A Winter Wonderland by Fern Michaels

Author:Fern Michaels [Michaels, Fern]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2012-09-26T14:00:00+00:00

Elizabeth was seated at Annemarie’s desk the next morning, waiting impatiently for Toni’s arrival. She couldn’t wait to see her friend’s reaction, and Toni didn’t disappoint when she took her place at the reception desk. Her eyes rounded in astonishment when she spotted Elizabeth and she hurried right over.

“What’s this?” she asked. “Did you get a promotion?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “It’s temporary. Annemarie’s got Epstein-Barr.”

“Lucky you.”

“We’ll see. I feel like a fake. I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

Toni grinned. “Just pretend,” she said in parting, dashing back to her post when she spotted the head concierge, Walter Kronenberg, stepping out of the elevator and heading in Elizabeth’s direction. He was a tall man with gray hair brushed straight back; from his stiff, formal manner Elizabeth suspected he might be a retired military officer.

She stood up to greet him, and said, “I’m very honored to take Annemarie’s place. I know it’s a challenging job but I’m a fast learner and a hard worker.”

“Very well, Elizabeth,” he said. “Now we must get to work. You have a lot to learn, and we’re under pressure with the Gruber event in just two weeks.” He sat down in her chair, indicating she should take one of the chairs provided for guests and sit beside him. “First of all, you need the computer password.”

Elizabeth knew that concierges had a higher level of access to the Cavendish data bank and was interested to see what information was now available to her.

“I must warn you, all of this information is highly confidential. We don’t want to be reading in the National Enquirer that one of our guests has a passion for cashew nuts.”

Elizabeth was tempted to giggle but stifled the impulse; she didn’t think Mr. Kronenberg was joking. “Of course not,” she said with a serious nod, watching as he wrote the password on a slip of paper.

“Got it?” he asked, and when she nodded, he tore the paper into tiny bits, which he pocketed.

Elizabeth had a strange sense of dislocation. Was she being trained as an assistant concierge in a posh hotel or was she being briefed for a mission to defend national security?

“Now, Elizabeth,” Mr. Kronenberg continued, “on occasion one of our guests will require access to the hotel safe when neither I nor Mr. Dimitri will be available. In that case, you will need the combination.”

Elizabeth swallowed hard. This was quite a bit more responsibility than she expected and she remembered Toni’s warning that if something went wrong, the staff would be blamed. “Right,” she said.

“The combination is in this box,” he continued, producing a small gray metal cash box from a side drawer. “The key to this box is kept with the paper clips.”

Elizabeth opened the shallow central drawer and found the compartment filled with paper clips and dug through them, producing a small, silver key.

“Remember,” he said, “it is most unlikely that both Mr. Dimitri and I would be unavailable but it does occasionally happen and we don’t want our guests to be inconvenienced.

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