Hotel Grantham

Robert stared at the two words designed intricately on the leather book in front of him. He traced the words on the book and smiled to himself. He remembered how his father, Patrick Crawley told him that Robert's grandfather didn't particularly liked any font for their company name, so in the end, he ended up writing it in his own handwriting and that ultimately became the font style for their family hotel's name. He traced the words again, hoping that somehow, magically his grandfather or father could advise him on what to do next. He rubbed his temple and sighed. He just couldn't understand why their hotel was not doing as well as it did five years ago. They were working just as hard; they were located at a prime location, the staff was good, the customers were happy but the accounts and the rank lists claimed otherwise.

He looked at the clock ticking to his right; ten minutes till their board, or rather family meeting. His mother, the president of the hotel would also be attending the meeting. He rolled his eyes thinking of the snarky remarks that were about to come his way, a list of glorious incidents of his father and how he always found a way to stay at the top of their game and climb the ladder for success. Then, of course his eldest daughter, Mary would pitch in. Of course, she would, as she handled all the accounts for the hotel. She would definitely come prepared with colorfully labeled itemized charts of all the recent hiccups the hotel had to face. He loved his daughter; she was very clever, far more than he was when he was twenty five years old and she genuinely wanted the success of the hotel. But right now, he was just not in the mood. He dryly chuckled thinking about how Matthew would then try to calm Mary down and with his expertise in law would try to look at the positive side of things. Matthew was the most wonderful addition in Mary's life. They married three years ago and everyday Matthew made Robert realize how perfect he looked with Mary, in all aspects. He was proud to have a son-in-law like Matthew. And of course, he was glad to have Isobel in his family as well. Another tough contender; the first person in the family who could challenge his dear mother Violet. Isobel was a shareholder in the hotel, and also the Head of Décor. After Mary's wedding, she joined the hotel and soon became very involved in the business and joined in as a shareholder, much to Mama's chagrin. His mother Violet and his late father, Patrick, were determined never to let an outsider be a shareholder within the hotel. Robert didn't particularly approve of this, since it was only so much they could do on their own but there was no fighting Mama, and his father and grandfather never had to deal with a situation where they even had to consider loosening the grip on the shares but well, he wasn't his father, something that he was reminded of daily. And Isobel was now family, so such a loophole kept his mother silent on the matter.

Edith would be at the meeting too, of course. She handled the media for the company, its magazine and its website. She was more like him, calm and quiet and focused on her own work. She got engaged to her university friend Bertie last year and Robert loved them as a pair.

His phone rings with a text from his youngest, Sybil.

"Won't be in, Papa. A patient just arrived in emergency. Very high fever, he's just seven years old. I'll catch up with you tonight. Love you! Please remember to take your vitamins"

He smiled at the text. Sybil was just 19 years old and was his joy in life. Mary was like his mother, Violet and Edith was like him. He wasn't really sure who Sybil went after. She was the sweetest soul in the world and his pride in life. She was studying to be a nurse, a highly demanding job if he was honest. But Sybil enjoyed it, she felt rewarded after helping people and having a real purpose in life, which made him really happy.

A ring on his phone broke him out of his reverie. He sighed and answered the call.

"Hello"

"Yeah" answered the person on the other end.

"Are you coming for the meeting?" Robert asked the woman on the phone.

He heard a sigh "I don't understand why I have to be at every meeting. I am not a shareholder or a head of anything"

"You're family, Valarie. It's a family business" Robert replied sighing.

