The Love Hotel

Chapter 5

Bradley Charles was annoyed. He was a rich man, and rich men often got annoyed at things that other people did not get annoyed at, but Bradley Charles was not such a man. When he got annoyed at something, it was the kind of thing that deserved his ire completely, and such was the case in this situation.

He was the owner of Charles Hotel, one of the best hotels in the city, and it was a highly profitable enterprise. However, what he did not understand was why there was a room that seemed to be generating so little income. It had been happening for over a month now. It seemed like the room had been offered at a highly discounted price. He could not understand how this could happen. How could a room be offered at such a discounted price without his knowledge? How could Alice just give the room to somebody? Was this some friend of hers that needed help? Was it someone that he was going to have to kick out of the hotel? He did not really like that idea. No one would like to do such a thing, especially Bradley who was an exceedingly gentle man. He felt like he was going to have to do something, however, and if it meant that he was going to have to kick someone out of one of the rooms of his hotel then so be it. That was what came with being such a powerful man. You had the responsibility of handling situations like this, situations that literally no one else would be able to, or would want to, stomach.

He went up to the room and knocked. He waited for a little while. Hotel rooms did not have peepholes on this floor. He never really knew why this was the case. He had bought this hotel three years ago and had not really had the time to explore all of its various intricacies and oddities while he had been managing his various other business ventures. All he knew was that he was going to have to make it so that the person inside knew that the person outside meant business, so he knocked again.

There was a shuffling inside the room. He wondered what was going on. This was highly suspicious, or maybe it was exceedingly normal, and he was just being very paranoid right now. He did not care at the moment. He wanted answers. He could have had his business manager handle this for him, or he could have simply called Alice and asked her, but the former meant that he would have to pull his employees away from more important business and the latter was not an option because he knew that Alice would not tell him the truth. She was very good at handling things, and she was very good at lying when the situation required it. It was one of the reasons he had hired her. He greatly admired anyone and everyone that had the ability to lie with proficiency. It meant that the person that was doing the lying had the ability to get a lot of things done without other people finding out. It was a highly admirable trait to have, and one that could come in quite handy in a tight spot when he was not immediately available and the hotel needed someone intelligent to handle the situation for him.

He knocked once again. This time he was getting impatient so the knock was quite loud and quite rude. He did not care. He wanted answers.

The door opened rather hesitantly and a head peaked through. The hair was wet and hanging down, and the face it covered looked utterly beautiful. He was startled for a moment by just how beautiful this person was. She was so beautiful that for a moment he forgot to be angry, He then composed himself and said, “Hello. I am Bradley Charles, the owner of this hotel. May I ask you your name?”

“Uhh… Rochelle,” said the girl.

“Rochelle,” said Bradley. “May I ask you how you are staying at this hotel at such a cheap rate? I understand that the manager has probably given you this room at such a low rate, but I am wondering why. I am her boss you see, and she is not really allowed to do something like this without informing me prior to doing it. I know that she would lie about it if I asked her directly so I decided to come here and see for myself. Would you mind letting me in and explaining your situation for me? Your staying at rates that are unbelievably cheap for the quality of the hotel that you are staying in, and while I am sure that your reason is legitimate you must understand that I would need you to describe that reason to me fully so that I can rest assured that I am not being cheated in any way. I hope that I am not causing any inconvenience to you, and I hope you would understand my need for urgency in this situation.”

“Of course,” said Rochelle, “I understand completely. It’s just that…”

“Just that what?” asked Bradley impatiently. He had absolutely no time for people like this. He did not have the time to listen to this woman hesitate and attempt to make excuses. He was going to fix this situation if it was the last thing that he did.

“What’s going on?” asked Bradley again. He was going to get an answer if it was the last thing he did.

“I’m kind of naked,” said Rochelle. “That’s why I wasn’t answering the door, you see. I was in the shower and I came out when you knocked but I had to dress myself. The thing is, you were knocking so much that I didn’t really get time to figure anything out. I had to open the door and respond because… you were knocking so much.”

“Ah,” said Bradley, feeling himself blush furiously. He had not been expecting that. Of course, it made sense. Why else would she take so long to answer the door? It was not like she was going anywhere, it was not like she could run out of the room now. He had been rather silly by knocking so much and he realized that he was going to have to start being a lot more patient. The situation at home made it so that he had very little patience for anything at all, but that lead to situations like this, situations where he was greatly embarrassed and was not ready for the situation that came post embarrassment.

“Dress yourself,” said Bradley in the same voice of discomfort. “I… apologize for not realizing that you were… I mean…”

“It’s okay,” said Rochelle with a nervous laughter. She shut the door and Bradley assumed that she had been rather embarrassed too. Of course she had been. She had been naked and had felt incredibly exposed. He wondered just how much of a fool he had made out of himself just now. He wished that he had not been so utterly stupid. He wished that he would be able to act with a little more patience so that people would see that he was not a complete and total idiot. He wanted to be viewed with respect. He had worked very hard indeed to get the respect that he had managed to gain over the years and he was not going to get this respect by behaving the way that he had behaved just now.

Rochelle opened the door and Bradley came in. He looked around. This was the cheapest room and the thing was that he was not losing a lot of money by it no longer earning as much revenue. It was the principle of the thing that bothered Bradley. He needed every single room to earn as much money as possible, because if one room stopped earning so much money then what was there to stop all of the other rooms from following suit? That would be a complete and utter disaster, one that Bradley would have to manage, and as of late he had had quite a few disasters that he had had to deal with. He was not ready to deal with something like this right now, so he had decided to come here and ask what was going on.