Who: Rafe Loyola and Katrina Beaumonte-Richardson Where: Hotel Loyola When: Late Afternoon Rating: PG-13 to R Summary: Ms. Beaumonte had expressed an interest in him, and he was obliging.
Rafe poured over reports on his tablet while he waited.
It had been an abnormally busy week, and he had needed to reschedule his appointment with Ms. Beaumonte-Richardson on three separate occasions. He found the delay to be unusually vexing. If there was one thing that he hated above all others, it was being denied something that was rightfully his. For Rafe, he never found things to be ouch of his reach. Things either had to be bought or earned, and he had plenty of money and perseverance to see either through to the end. Ms. Beaumonte, he felt, was interested in him enough already that she would not need much coaxing. He would even kindly purchase her photographs afterwards, no matter how poor they were. The work that had so consumed him this week complicated his frustration. Normally, his work was fairly cut and dry, he dealt with the numbers and left the people to everyone else. PR chose this week to take up a new strategy. Their scheme involved planning events and withholding that information from him and then, when there are but a few hours before the event, telling him he had to be there. He made a note to cut funding and to closely scrutinize all expenditures from that sector in the future.
Placing the tablet back into the appropriate depression on his desk, he leaned back pensively. The lighting in the suite was on low, automatically adjusting for the coastal squall blowing in that was beginning to block out the sun. The storm had yet to hit land, but from his vantage point Innovo was already beginning to buckle down and close up to wait out the seasonal weather. The penthouse suite was a two storied set of rooms set at the very top of the hotel. The only way into them was by going up the open spiral staircase set in the center of the rooms. Having no use for so much space, the first of the two floors had been converted into a waiting area, and offices for River, Ms. Hart and a light room that doubled for meetings. Despite his original intentions, he found it too convenient to leave once the hotel opened. He continued living on the top floor. Living was a subjective term of course. Nearly all the rooms, of which there were four, made up his office. The flowing design, mimicking the elemental nature of the rest of the hotel, meant that it was hard to tell where one room ended and the other began.
An alcove that had once been a dining area now housed his most recent card project. As of late he had been recreating the grand cathedrals of Europe. The Almudena Cathedral was half finished, caught at the awkward moment when it could just as easily pass for a ruins. It was the last cathedral that he was going to make. Reproducing the works of others did not thrill him although it was a useful lesson. His own quarters were beyond, comprised only of the master bedroom and bath. His desk and wall mounted monitors took up the remaining space. All of the screens were shut down for the day, but most of the time they displayed news from around the world, every screen muted until a red flag piece came on. True to his own style, the rooms were also stripped of any needless decoration. Someone, probably River, had commissioned it to be repainted while he was away on business. Where the rest of the hotel was done in browns, blues and greens to mimic nature, his own rooms were in stark white and a dark gray, accented in blood red on occasion. The entire floor was encased in glass. The glass was twenty feet from ceiling because even he did not have the gall to live in a fully glass house.
The display on his desk informed him that it was time for his appointment. Rafe actually found himself looking forward to this interlude. It would be a welcome break from the frustrations of the week. He was not excited exactly, but more a languid curiosity more commonly found in the large cat family of predators. He walked over to the wall and put his back to the stairs. He was the smarted predator, after all, his prey would come to him.