Chapter Rating: PG for potty-mouthedness... though it is really to be expected.
Olivia just stood there, unable to move, staring at the door. It was a barrier between her and the completely unhinged woman who had just closed it. The same woman that was walking further away from her by the second. She wanted to push through it to chase down the maddening form. To yell. To demand. To chastise. To hold.
To hold, her eyes closed as her mind forced her to recall what had just taken place. The memory of how Natalia's body felt when tightly pressed against her own.
Such a dissimilar yet intoxicating eroticism that brought along with it a multitude of novel responses. She couldn't remember any other time where she had felt so electrically charge by a simple touch; when just a kiss had catapulted her into such instant and heightened arousal that it almost completely took possession of her movements.
When she shook herself out of the temporary contemplation, she fell headfirst into a sea of confusion.
There is no hotel, Natalia's last words resounded in her ears. Her eyebrows furrowed as she bent down to pick up the shirt that Natalia had just moments ago removed from her. What the hell does that mean?
Her mind started swimming furiously against the enormous wave of possible answers to that question. What had she meant? What was she planning on doing? She pulled her shirt over her head. Or worse... What has she already done?
The tidal wave of bewilderment broke down upon her and pushed her directly into a rock-bed of anger and frustration as she considered the possibility that perhaps she had just been played for a fool by the woman on the other side of the door. There was no way she was going to allow herself to drown in the unknown. She wanted answers. And she wanted them now.
She flew to the door and yanked it open, not bothering to close it as she strode quickly down the corridor.
---------------------------------------------------------
Natalia walked slowly over to the window and leaned her forehead against the cool pane of glass. She gazed down at the concrete that was many stories below. Her head began to feel light and dizzy, and her stomach began to turn. She wasn't entirely certain whether this was a reaction of vertigo or the immense feelings of dread and guilt.
Don't look away. She forced herself to continue looking downward. You deserve this. You deserve to feel like shit.
She brought her fingertips to her lips in hopes that she would find them still swollen. She wanted them to remain burnt with the fiery kisses that had just branded them moments ago. She wanted to get lost in the memory of the way it felt to be pressed roughly against the door as Olivia's body molded itself tightly to her own. But sickening anxiety wouldn't allow her such respite.
She heard the knocking at her door. She knew exactly who it was on the other side.
"Don't look away," she said aloud as she leaned more heavily into the glass and brought both hands up to try and steady herself, her legs threatening to buckle beneath her.
"Natalia, open the door." The voice was insistent.
Natalia focused her dizzy eyes on the tiny dots of people that walked along, busy living their own lives. She wondered if any of the dots had ever experienced the amount of agony she herself was in.
The knocking grew louder.
"Natalia, I know you're in there! You need to open the door!"
"You need to walk away," Natalia said in almost a whisper, her warm breath briefly fogging her view of the dots. She watched as one of them crossed the street and made his way to a bus stop bench and sat down. I've never been on a bus, she thought mindlessly.
"You have to talk to me! Please! I need you to tell me what you meant!"
"I meant to do the right thing," she spoke quietly into the window. The dot on the bench looked at his watch and then back in the direction of the oncoming bus. Why so impatient? Is there someone waiting for you at home? Does she make you dinner for when you arrive? Is she your 'One'? Do your children run into your arms?
The knocking turned into pounding as fists hit the barrier that stood between her and the fury on the other side.
"Don't do this, Natalia!"
"It's already been done."
"Don't leave it like this!"
"It's for the best."
There was one last round of pounding.
"Let... me.... in!"
As Natalia closed her eyes a tear fell down her cheek.
"Never."
It was, again, audible only to herself, and yet the word tore through her brain loudly. She put the tip of her index finger directly over the view of her little dot. As the bus arrived and the dot moved, so did her finger. She dragged it along the window pane, following the bus as it drove away. She contemplated her dot's excitement to be headed home to his 'One', his happy life. Trade you.
"Fuck you, Rivera!"
"I'm so sorry."
"Fuck you!"
"Forgive me."
There was no more pounding. There was no more yelling. There were no more sounds at all. No thoughts. No emotions. No happy dots.
She finally allowed herself to look away. Darkness fell upon her. Natalia welcomed the oblivion.
---------------------------------------------------------
Antonio Rivera paced back and forth in his office. His assistant was at his desk answering the flood of phone calls that were coming in from several different parts of the globe.
