Jonas
Ten Years Later: Manhattan, New York
Pushing the blueprint away, I scrubbed my hands down my face. My mind was racing a million miles a second and I couldn’t focus on what could potentially be the newest property for the Courtland Hospitality Group, or CHG as it was known internationally. When my paternal grandfather, William Courtland, died, I inherited the multibillion-dollar company and all of the problems it had. My grandfather, even at the ripe age of seventy-four, gambled heavily and the company was nearly in shambles at the time of his death. It’d taken me the last seven years to get it back into the black.
The time and effort had taken more than just a financial toll on me. My personal life was shot to hell and as I looked at my desk, I could see a key sitting there, the metal gleaming in the strip of sunlight coming through the window. I wanted to blow off all of my responsibilities and leave to find a piece of pussy for the night. My thoughts tended to border on vulgarity, and other than money and power, sex was the only other thing I tended to think about.
“So, everything I’ve heard about you must be true,” my last night’s conquest had told me when I rolled out of her bed around two this morning. I knew women talked, and hell, a lot of men did, too. Now, Anabelle Fordham had joined a long list of females who expected things of me they’d never get. Hell, by now, those women likely had a support group formed and everything.
I shook my head. Women were the least of my problems. The few times I tried to be something more than a fuck boy, they developed unrealistic expectations which I could never deliver. It’d end bitterly. No relationship had ever ended worse than the one I’d had with…
“Mr. Courtland. There’s an Oli—” my secretary started as she stood in the open doorway.
“Thanks, Edith,” I interrupted.
I had been expecting the man’s call for the last half hour. It was his fault entirely that I was still here in my office and not sliding a few hundreds into a stripper’s G-string. Using this as a much-needed distraction, I picked up the phone and hit the blinking key on the base of it. “Oliver.”
“I apologize. My last meeting ran late, Jonas. I wanted to check in to let you know that everything is all set on the Manhattan project.”
CHG Seaport was the latest property for the Courtland Hospitality Group. It was a luxury, waterfront hotel on South Street that would soon open for business. With my busy work schedule in other locations, I wouldn’t have as much time to spend here anymore, so I had enlisted help. I had filled all positions over the last several months except one and Oliver was with the consulting group that had been responsible for compiling, potential chefs who’d open and run the hotel’s service restaurant.
“So you have compiled a list of suitable chefs?” I asked. I had been very specific about qualifications because this was the only CHG property in the Northeast, and our name was synonymous with luxury.
“Yes, we’ve put together a list of twenty candidates vying for the contract. They’re going to be there...” He paused for a moment which had me looking at my own calendar. Lately, most of the weeks seemed to blur together. It was Wednesday, which meant one thing.
“I have to fly to California to handle something, but I’ll be back on Friday. I’ll put them up for the week, and after getting to know them and sampling their work, I will make my choice.”
Having to fly to the West Coast, then back to bang elbows with chefs who’d likely do anything to land a contract had its pros and cons. For me, it’d likely be more con than pro, but the sooner I had someone in place, the sooner I could officially open my newest venture. My eyes moved to the blueprints of the hotel, and I shook my head. I’d deal with CHG Seaport when I returned from Los Angeles.
“I’ll check in with the teams and make sure everything is set,” Oliver told me, interrupting my thoughts.
“Great,” I responded, then added, “I’ll see you in two days.”
After disconnecting the call, I stood up and walked to my large office window. The Courtland Hospitality Group was in one of the tallest high-rise buildings in Manhattan with stellar views of downtown New York City. As a Titan, I was literally on top of the world in more ways than one. I just couldn’t help feeling lately as if something was missing. Cas, Anton, and Mase would tell me it had to do with my bachelor ways, but that seemed to be the only thing that distracted me from the stressful hell my job could be at times. While being with a woman, I had no thoughts in my head other than how to make them come, so I could do the same. I was very successful with dozens of women at my beck and call, so I didn’t know what had come over me recently. Maybe, I’d take a vacation once this hotel officially opened. I lived a great life, as exhausting as it sometimes was, and I shouldn’t be anything other than ecstatic since I had everything I could’ve ever dreamed of in the palm of my hands.
Power… Money… Success… An endless supply of women…
Those were all things I’d dreamed about since I was the star quarterback on my football team. I’d been offered athletic scholarships to dozens of different universities across the country. Wanting to get away from Houston for more reasons than one, I settled on Stanford University. During the Summer of my freshman year, I went through the standard testing all other incoming recruits did, and that was when those dreams came crashing down around me.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. I could still remember those fateful words. “Your son has a condition that not only thickens the walls of the heart restricting blood flow to it, but the valves could close leading immediately to cardiac arrest,” the team doctor had explained to my parents when they were called to California to have the news broken to me.
I was arrogant enough to believe there was a pill or something which could control it, but there wasn’t. There were no surgeries that could help either, causing my dream of playing professional football to end in an instant as the heart condition was an automatic disqualifier.
After switching my mindset, I poured all of my energy into a triple major. Five years later, I graduated with a master’s degree in business administration, urban development, and civil engineering. Upon graduation, I went to work with my grandfather, eventually earning the respect and experience needed to take over the company when he finally passed away. It happened less than three years into my career. Now in that same amount of time, I had brought the company back to its former glory, and I hadn’t looked back since.
A knock cut short my reflective moment and I turned toward Edith. “I’ve emailed your flight information to you as well as the list of chefs that’ll be attending the event at CHG Seaport. Is there anything else you need from me before I leave for the day?”
“There isn’t. Have a good night.”
The older woman smiled at me, then left my office doorway, leaving me alone once more. The woman was around fifty and reminded me a lot of my own mother. She had the same shade of pale blonde hair that Gabriella Courtland did, and both had similar streaks of gray running through it.
“You and your brother are going to be the death of me one of these days,”she used to tell me and my sibling. It was funny at the time, but as I got older, I could look back and see how much hell we gave her over the years. I’d like to stand there and think I had made amends, but now, she had her sights set on something else I had no intentions of giving her. She wanted grandbabies, a suggestion which I’d shoot down.
Hell, I hardly ever bedded the same woman twice, so children were out of the question.
Every time I thought of that preposterous idea, I’d chuckle. Pushing her wishes aside, I forced my thoughts back to the present. It was Wednesday evening and I had plans to meet my best friends at the Vault. I couldn’t stay too late because tomorrow morning, I’d leave for Cali before jetting back to New York City to spend an entire week with various chefs at the new property. If everything went according to the plan, I’d be able to find someone suitable within that time. Afterward, I could focus on the plans that had been drawn up for a property in Seattle, close to the Space Needle.
I rolled down the sleeves of my dress shirt, then picked up the suit jacket laid across a nearby chair. Edith had mentioned emailing everything I needed to me so there was nothing left for me to do here. Grabbing my briefcase and the keys to my F-Type Jaguar, I locked up my office and left to meet my friends.