Page 52 of Fifth Avenue Flirt

There’s no doubt that the location is great for any hotel, but even better for us because it’s far enough away from Hotel on Ninth Street so that it won’t cannibalize any guests who want to stay downtown.

“I’ve walked by this place so often,” Poppy says. “I’ve never even noticed it.”

We walk up the steps and enter the lobby.

“Welcome to Hotel Miss Havisham,” I say.

Worth turns a whole 360 degrees. “You two are the design brains around here, but this is good, isn’t it? The space I mean.”

My shoulders sag a little. I shouldn’t have agreed so easily to this second viewing with Worth. I know Worth and Poppy don’t want to lose time before they make a decision on the second hotel, but I just need to get through this week and get Ben to do whatever he does to make this Boston hotel work.

“It’s great,” Poppy says. “Can we see what’s around the back here?” she says, as she steps behind reception toward a door. “Oh wow. We could even open this out. This space here is too big for a cloakroom. We need to get architects in and construction, but we could just have a reception desk on the other side and open this entire place out. It would be really impressive.”

“I like it,” Worth says.

“You shouldn’t be rushing into anything just because these investments of yours are maturing or whatever.” Worth will have some cash available because one of his investment companies is being sold, so he wants that money invested and not sitting around in cash. If we’re not careful, we’ll miss our window with him, and he’ll invest the cash elsewhere, and we might have to wait years before we get the chance to have him invest again.

“Maturing or whatever? Your financial vocabulary is impressive,” Worth says with a smile.

I know he’s trying to be light-hearted, but it stings all the same. I’m a college dropout to Worth. Even though I don’t regret walking away, I still feel like I let Worth down because I’m sure there’s part of him that thinks he failed because I didn’t graduate.

Maybe I should have stuck it out. It just didn’t fit me. I wasn’t happy there. I wanted to roll my sleeves up and get to work. College felt like a huge waste of time. I wanted to get on with life. I saw what Hotel on Ninth Street could become when it was still just a residential building. Who wouldn’t drop out of college if they had the opportunity to create a hotel and a family business? Why waste time in college lectures when you can learn from life?

But I still have a sense of shame for not finishing college. For being a quitter.

I hate this hotel. I’m not sure how it manages to stir up so much.

“Has the Boston realtor had any luck trying to get the owners to reengage?” Poppy asks me, obviously sensing my discomfort.

“Not at all,” I reply. “They’ve completely disappeared. Not even their realtor can get to them.”

“So how would Ben East help?” she asks.

“Have you approached him?” Worth asks. “Ben? I can if you like. Although this place looks like it might work.”

“Yes, I’ve spoken to him,” I say to Worth. My brother would hate the fact that I’m staying the week in an almost-stranger’s apartment, who I’ve previously had a one-night stand with, just to get his help…so I’m going to tell Worth the bare minimum.

“What did he say?” asks Worth.

“He’s seeing if he can help. If he’s got time. Or something. I’ll follow up.”

Poppy raises her eyebrows in my peripheral vision, and I pretend I haven’t seen her. I hate lying to Worth, but I just need to get through to Monday, have Ben work his magic, and this will all be okay.

“Okay, well, we should still look around this place,” he says. “The location is excellent and I think it’s got plenty of potential.”

“Potential is the key word here,” says Sujoy. “I like to call it the bones of a place. You can’t beat the location and the room sizes are generous for what was a budget hotel.”

“And the building façade could definitely fit midtown five-star hotel,” Poppy says.

Usually Poppy and I are a united front against Worth. Even as children, when Worth was doing far more than he should in terms of looking after us, Poppy and I would go to him, aligned with whatever we wanted, whether it was to go ice-skating that weekend or to skip dance class.

My stomach shrinks at the memory of what a burden it all must have felt like to him—two girls asking for money to go ice-skating when, at eighteen, he was trying to make sure we had food on the table. And he’s never once thrown it back in our faces or called us ungrateful. He just accepted it and did the very best he could. That’s the brother he is. The man he is. He’s goodness to his core.

“It definitely would,” Worth says, agreeing with Poppy, and I shrink into myself. If Poppy and Worth both want this place, there’s nothing I can do to change their minds. And it’s not like it will be a disaster. I can make another hotel in New York work. But it feels like the easy way out. I’ll have my sister and my brother right by my side. I want to go to Boston. I want to prove to my siblings that I can be successful without them, that I can stand on my own two feet and make something really great happen. And I didn’t need a college degree to do it.

Maybe that makes me selfish. Maybe I should go to business school and learn how to put profit before everything else. But Hotel on Ninth Street was never entirely about profit. I can’t shake the feeling that Worth only agreed to turning the place into a hotel because I’m his little sister and he wanted me to be happy and occupied. He wanted to look after me, just like he always has done.

“Let’s see upstairs,” Poppy says.