"The lawyers are on line two; I'm still on hold with the Bellrives – do you want to take the other line?" Jacques asked the frantic man.
Antonio waved his hand and shook his head rapidly. "Where is she, Jacques?"
"I've just sent Mateo up to check her room. I know she is in the building, but she isn't answering her phones." I also have Ms. Spencer coming to the boardroom in ten minutes.... "yes, Mr. Bellerive, I am still here..."
The founder of the hotel franchise picked up a photo from his desk and ran his thumb along the frame. His expression pensive, almost sad.
"You have finally found the best way to punish me for my sins, haven't you, Natalia?" he whispered to the picture.
---------------------------------------------------------
The ceiling kept getting closer and then receding away from her as Natalia tried to focus her eyes through the throbbing in her head. When she finally realized that she was lying on the floor, she made an attempt to sit up slowly. A sharp, searing pain behind her left ear caused her to draw her lips back tightly and hiss through clenched teeth.
Oh God, I'm going to throw up.
She heard pounding again, and it took several moments to discern whether or not it was coming from her door or from the blood that was pumping loudly through her ears as it made its way back to her brain.
"For fuck's sake, don't tell me you're back!" she muttered angrily as she picked herself up off the ground and shuffled her way over to the door. When she opened it to find Mateo on the other side, it felt strange that a part of her was quite relieved. She saw the look on his face and didn't need to hear him speak, which thankfully for once in his life he didn't do. He simply looked at her and gestured for her to come with him.
She didn't need to be told where they were going. She shot him a nasty look to counter the smug expression he was wearing on his face and left her room. In the elevator, Mateo smirked as she leaned to steady herself against the wall.
"You look like shit." He laughed.
"You are shit."
Mateo grunted and looked straight ahead.
"Regardless," he said shrugging off the insult. "You're drowning in a whole creek-full of it now,” he snickered.
---------------------------------------------------------
When they entered the boardroom, her father and Jacques were already waiting for them. He looked at her and her knees almost gave out entirely. His eyes never left her as she made her way to a seat near the far end of the table. She didn't want to be close. She didn't want to have such a bird’s-eye view of the pain she had just caused her father.
She sat quietly, waiting for one of the men to speak, accepting the torrent of anger that was about to come pummeling down unto her already ill frame. But before anyone spoke, the door opened. She looked up to see Olivia standing in the doorway.
Both women looked immediately at each other. Each woman seemed to be as confused as the other as to why Olivia was there.
The nausea suddenly kicked Natalia in the gut and she forced herself to look away from the woman who was staring right through her. She turned a little too quickly, and the pain in her head caused her to groan.
"What is she doing here?"
"She is here because I originally thought that perhaps she would have some idea of what had happened this afternoon, seeing as the two of you were spotted together," Antonio began. "But from the look on your face, Ms. Spencer, I might assume that you have been in just about the same amount of darkness as we all were."
Olivia sat down slowly, directly across from Natalia. The younger woman refused to look at her, so she turned her attention to the elder Rivera. "I was with Ms. Rivera this afternoon, but I assure you I have no idea what is going on. And I can tell by the tension in here, I'm not going to like what it is."
"I don't want her here," Natalia had her eyes closed now. There seemed to be nowhere to look that was safe enough. Not one of the faces at the table seemed as though they would be willing to redeem her from her torture.
"Seeing as you have just negated Ms. Spencer's reason for being here without her awareness, I think you owe it to her to tell her what you've done."
"I owe her nothing!" Natalia said angrily.
Olivia's blood ran cold and it took all her effort not to lash out at Natalia in front of her family. "I would disagree with you on that... Natalia," the familiarity and tone in which Olivia said her name caused the younger woman to finally look up into the piercing emerald gaze of the upset woman across from her. Her body trembled from the powerful ire in the look.
"Go ahead," Mr. Rivera pointed from his daughter and then to Olivia. "Why don't you tell her what you've taken it upon yourself to do with my company?"
Natalia would not be lowered in front of Olivia. "I will not be made to look like an insolent child. Besides, this has nothing to do with her and she should definitely not be privy to this information!"
"With all due respect, if your father has seen fit to include me..."
Natalia's furious glare stopped her from continuing her sentence.
"Oh, for the love of God!" Mateo finally burst out. "Natalia sent an email to Livingston-Westgate."
