She Mocked Her Ex for Still Looking Broke After Ten Years Then the Valet Brought Him a Brand-New Bugatti

Victor wanted to dismiss the complaint as a misunderstanding.

I asked to see it.

He handed his phone to Elijah instead.

“I don’t think a potential investor needs access to staff grievances before an agreement is signed,” Victor said.

“Then I won’t sign one,” I replied.

Elijah read the complaint. His expression darkened.

“Why am I only seeing this now?”

Victor adjusted his cuffs.

“It came in this morning.”

Maya held out her hand.

“Let me read it.”

She went through the pages slowly.

“They mention three events I directed,” she said. “My staff stayed late at those.”

“Your event staff were paid,” Victor said.

“According to whom?”

“Payroll.”

“That’s what they’re questioning.”

I watched her. Last night she had spoken to me as if a uniform could tell her everything about a person. This morning, she was beginning to ask how the hotel treated the people wearing them.

Elijah told Victor to preserve the records and make them available to Simone. Victor said he would.

After he left, Maya put down the complaint.

“I got an email about hours last month,” she said.

“From whom?” I asked.

“Someone in valet. Maybe Andre.”

She searched her tablet.

“I forwarded it to Victor. He said payroll was correcting it.”

“Did you check?”

“No.”

The admission seemed to cost her.

Elijah looked at his daughter.

“You should have.”

“I know.”

He turned to me.

“The hotel can fix this.”

“It has to find out what happened first.”

I left them in the boardroom and went downstairs.

Andre stood near the curb. He looked at me but did not approach. I did not approach him either. His job mattered more than my need to tell him the complaint had been heard.

Simone called while I was in the car.

“I’ve arranged an auditor,” she said. “She can begin reviewing payroll if Elijah approves access.”

“He will.”

“Do you still want to pursue the investment?”

“I want the facts.”

“That’s why I like working with you.”

I went home to a house that was too quiet.

My mother had died three years earlier. Her photograph stood beside the living-room window, taken on the day I bought my first building. She wore the blue dress she saved for church and looked more proud than I did.

When Elijah called about the hotel, I heard her voice in my head.

Don’t pay for a place until you know how it treats the people cleaning it.

I made dinner and read the first financial documents Victor sent. Several expense accounts were too broad. The west wing renovation costs had been paid through a contractor whose name I did not recognize.

At eight, Elijah came to my house.

He rarely visited. When my mother was alive, he would call ahead as if he needed permission to enter a place he had never helped make safe.

I let him in.

“Maya asked about us after you left,” he said.

“What did you tell her?”

“That you’re my son.”

I set down my glass.

“How did she take it?”

“She thought I was joking. Then she was angry.”

“At you?”

“At both of us, for a while.”

“She didn’t know I existed.”