Love In The Wild West

“You do realize that your restaurants are only active in my hotels, right?” said Kurt all of a sudden. This wiped the smirk off of Donovan’s face. He had clearly not been expecting Kurt to speak up. He had been expecting Kurt to remain silent the way he always had. However, having Lila by his side was doing something to him. He felt bolder in this moment, stronger somehow. He felt like there was nothing in the world that he could not do. And he was not afraid of Donovan anymore.

“What?” said Donovan. His brow was furrowed and he looked a little worried.

“You own twelve restaurants,” said Kurt. “Tell me, where are all of these restaurants.”

“I do not have time for this,” said Donovan in an attempt at scoffing before turning around and placing his hand on the doorknob again.

He was, yet again, prevented from turning the knob when Kurt said, “If you turn that knob and exit my office without giving me an answer, you are going to be very sorry about it my friend.”

Donovan turned around, a look of rage upon his face, and he said, “What are you talking about? Yes, the twelve restaurants that I own are all in your hotel, what is your point?”

“What would happen if I remove all of your restaurants from my hotels,” said Kurt. “What would you be left with?”

“I would withdraw my investment,” said Donovan. “And I would immediately sue you.”

“Would you now?” asked Kurt. “I do not think that would go very well for you. You see, I have a lot more money than you do. I can hire better lawyers. She is right, you see. You need me. Even if I start charging you rent from your restaurants and start taking it out of your share of the profits, what are you going to do about it? There is nothing you can do. There is nowhere else you can go. You are trapped here because you know that I am the best in this part of the country, that I am going to go places and take my business and anyone that has invested in it with me. If you want a part in that, you are going to realize that I am the one that is in charge here. You are going to realize that I am the one that is going to be calling the shots from now on.”

Donovan attempted a smirk but it was a weak facsimile of what it had once been. “I will talk to the others,” he said, his confidence waning before their very eyes. “I will make all of them withdraw their investments. You will be ruined overnight.”

“Maybe I will,” said Kurt, “but I can sell the rest of my hotels and just keep this one. That will keep my income going. And after all, I know how to do business. I am going to be able to start my own chain of hotels without any investors. It will take some time, but I am thirty and I have already achieved twice as much as you have ever done in half the time. What will you guys do if you withdraw your investments? Where will you go? You will be universally renowned as the idiots that abandoned one of the most profitable ventures in the Southern United States. You think anybody is going to want to do business with people as stupid as you?”

Donovan opened his mouth and shut it a few times. He seemed completely unable to form a sentence in this moment, and this gave Lila no small amount of satisfaction. She wanted Donovan to be just like this. This was what he deserved. After putting Kurt through all of that stress, this man deserved to be given a taste of his own medicine and Lila was more than happy to be the one that would give it to him.

“Now,” said Kurt. “I am going to continue these lessons because I want to. I want to make my hotel a more specialized location. There were around fifty people out there today clamoring to get the first lesson. We are going to start having classes all day at this rate. This idea was a great one and it was all thanks to this woman that you just called unimportant. She is already twice the businessman you will ever be. So run on home, Donovan. If you want to know something, just give me a call. Otherwise, I do not want to hear from you. I will send you your share of the profits every quarter, do not worry about that. Things are going to be very different around here now.”

Lila looked at Donovan and she saw the dictionary definition of a broken man. He looked as if he had absolutely no fight left in him. It was almost sad, and Lila might just have felt bad for him if she had not seen him act like an utter asshole towards Kurt just moments ago. Donovan turned the knob at last and exited the office.

Lila squealed in excitement and ran into Kurt’s arms. “That was so amazing!” she said. “You were on fire, you really were. You told Donovan what’s what and then some!”

“You have no idea how glad I am I said those things,” said Kurt. “I have been wanting to say all of these things for so long, but at the same time I was too afraid to say them for some reason. You helped me get over my fear. You helped me get my foot in through the door, and this is something that I will always be grateful for. I mean that. Thank you so much, Lila. Thank you so much.”

He kissed Lila softly on the lips.

Lila moaned as she felt his lips on hers. When he pulled away she looked at him and said, “What were you about to say before Donovan got here? You mentioned something about riding.”

“Yes,” said Kurt. “I wanted to ask you… would you like to work here? You are a natural rider, and I think that you would be a great teacher as well. You would be an assistant teacher with me for about three months, and then you can handle the classes on your own. You can be in charge of three other assistant teachers as well once you are experienced enough. I really do think that you can do a lot of good here. I honestly think that you can earn good money and live the life that you actually want to live instead of being forced to live in a city you hate working a job that you despise. And I just want to tell you… this does not mean that I am asking you to be with me or anything like that. No, I am just asking you if you want this job because I feel like you would be truly great at it, and that it might end up making you a lot happier in the long run.”