"I get it, Robert. But Rosamund isn't attending this one as well"

Robert sighed and rubbed his temple "She is grieving, Valarie. She lost her husband recently. I think her not attending makes perfect sense"

There's a silence from the other end "But I have a life beyond this hotel, unlike all of you. Anyways, I called to say that please deal with the credit card company, I think I went over limit and now my card isn't working. It was so embarrassing in front of my friends. Please call the bank"

"Valarie, the meeting is in five minutes"

"Exactly! You have five minutes. Please deal with it"

"I…" Robert sighed, there was no winning from the women in his life "I'll ask Mrs Hughes to deal with it"

"Fine. Okay, I have to go now. Bye"

"Bye"

Robert cuts the call and sighs again. Valarie. Valarie Crawley, his wife of 26 years. He opens his gallery on his phone to see a family picture of them and the girls. He smiles looking at the picture. Valarie was his father's choice. Her parents were rich, they were family friends and it all made perfect sense. She was tall, skinny and had beautiful brown hair when they married. But later she cut in extremely short and dyed it pure blonde, which Robert wasn't really a big fan of. He liked her, they were alike in many things, but sometimes, she was very difficult. But he convinced himself that all the women in his life were pretty hard to deal with. But Valarie..well, Valarie sometimes got on his nerves, but he wasn't the one to complain about it. Married life was hard; there was no doubt about it.

However, sometimes when he looked at Matthew and Mary or Bertie and Edith, he wondered, if he had really enjoyed his married life. Not in the sense of travelling and doing fun activities, but whether if he enjoyed in the most basic sense; laughing with each other, being each other's friends, sharing everything with one another. He never really had that with Valarie. She was his wife, the mother of his children and he really respected and cared for her. But what else? He shook his head, he shouldn't be thinking about this nonsense. The difference was probably because of the generation gap.

Another text blurted him out of his contemplation.

"Robert, I'm waiting. Hurry, please!"

Another text from Valarie, made him conscious of his surroundings. He buzzed his bell and like clockwork, his personal assistant, Elsie Hughes walked in.

A short, middle aged woman with chestnut hair walked in with a smile.

"Yes, sir?"

He smiled at her. Mrs Hughes was more like an older sister than a personal assistant. She literally managed everything for him; from his office to his afternoon teas. He had no idea what he would do without her.

"Yes, Mrs Hughes. Can you please call the bank again?"

"For the limit?" Mrs Hughes asked.

Robert wanted to laugh. Valarie spent over limit so often that it was now a normal occurrence.

"Yes, well…you know what to do"

Mrs Hughes smiled and nodded, "By the way, I saw Miss Edith and Mr Matthew walk towards the meeting room"

Robert looked at the clock again "Yes, I'm about to go as well. Is Bates there?"

Before Mrs Hughes could reply, a tall man dressed in a black suit walked in Robert's office.

"Crawley! Chop chop, it's time to visit the circus" the man in the suit grinned.

Robert chuckled and replied from his seat "Speak of the devil"

Mrs Hughes laughed as Robert continued "Are you calling my family, or more importantly your employers a circus?" Robert grinned at him.

"Not outside this room" Bates whispered as he sat on the opposite side on the table.

Mrs Hughes smiled "I'll go to the meeting room now. Would you like your tea there, Sir?"

Robert nodded and Mrs Hughes exited the room. Robert then smiled at Bates, his best friend from university and now his hotel manager.

"Is Valarie not coming?" Bates inquired

"No, she's out" Robert replied awkwardly.

Bates nodded and continued "Your mother is here"

Robert sighed and nodded "Well, then let's not keep them waiting"

They both got up, and walked towards the door. Bates patted Robert's back and smiled "But don't worry, I have a solution to the problem"

Robert raised his eyebrows and followed John Bates to the meeting room.

Robert sipped on his tea, trying to make sense of the numerous voices coming from all directions in the room.

"It is all about the shares, we should let some go now. We'll have the majority" Matthew spoke from one end of the table, and as expected received two sets of eyebrows staring at him; one from his wife and one from his wife's grandmother.

"Absolutely not. We cannot let this business go out of this family" replied Violet, grinding her teeth.

"But Granny, the times have changed, there is so much competition. We have to take that into account" said Edith sitting next to Robert.

Robert smiled at her softly as Mary spoke, "I agree with Granny, this hotel has belonged to the Crawley's for decades. We need to think of another plan"

"Mary dear, giving up a small share will only mean more investment, more ideas" Isobel said sitting opposite Matthew.