Olivia's mouth dropped as she slowly turned from Mateo, and her eyes fell wide onto his sister. Olivia, of course, knew full well the meaning of his statement.
"You..." She stumbled over the words as Mateo's revelation sunk further into her consciousness. She tried again. "You sold the company?" The question seemed ridiculous to her. Of all the possible scenarios she had mulled over in her head about the words Natalia spoke in her suite less than an hour ago, this was certainly nowhere on the list.
"I made an announcement..." Natalia began.
"Natalia, what the hell were you thinking?" Olivia interrupted her.
"This does NOT affect you, Ms. Spencer, this subject concerns my family only!"
Without missing a beat, Olivia turned beside her to Mateo. "Mr. Rivera," she said quickly, "will you marry me?"
Mateo was now clearly enjoying his sister's agony. "Why yes, Ms. Spencer, it would be an honor." He grinned at Natalia.
"There! Family!" Olivia pinned Natalia with her eyes. "What are you doing, Natalia?" Her tone had shifted from confrontational to genuine confusion.
Natalia took a deep breath.
"I made an announcement to the Livingston-Westgate Group alerting them to the fact that the Empire's franchise hotels were up for sale. I asked them to make an offer." Natalia looked directly at Olivia. "And earlier this afternoon, they did."
Olivia narrowed her eyes, taking in the meaning of the last sentence. "Earlier this afternoon," she repeated as she remembered vividly exactly what had occurred between them earlier that afternoon.
"The Empire's franchise hotels were not up for sale." Olivia looked over to the Senior Rivera who simply threw his hands in the air. She looked back at Natalia. "One hotel, Natalia. One hotel that you just couldn't see me walk away with, and so you put up 948 more?"
"Oh, please! You think this has anything to do with you?" Natalia spat back at her vehemently. "You really need a fucking reality check, Ms. Spencer!"
"Natalia!" Antonio scolded her but it went unheard.
"You are nothing in this whole equation. The weight of your influence is non-existent. You and your little 'nickel-and-dime store' of a franchise is but a drop in the barrel compared to this company. And you think I would give up everything that has been my entire life for seventeen years because of you?" She snorted at the stunned woman across from her. "You have got to be the most delusional woman on the planet!"
Olivia did not respond. The rage inside her threatened to spill out, and it was something she was not willing to have happen in front of the men in the room. Instead, Natalia continued.
"This is not about one hotel. This is about a company that can barely stand on its own anymore." Her father was about to interject, but she cut him off again. "No! I am sick of trying to pretend that things are going to just magically get better. It's not one hotel that we are selling. There will be three more going up before the end of the fourth quarter. With each one that we let go, our stock price drops. She turned to her father once again, "I have not blindly jumped into this decision, and yes, I understand that it was not my decision to make, but I have been the only one bothering to crunch the numbers. I've done the research and this is the only way we can save the company in the end."
"You lose all control over the hotels," Olivia stated. "How is that saving the company?"
"The LW Group has offered our stockholders $26.75 per share." Olivia began doing the math on her phone as Natalia continued, now explaining herself to not only Olivia but to the rest of the members in the room. "All 948 hotels would go to the group at $7 million each. They would be given control of the revenue for all 118,500 rooms. The sale of the hotels would become a $6 billion-636 million leveraged buy-out."
"Your shares alone would give you $655 million." Olivia's eyes could not now seem to focus. She tried to take it all in.
"Yes. Money that would be put back into our non franchised hotels – the managed and leased ones as well as the owned ones and our 'off-shores’– that were not included in the deal. Adding to the continuing equity of those hotels with that of our owned real-estate would ensure that dividends would continue, and those hotels could remain prosperous under the original Empire name."
"I don't believe this." Olivia had no idea what Natalia had really been up to. Even though the young hotelier had completely pulled the rug out from underneath her feet, she had done so with amazing clarity and foresight.
"Every hotel owner," Natalia continued once again, "even the ones that may have exited the last two years unscathed by the declining tourism industry and shitty economy, will most definitely be suffering within the next two quarters, just as we have. Other hotels that have recently been built, just before the decline, will now be taking business away from all the properties in the area. We will not survive, and there will be no one else to sell individual properties to. "
Natalia turned to her father. "I may never be forgiven for my actions, and I accept that. But you yourself entrusted me with this company, and I have worked tirelessly day in and day out for seventeen years to maintain it. We have known for a long time that this was the only way in which to proceed, but you would hear nothing of it. You are putting every one of our other properties at risk, leaving your legacy and our family's fortune outside for the vultures to pick at."
