Mario gives her a kiss that is tender enough to make her change her mind—and she nearly relents. How can she give this up? But in the end, she pulls away. “Good night, Mario.”
“Good night, Heartbreaker,” he says.
July 25, 2022
From: Xavier Darling （[email protected]）
To: Employees of the Hotel Nantucket
Good morning! I just want to let you know how encouraging it is that the world has discovered the hotel and that reservations are where they should be: at 100 percent occupancy. The reviews on the TravelTattler website are a testament to everyone’s hard work and dedication. But this week, one staff member was mentioned above all others, and once again that was Alessandra Powell. Keep up the good work, everyone!
XD
Every time Grace sees Alessandra enter a gentleman guest’s room at night, she steers clear. Alessandra is sleeping with the guests—Mr. Brownlee, Mr. Yamaguchi, Dr. Romano—in exchange for them writing TravelTattler reviews that specifically mention her, a ploy that has so far earned her four thousand dollars in bonus money.
However, when Grace sees Alessandra go up the side stairs with a man named Bone Williams, she gets a dreadful feeling. She’s annoyed by this—the last person she wants to rescue is the little witchy-witch Alessandra—but her foreboding is too strong to ignore.
When Bone Williams checked in, Grace saw flashing red lights and heard an obnoxious alarm sounding, but she chalked this up to toxic masculinity. （Bone, what a name, she thought. Another man referencing his penis!） He arrived on the first car ferry of the day, stormed into the lobby at half past nine, and asked Edie why the hell there was no valet parking and what was he supposed to do with his Corvette Stingray because he couldn’t just leave it on the street!
Edie was the model of calm patience. She told Mr. Williams that the hotel had only twelve parking spots and those were reserved for people staying in the suites. Bone then told Edie with a barely concealed snarl that he had tried to get a suite but they were all booked!
“You can’t penalize me for that!” Bone Williams was on the short side but very muscular （he probably “lifted”）。 Grace would put him at thirty-five or so, which felt young for his level of entitlement. “My room had better be ready.”
“It’s nine thirty,” Edie said. “Our guaranteed check-in time is three p.m. But we’ll do our best to get you in long before that, Mr. Williams.”
“Three o’clock!” Bone shouted. “You have got to be”—he swallowed a word—“kidding me!”
“We have a complimentary continental breakfast, which you can enjoy on the porch, or I can have it delivered to you at the adult pool,” Edie said. “Or, if you’d like to stroll into town for breakfast, we highly recommend the Lemon Press on Main Street.”
“I’m not ‘strolling’ anywhere,” Bone said. “I want to check into my room, not wander the property like a hobo when I’ve paid good money to stay here. And I need a secure spot for my Stingray.”
“I’ll contact you as soon as your room has been cleaned,” Edie said. “Unfortunately, the guests in that room haven’t checked out yet.”
“Don’t give me that crap,” Bone said. “Let me speak to your manager.”
At this point, Edie smiled. “Certainly.” She turned to Alessandra. “Mr. Williams, this is Alessandra Powell, our front-desk manager.”
Alessandra said, “You drive a Corvette Stingray? Wasn’t that the pace car for last year’s Indy Five Hundred?”
Bone’s demeanor instantly changed. “It was, yes.” He slid over to Alessandra’s position at the desk and drank in her appearance. Her hair was braided with a hydrangea-blue scarf woven through, and she was wearing the white eyeliner and eye crystals that seemed to mesmerize every man she spoke to, including Bone Williams. “Hey, your name tag is upside down.” He did the unfunny shtick of craning his neck, trying to read it. “Alessandra.”
Grace gave a ghostly eye roll. Every single man Alessandra has checked in this summer has said exactly the same thing.
Alessandra jotted something down on a yellow sticky note and Grace read it over her shoulder: Yes, followed by a phone number.
“I’m fairly certain that the couple staying in suite two seventeen have come with bicycles only,” Alessandra says. “So let me see if you might be able to use their parking spot.”
“Oh, man,” Bone said. “That would be…amazing.” He plunked down his Centurion card and his driver’s license, which gave a Park Avenue address in New York City.