traumatized by everything that had happened.

  “How do you feel?” Heloise asked her gently.

  “Scared shitless,” she said honestly with a weak smile. “I just don’t want to lose them.”

  “I hope you don’t,” Heloise said and leaned over to kiss her hand. “You’re going to have to take it very easy.” Natalie nodded. It was worth it to her. She was willing to do anything to save their babies.

  Heloise didn’t want to wear her out, and she left a few minutes later. Her father was going to stay with Natalie, and he promised to call her if anything happened. And Heloise thought about it on the way uptown, that no matter how angry she got at him about the sale, or Natalie, or the triplets, in the end they were a family, and the only thing that mattered was being there for each other and being loving and forgiving. She really did hope that Natalie didn’t lose the babies.

  And miraculously, she didn’t. Natalie came back to the hotel the following day, in an ambulance. They put her straight to bed. She was on full bedrest for the rest of the pregnancy, with a bedpan. She couldn’t even get up to go to the bathroom. Her feet weren’t allowed to touch the floor, and she looked terrified as she lay there. Hugues was with her, and he told her to ring for the maid or call him on his cell phone if she needed anything. And Heloise told her to call her or anyone at the front desk as well. Natalie promised not to move, and she looked pale and frightened when Heloise went back to the front desk and Hugues to his office.

  They rode down in the elevator together. He didn’t tell her that he had had the offer from the Dutch the day before and had been meeting with their bankers. The offer was a good one and would be hard to refuse. He didn’t know if he would ever get an offer like that for the hotel again. He had told them he would get back to them in a few days. And then Jennifer had called, and he had rushed to the hospital. He thanked Heloise again for her help as they parted in the lobby. Things were still tense between them, and he knew they would be until he made his decision.

  For the next several days Natalie managed not to lose the babies. Heloise checked on her, Jennifer came up to see her, the maids visited her. Ernesta brought her little treats and chocolates. The concierge sent up all the newest magazines. Room service brought her anything she wanted. And Natalie lay there, still panicked that she would lose them. She had delegated all of her projects at the office. Her life was on hold. And the day after she came home from the hospital, the unions that controlled their maintenance men provided a new distraction. They had given Hugues notice of a strike that morning. It was a rogue strike and was supposed to serve him as a warning. He had notified them that he was going to let go two employees, without replacing them, and they had told him that he couldn’t. He had followed all the appropriate procedures, and they had put a picket line in front of the hotel to annoy the guests. And the men on the picket line were pounding on pots and pans with soup ladles and causing a terrible racket to disturb the guests. You could hear it for blocks.

  Heloise went into her father’s office to talk to him, and he was talking to his labor lawyer on the phone. The union wanted him to reinstate the two men, even though he had followed all the proper procedures. He called the union office then and told them to get their goddamn picket line away from the front of his hotel. And the man he spoke to said that if he didn’t rehire the two men, there would be trouble. Hugues hung up in a fury and looked up at his daughter.

  “There isn’t a damn thing I can do,” he said unhappily. “And I want you to be careful. That jerk was threatening me on the phone, and you never know what those guys will do.” They both knew that the responsible people at the unions dealt with them sensibly, but there were always one or two hotheads who preferred violence to negotiation. “I don’t want you floating around alone, either at the doors to the hotel, or in the basement.” And he was worried that they would harass the other employees when they left after their shifts. Bruce brought in all their security, and all the employees were warned.

  The picket line finally disbanded at six o’clock, much to everyone’s relief, and Heloise was working a double shift on the desk that night that would keep her there until morning. There were two men on duty with her, and by ten o’clock the hotel seemed to have settled down for the night. And the security men were cruising through the lobby often. Hugues had gone up at eight o’clock to keep Natalie company, and eventually Heloise sat down to chat with her two co-workers. They were talking about what a nuisance rogue strikes were, and how annoying the picket line had been all afternoon. And by midnight only a few guests were drifting through the lobby on their way in. Hugues called down to check on them before he went to bed, and Heloise told him everything was fine.

  At one o’clock a fire alarm went off in the basement. They had a control panel at the desk, and it indicated a fire just outside the kitchen. It probably had nothing to do with the strike and was more likely a warming oven someone had left on with something in it. Heloise was alert immediately, and without stopping to think, she told the junior man at the desk to call the fire department immediately, and security. She ran to the service stairs to see if there was anything she could do downstairs; and when she got there, a small blaze was devouring a couch and several rolling trays right outside the kitchen. It was around the corner from room service, so no one saw it until they heard the alarm.

  One of the security guards was spraying the contents of a fire extinguisher on the couch and the trays when the fire department arrived with full alarms, bringing hoses with them. They had the fires out in less than ten minutes. There was a nasty, acrid smell of smoke, and two inches of water on the basement floor, but the fire was out. The kitchen and surrounding areas were swarming with firefighters, checking everything. They wanted to make sure that nothing else had caught fire. And Heloise stood watching them and thanking them for what they’d done. They had come very quickly. Hotel fires were always taken seriously, and they often started in the kitchen. Her father had taught her to have a deep respect for fire and for every safety practice they could think of.

  She was still talking to two of the firefighters, when another fire-man came up to her with an oil-soaked rag that reeked of smoke. It lay in an oily heap when he dropped it on the floor.

  “There’s your igniter,” he said, looking at Heloise and two of the security men. “Somebody set that on fire. There’s another one under the couch. I’d say somebody is playing games with you.” It probably wouldn’t have caused a big enough fire to burn down the hotel, since their alarm system was up to date and very efficient, but it could have caused some damage if the fire department hadn’t been as quick. And as she was talking to them, she saw one of the room service dishwashers grinning. He hadn’t worked at the hotel for long, and while he was watching Heloise talk to the firemen about the rag, he looked amused. She saw the look of defiance in his eyes, and she slowly walked toward him.

  “Did you se
e somebody do this?” she asked him directly, and he laughed at her.

  “You think I’d tell you if I did?” he jeered at her. He knew who she was, but he didn’t care.

  “What do you know about this?” she persisted. She wasn’t afraid of him at all.

  “I know your daddy fired two guys, and the union is gonna kick your ass if you don’t take them back,” he said defiantly, as the security men moved closer to them both. Bruce was off for the night. “They told you there was gonna be trouble, so maybe someone lit a little fire tonight to show you what they mean. You can’t fire anyone just like that. The union won’t let you do it,” he said, he was standing inches away from her, and the way he looked at her would have frightened anyone else, but it didn’t frighten her. He was threatening her hotel.

  “Did you do this?” she asked him, moving an inch closer to him. She was a slim woman, and twenty-one years old, but she was as brave as any man in the room.

  “What if I did?” he said, and laughed at her again, and as he did, one of the firemen got on his radio and called the police. There was going to be trouble. He could smell it, and the security men from the hotel knew it too.

  And then before they could stop him, he reached out and grabbed Heloise by the neck and slammed her against the wall. “Bitch,” he spat at her, “don’t tell me what I can do.” Heloise never took her eyes off him and remained completely calm. None of the men around them wanted to make any fast moves, in case he had a gun or a knife. They were waiting for the police. And with that, without saying a word, she landed her high heel squarely on his instep with her full strength, and as he doubled over, cursing her and shouting in pain, she took a nice clean swing at him with a fist and punched him in the nose, and as he wheeled a step backward, she raised her leg sharply and kneed him in the groin. She had taken self-defense in high school, and it served her well.