No one at the table said a word until Mateo broke the silence, turning to Olivia. "$655 million, you say?"
Olivia looked over at him. "Yeah," she chuckled. "I picked a damned good time to marry into the family, huh?"
Mateo laughed. "I'd say so!"
Natalia rolled her eyes at the two of them.
"The LW Group will not manage the properties. They have the means but are not concerned with how the hotels are run, just that they are done so efficiently. With their recent $18 billion purchase of the larger St. Anthony franchise, they have their hands full anyhow. I have added a clause that states that we and our current employees will continue to maintain the properties. They will have their own overseers who will check in from time to time, but essentially nothing changes with the new ownership. The hotels will be branded as the Livingston-Westgate Empire. We can build our company back up by establishing more owned and managed hotels when the economy picks back up."
Antonio finally spoke. "Nothing will be done without my approval. You have taken it upon yourself to act in my behalf. I can assure you that all other privileges you have, or ever will decide to take, will be revoked. I will not be considering this travesty. I will have the lawyers make certain that it is put to a halt immediately."
"You need to consider the future, father."
"And I will, but not this way Natalia." His voice became strained. "You had no right."
Natalia lowered her now excruciatingly pained head into her hands. Olivia watched as the fight finally drained from her.
"I apologize, Ms. Spencer, but obviously, our talks with you are no longer needed at this time. I do hope you can forgive my daughter for burdening you and making this trip an unnecessary one at this juncture," Mr. Rivera said as he stood from his chair. Both Mateo and Jacques followed suit.
"I have to issue a press release to try and win back our investor's confidence, which has no doubt been destroyed by this action." He turned quickly and headed for the door with the two other men close behind them.
Natalia remained where she sat. Her physical discomfort growing as she felt the eyes of the woman across from her burning her to the core. She waited for Olivia to speak, knowing that she deserved every slicing wound that Olivia's words were about to inflict.
Olivia sat quietly and waited for Natalia to look at her. They both knew what was coming and they knew that it couldn't be avoided. These were their last words to each other.
Olivia stared Natalia down. And by God, I'm going to make them count!
Olivia just stood there, unable to move, staring at the door. It was a barrier between her and the completely unhinged woman who had just closed it. The same woman that was walking further away from her by the second. She wanted to push through it to chase down the maddening form. To yell. To demand. To chastise. To hold.
To hold, her eyes closed as her mind forced her to recall what had just taken place. The memory of how Natalia's body felt when tightly pressed against her own.
Such a dissimilar yet intoxicating eroticism that brought along with it a multitude of novel responses. She couldn't remember any other time where she had felt so electrically charge by a simple touch; when just a kiss had catapulted her into such instant and heightened arousal that it almost completely took possession of her movements.
When she shook herself out of the temporary contemplation, she fell headfirst into a sea of confusion.
There is no hotel, Natalia's last words resounded in her ears. Her eyebrows furrowed as she bent down to pick up the shirt that Natalia had just moments ago removed from her. What the hell does that mean?
Her mind started swimming furiously against the enormous wave of possible answers to that question. What had she meant? What was she planning on doing? She pulled her shirt over her head. Or worse... What has she already done?
The tidal wave of bewilderment broke down upon her and pushed her directly into a rock-bed of anger and frustration as she considered the possibility that perhaps she had just been played for a fool by the woman on the other side of the door. There was no way she was going to allow herself to drown in the unknown. She wanted answers. And she wanted them now.
She flew to the door and yanked it open, not bothering to close it as she strode quickly down the corridor.
---------------------------------------------------------
Natalia walked slowly over to the window and leaned her forehead against the cool pane of glass. She gazed down at the concrete that was many stories below. Her head began to feel light and dizzy, and her stomach began to turn. She wasn't entirely certain whether this was a reaction of vertigo or the immense feelings of dread and guilt.
Don't look away. She forced herself to continue looking downward. You deserve this. You deserve to feel like shit.
She brought her fingertips to her lips in hopes that she would find them still swollen. She wanted them to remain burnt with the fiery kisses that had just branded them moments ago. She wanted to get lost in the memory of the way it felt to be pressed roughly against the door as Olivia's body molded itself tightly to her own. But sickening anxiety wouldn't allow her such respite.
