“Thank you, gentlemen,” she said pleasantly. One of the patrolmen asked for a statement from her, and she was in the middle of it when her father came rushing downstairs. He had woken up to the sound of fire engines, saw them outside, and dressed quickly. The elevators had been stopped for safety so he took the service stairs. He took one look at the situation and turned to his security men. “What’s going on here?” Smiling, one of the firefighters described the scene to him. She had put them all to shame.
“Are you all right?” he asked his daughter, and she looked at him. She wasn’t even unnerved, although she’d been mad as hell at the man who’d set the fire.
“I’m fine. I think some asshole at the union paid the guy to set a fire in the basement tonight. We lost a couch and some rolling trays. But it could have been a lot worse.”
“Are you crazy?” her father said to her. “To hell with the couch. They just told me you punched the guy. He could have stabbed you. Did that ever occur to you?” He looked at her like she was insane.
“He set the fire. Someone paid him to do that. I’m not going to let a jerk like that burn down our hotel and destroy everything we’ve built.” Her eyes were rock hard as she looked at her father. She wasn’t going to let him destroy it either. The message was clear.
“Did the alarm go off?”
“Yes, it did. That’s why I came down here. The security boys were putting out the fire, and the fire department got here at the same time I did,” she told her father. “They found the rag he used to light it.”
“How do you know it was him?”
“He pretty much said so, or he implied it, and then he grabbed me by the throat.”
“And then you hit him?” Her father looked stunned by both the stupidity and the courage of what she’d done.
“She broke his nose, sir,” the young patrolman filled in.
“You broke his nose?” Hugues stared at his daughter as though seeing her for the first time.
“It was actually a very sweet move,” one of the firefighters commented. “Instep with her stiletto, punch in the nose with a fist, and then she kneed him in the groin.” Hugues turned to look at all of them then.
“And what were the rest of you doing? Taking pictures? Why did
“Because this is our hotel,” she said with a small smile. “And I love it more than you do,” referring to the pending sale.
The patrolman took the rest of her statement then. He said they were going to book the dishwasher for arson, and he doubted they could ever pin it on the union, unless he talked. But since they were pressing charges and he was in custody, he might.
They told Heloise then that she was free to go, and that there would be no charges for assault since it had been self-defense with a dozen witnesses to prove it. Her father shuddered at the words, as the security men called for the maintenance crew to get rid of the trays and the remains of the charred couch.
Heloise headed for the service elevator and said she had to change her skirt before she went back to the desk.
“I’ll ride up with you,” her father said somberly, and for the first few minutes after they got in, he didn’t say a word. He was still trying to sort out what he’d just heard. “Do you realize you could have been killed?”
“Do you realize he could have burned down our hotel?” He was trying not to smile, thinking of what she’d done to the arsonist. But this was nothing to smile about.
“You can’t do things like that. You can’t risk your life.”
“I’d rather die here, defending what we love, than somewhere else,” she said calmly.
“I don’t want you dying anywhere, or taking chances like that.” And then he smiled. “I can’t believe you broke his nose.”
“It was a pretty cool move,” she said with a grin, as the elevator stopped at her floor. “It worked. They called it ING at school. Instep, nose, groin. It works every time.”
“You’re dangerous,” he teased her. “Why don’t you take the rest of the night off? I’m afraid you might injure someone else.” He followed her to her apartment door.
“I’m fine. They’ll be short-handed if I don’t go back.” She was standing in the doorway of her apartment, with her skirt slit nearly to her waist, from raising her knee high enough to kick the arsonist in the groin. And she had packed a hell of a punch. “How’s Natalie?”
“Okay, I guess. Time will tell. She hates being stuck in bed. And her office is going crazy without her. But she’s too scared to argue about it. It’s going to be a long five months, or however much she has left.” She had planned to take the last few months off but not be on bedrest this soon.
“I’ll come up and see her tomorrow,” she promised, and then went inside to change. She was back at the front desk ten minutes later in a fresh skirt, with her hair neatly combed and brushed. She spent the rest of the night talking to the men she worked with, and she was about to go upstairs at seven when she went off duty, when her father came down to the lobby and asked her to come into his office. She wondered if he was going to reprimand her for assaulting the arsonist when he asked her to sit down. He obviously had something to say to her, and he looked as though he hadn’t slept the night before. She’d been up all night and she looked better than he did as he spoke to her. When he did, his voice was gruff.
“I’m not selling the hotel. I’m probably crazy. It’s an insane amount of money to turn down. We’ll never have an offer like it again, and we may be sorry one day. But I can’t have you willing to risk your life for what I built, while I sell out for the money. You reminded me last night of what this hotel means to me, to us. I don’t ever want you taking chances like that again, no matter how brave you are. But I’m not going to sell something that you love that much. I’m turning down the offer.” Heloise sat and smiled at him, and he smiled at her too. The hotel was something very special that they shared, and she wasn’t willing to give that up, or let anyone hurt it or take it from them. And now he wasn’t either.
“I’m proud of you, Papa,” she said softly, coming around his desk to hug him.
“Don’t be,” he said quietly. “I’m proud of you. I almost sold us out. You were the one who risked your life to defend the hotel.”
They walked out of his office together, arm in arm. He called his lawyers later that morning to turn down the offer, and they called the labor union after that. Their attorney told the union they were not taking back the two maintenance men, and they would bring charges of arson if they ever pulled a stunt like that again. The union representative told the attorney that they had no idea what he meant. But the message was clear. The dishwasher was in jail. And the picket line did not come back again. And he made equally clear to the Dutch that the Hotel Vendome was not for sale. Now or ever.
Chapter 23
BY MARCH, BRAD was staying at the hotel with Heloise every night. They weren’t officially living together, but it was working out that way, and her father didn’t object. He was a very nice young man. Heloise’s life was mature beyond her years, but it always had been, growing up in the hotel. She had seen more of life than most girls her age. And she and Brad were a good match. He didn’t complain about her long hours and double shifts. And he was interested in the hotel. He was getting increasingly interested in labor law. Neither of them was afraid of hard work. He studied when she worked, and he was graduating from law school in June. And then he had to pass the bar. He was starting to look for a job.
They went to dinner at the Waverly Inn downtown on a rainy night in March, to take a break from his studies and her work. Natalie was still on bedrest, and Heloise had seen her that afternoon. She tried to drop in as often as possible and brought her all the latest magazines and DVDs. She’d been on bedrest for two months. She was six months pregnant and the babies could survive if they were born now, although they were still very small. Every added week was a help. She was trying to direct her office from her bed, and her assistants were coming to see her every day. It was frustrating for her. But the babies came first.
Heloise was talking to Brad about his job search as their cab approached the hotel, and as soon as it did, she saw a fire department rescue truck parked right outside. She immediately wondered if a guest had had a heart attack, and they both thought of Natalie instantly, as Brad paid the driver and they both jumped out and ran inside.