She heard the knocking at her door. She knew exactly who it was on the other side.
"Don't look away," she said aloud as she leaned more heavily into the glass and brought both hands up to try and steady herself, her legs threatening to buckle beneath her.
"Natalia, open the door." The voice was insistent.
Natalia focused her dizzy eyes on the tiny dots of people that walked along, busy living their own lives. She wondered if any of the dots had ever experienced the amount of agony she herself was in.
The knocking grew louder.
"Natalia, I know you're in there! You need to open the door!"
"You need to walk away," Natalia said in almost a whisper, her warm breath briefly fogging her view of the dots. She watched as one of them crossed the street and made his way to a bus stop bench and sat down. I've never been on a bus, she thought mindlessly.
"You have to talk to me! Please! I need you to tell me what you meant!"
"I meant to do the right thing," she spoke quietly into the window. The dot on the bench looked at his watch and then back in the direction of the oncoming bus. Why so impatient? Is there someone waiting for you at home? Does she make you dinner for when you arrive? Is she your 'One'? Do your children run into your arms?
The knocking turned into pounding as fists hit the barrier that stood between her and the fury on the other side.
"Don't do this, Natalia!"
"It's already been done."
"Don't leave it like this!"
"It's for the best."
There was one last round of pounding.
"Let... me.... in!"
As Natalia closed her eyes a tear fell down her cheek.
"Never."
It was, again, audible only to herself, and yet the word tore through her brain loudly. She put the tip of her index finger directly over the view of her little dot. As the bus arrived and the dot moved, so did her finger. She dragged it along the window pane, following the bus as it drove away. She contemplated her dot's excitement to be headed home to his 'One', his happy life. Trade you.
"Fuck you, Rivera!"
"I'm so sorry."
"Fuck you!"
"Forgive me."
There was no more pounding. There was no more yelling. There were no more sounds at all. No thoughts. No emotions. No happy dots.
She finally allowed herself to look away. Darkness fell upon her. Natalia welcomed the oblivion.
---------------------------------------------------------
Antonio Rivera paced back and forth in his office. His assistant was at his desk answering the flood of phone calls that were coming in from several different parts of the globe.
"The lawyers are on line two; I'm still on hold with the Bellrives – do you want to take the other line?" Jacques asked the frantic man.
Antonio waved his hand and shook his head rapidly. "Where is she, Jacques?"
"I've just sent Mateo up to check her room. I know she is in the building, but she isn't answering her phones." I also have Ms. Spencer coming to the boardroom in ten minutes.... "yes, Mr. Bellerive, I am still here..."
The founder of the hotel franchise picked up a photo from his desk and ran his thumb along the frame. His expression pensive, almost sad.
"You have finally found the best way to punish me for my sins, haven't you, Natalia?" he whispered to the picture.
---------------------------------------------------------
The ceiling kept getting closer and then receding away from her as Natalia tried to focus her eyes through the throbbing in her head. When she finally realized that she was lying on the floor, she made an attempt to sit up slowly. A sharp, searing pain behind her left ear caused her to draw her lips back tightly and hiss through clenched teeth.
Oh God, I'm going to throw up.
She heard pounding again, and it took several moments to discern whether or not it was coming from her door or from the blood that was pumping loudly through her ears as it made its way back to her brain.
"For fuck's sake, don't tell me you're back!" she muttered angrily as she picked herself up off the ground and shuffled her way over to the door. When she opened it to find Mateo on the other side, it felt strange that a part of her was quite relieved. She saw the look on his face and didn't need to hear him speak, which thankfully for once in his life he didn't do. He simply looked at her and gestured for her to come with him.
She didn't need to be told where they were going. She shot him a nasty look to counter the smug expression he was wearing on his face and left her room. In the elevator, Mateo smirked as she leaned to steady herself against the wall.
"You look like shit." He laughed.
"You are shit."
Mateo grunted and looked straight ahead.
"Regardless," he said shrugging off the insult. "You're drowning in a whole creek-full of it now,” he snickered.
---------------------------------------------------------
When they entered the boardroom, her father and Jacques were already waiting for them. He looked at her and her knees almost gave out entirely. His eyes never left her as she made her way to a seat near the far end of the table. She didn't want to be close. She didn't want to have such a bird’s-eye view of the pain she had just caused her father.
She sat quietly, waiting for one of the men to speak, accepting the torrent of anger that was about to come pummeling down unto her already ill frame. But before anyone spoke, the door opened. She looked up to see Olivia standing in the doorway.
Both women looked immediately at each other. Each woman seemed to be as confused as the other as to why Olivia was there.
The nausea suddenly kicked Natalia in the gut and she forced herself to look away from the woman who was staring right through her. She turned a little too quickly, and the pain in her head caused her to groan.
"What is she doing here?"
"She is here because I originally thought that perhaps she would have some idea of what had happened this afternoon, seeing as the two of you were spotted together," Antonio began. "But from the look on your face, Ms. Spencer, I might assume that you have been in just about the same amount of darkness as we all were."
Olivia sat down slowly, directly across from Natalia. The younger woman refused to look at her, so she turned her attention to the elder Rivera. "I was with Ms. Rivera this afternoon, but I assure you I have no idea what is going on. And I can tell by the tension in here, I'm not going to like what it is."
"I don't want her here," Natalia had her eyes closed now. There seemed to be nowhere to look that was safe enough. Not one of the faces at the table seemed as though they would be willing to redeem her from her torture.
"Seeing as you have just negated Ms. Spencer's reason for being here without her awareness, I think you owe it to her to tell her what you've done."
"I owe her nothing!" Natalia said angrily.
Olivia's blood ran cold and it took all her effort not to lash out at Natalia in front of her family. "I would disagree with you on that... Natalia," the familiarity and tone in which Olivia said her name caused the younger woman to finally look up into the piercing emerald gaze of the upset woman across from her. Her body trembled from the powerful ire in the look.
"Go ahead," Mr. Rivera pointed from his daughter and then to Olivia. "Why don't you tell her what you've taken it upon yourself to do with my company?"
Natalia would not be lowered in front of Olivia. "I will not be made to look like an insolent child. Besides, this has nothing to do with her and she should definitely not be privy to this information!"
"With all due respect, if your father has seen fit to include me..."
Natalia's furious glare stopped her from continuing her sentence.
"Oh, for the love of God!" Mateo finally burst out. "Natalia sent an email to Livingston-Westgate."
Olivia's mouth dropped as she slowly turned from Mateo, and her eyes fell wide onto his sister. Olivia, of course, knew full well the meaning of his statement.
"You..." She stumbled over the words as Mateo's revelation sunk further into her consciousness. She tried again. "You sold the company?" The question seemed ridiculous to her. Of all the possible scenarios she had mulled over in her head about the words Natalia spoke in her suite less than an hour ago, this was certainly nowhere on the list.
"I made an announcement..." Natalia began.
"Natalia, what the hell were you thinking?" Olivia interrupted her.
"This does NOT affect you, Ms. Spencer, this subject concerns my family only!"
Without missing a beat, Olivia turned beside her to Mateo. "Mr. Rivera," she said quickly, "will you marry me?"
Mateo was now clearly enjoying his sister's agony. "Why yes, Ms. Spencer, it would be an honor." He grinned at Natalia.
"There! Family!" Olivia pinned Natalia with her eyes. "What are you doing, Natalia?" Her tone had shifted from confrontational to genuine confusion.
Natalia took a deep breath.
"I made an announcement to the Livingston-Westgate Group alerting them to the fact that the Empire's franchise hotels were up for sale. I asked them to make an offer." Natalia looked directly at Olivia. "And earlier this afternoon, they did."
Olivia narrowed her eyes, taking in the meaning of the last sentence. "Earlier this afternoon," she repeated as she remembered vividly exactly what had occurred between them earlier that afternoon.
"The Empire's franchise hotels were not up for sale." Olivia looked over to the Senior Rivera who simply threw his hands in the air. She looked back at Natalia. "One hotel, Natalia. One hotel that you just couldn't see me walk away with, and so you put up 948 more?"
"Oh, please! You think this has anything to do with you?" Natalia spat back at her vehemently. "You really need a fucking reality check, Ms. Spencer!"
"Natalia!" Antonio scolded her but it went unheard.
"You are nothing in this whole equation. The weight of your influence is non-existent. You and your little 'nickel-and-dime store' of a franchise is but a drop in the barrel compared to this company. And you think I would give up everything that has been my entire life for seventeen years because of you?" She snorted at the stunned woman across from her. "You have got to be the most delusional woman on the planet!"
Olivia did not respond. The rage inside her threatened to spill out, and it was something she was not willing to have happen in front of the men in the room. Instead, Natalia continued.
"This is not about one hotel. This is about a company that can barely stand on its own anymore." Her father was about to interject, but she cut him off again. "No! I am sick of trying to pretend that things are going to just magically get better. It's not one hotel that we are selling. There will be three more going up before the end of the fourth quarter. With each one that we let go, our stock price drops. She turned to her father once again, "I have not blindly jumped into this decision, and yes, I understand that it was not my decision to make, but I have been the only one bothering to crunch the numbers. I've done the research and this is the only way we can save the company in the end."
"You lose all control over the hotels," Olivia stated. "How is that saving the company?"
"The LW Group has offered our stockholders $26.75 per share." Olivia began doing the math on her phone as Natalia continued, now explaining herself to not only Olivia but to the rest of the members in the room. "All 948 hotels would go to the group at $7 million each. They would be given control of the revenue for all 118,500 rooms. The sale of the hotels would become a $6 billion-636 million leveraged buy-out."
"Your shares alone would give you $655 million." Olivia's eyes could not now seem to focus. She tried to take it all in.
"Yes. Money that would be put back into our non franchised hotels – the managed and leased ones as well as the owned ones and our 'off-shores’– that were not included in the deal. Adding to the continuing equity of those hotels with that of our owned real-estate would ensure that dividends would continue, and those hotels could remain prosperous under the original Empire name."
"I don't believe this." Olivia had no idea what Natalia had really been up to. Even though the young hotelier had completely pulled the rug out from underneath her feet, she had done so with amazing clarity and foresight.
"Every hotel owner," Natalia continued once again, "even the ones that may have exited the last two years unscathed by the declining tourism industry and shitty economy, will most definitely be suffering within the next two quarters, just as we have. Other hotels that have recently been built, just before the decline, will now be taking business away from all the properties in the area. We will not survive, and there will be no one else to sell individual properties to. "
Natalia turned to her father. "I may never be forgiven for my actions, and I accept that. But you yourself entrusted me with this company, and I have worked tirelessly day in and day out for seventeen years to maintain it. We have known for a long time that this was the only way in which to proceed, but you would hear nothing of it. You are putting every one of our other properties at risk, leaving your legacy and our family's fortune outside for the vultures to pick at."
No one at the table said a word until Mateo broke the silence, turning to Olivia. "$655 million, you say?"
Olivia looked over at him. "Yeah," she chuckled. "I picked a damned good time to marry into the family, huh?"
Mateo laughed. "I'd say so!"
Natalia rolled her eyes at the two of them.
"The LW Group will not manage the properties. They have the means but are not concerned with how the hotels are run, just that they are done so efficiently. With their recent $18 billion purchase of the larger St. Anthony franchise, they have their hands full anyhow. I have added a clause that states that we and our current employees will continue to maintain the properties. They will have their own overseers who will check in from time to time, but essentially nothing changes with the new ownership. The hotels will be branded as the Livingston-Westgate Empire. We can build our company back up by establishing more owned and managed hotels when the economy picks back up."
Antonio finally spoke. "Nothing will be done without my approval. You have taken it upon yourself to act in my behalf. I can assure you that all other privileges you have, or ever will decide to take, will be revoked. I will not be considering this travesty. I will have the lawyers make certain that it is put to a halt immediately."
"You need to consider the future, father."
"And I will, but not this way Natalia." His voice became strained. "You had no right."
Natalia lowered her now excruciatingly pained head into her hands. Olivia watched as the fight finally drained from her.
"I apologize, Ms. Spencer, but obviously, our talks with you are no longer needed at this time. I do hope you can forgive my daughter for burdening you and making this trip an unnecessary one at this juncture," Mr. Rivera said as he stood from his chair. Both Mateo and Jacques followed suit.
"I have to issue a press release to try and win back our investor's confidence, which has no doubt been destroyed by this action." He turned quickly and headed for the door with the two other men close behind them.
Natalia remained where she sat. Her physical discomfort growing as she felt the eyes of the woman across from her burning her to the core. She waited for Olivia to speak, knowing that she deserved every slicing wound that Olivia's words were about to inflict.
Olivia sat quietly and waited for Natalia to look at her. They both knew what was coming and they knew that it couldn't be avoided. These were their last words to each other.
Olivia stared Natalia down. And by God, I'm going to make them count!
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