"Yes, but we don't need ideas, we don't even need investment. Look here" Mary clicked on the remote to turn to the presentation slides.

"See the graph here. Our problem is not the money or reviews. Our problem is not getting enough publicity and customers" Mary replied

"Robert, what do you have to say about all of this? You are the CEO" Violet asked Robert.

The whole table looked at Robert and Robert sighed, finally glad to have his turn. "I think we have to switch our strategy. We don't have to give up shares, if the majority disapproves but we must change how we do things and how we approach people"

"I was looking at the analytics; we have very little traffic on our website" said Edith flipping through the report pages in front of her.

"A website cannot be the reason. It doesn't offer our services or facilities" snapped Violet.

"No, but it tells the people about it" Bates added.

Everyone looked at Bates. Bates took it as a sign to continue. "Mrs Hughes, can you pass the PR report?"

Mrs Hughes nodded and passed along the copies of a report.

"I talked to our PR firm a couple of months ago to get to the root of the problem. They sent in this report a couple of days ago. I agree with what Edith said, the problem is with our marketing and publicity"

"What do you mean Bates?" asked Mary

"Our customers are happy, our services are great, and our location is excellent. But our competitors have the edge, they use social media and they use external websites to promote and offer deals. This is why our potential customers choose our competitors over us. Because they don't even know about us!"

Everyone skimmed through the report and Robert looked at Bates and Bates nodded, silently telling him he's got this.

"Alright, we can offer deals and put our name up on other websites" said Robert tapping the desk.

"But there's more" added Bates "Our competitors use cool videos, and posts to attract customers. Look at their websites; the pictures of the hotel, the room, and the staff are incredible. Our website and pictures haven't been updated in over 5 years"

"Okay, we understand Bates. We can re-launch the website and the magazine" said Mary as Violet rolled her eyes.

"It would really help" Edith said as she made a note on her diary.

"No, I mean" Bates sighed "What I meant was that we should hire a new team to photograph everything and cover the events"

An awkward silence took over the room. Violet glared at Bates. Robert adjusted in his seat as he gulped; knowing Mama wasn't going to be happy about this.

"Are you suggesting that we fire Jarvis?" asked Matthew cautiously.

Bates nodded and like clockwork, Violet reacted. "Jarvis has been photographing this hotel since your father's time. He took pictures of all of you when you were children. How can you suggest something like this, Bates?"

Mary and Robert looked at each other for a moment and Robert nodded "Mama, I understand your sentiments.."

"My sentiments?" Violet cut him off

"But I think Bates has a point. Jarvis is old now, he can only do portraits and they are exactly the same as they were when Papa was handling the business. There are more techniques now and more styles."

"It is called a style, Robert" glared Violet

"As that style is old now Mama. And he can't even do videography"

"Then get a videographer!" exclaimed Violet

"I don't think that's wise" Isobel commented from one side, as she sipped on her tea.

"Yes, and you know that how?" Violet snapped at her

"Come on, there is no need to argue" Matthew chipped in, trying to calm the two matriarchs of the family.

Mary looked through the books and sighed "Yes, I agree with Isobel, Granny. We would be wasting money if we hire a new videographer, for event basis. And if we hire him on a yearly contract then he would be charging us for both videography and photography"

"Mary, you too?" Violet looked shockingly at her granddaughter who was almost always on her side. "Jarvis does us a favour working on that underwhelming pay check"

"Bates, do you have anyone in mind?" asked Robert, trying to diffuse the tension.

Bates smirked at him and clapped him hands once "I was waiting for you to ask"

Bates got up and opened up a slideshow of a company logo. "PRIME" said Bates. "I've located just the right company for this task. They are based in London, they're a small team but I've heard excellent reviews and here are some of the pictures and videos from their portfolio"

Bates played a series of videos shot in 4k with drones and prime lenses that released a series of 'ooh's and 'aah's from the board table. He then showed gorgeous pictures of hotels, portraits, and landscapes.

"These are excellent. If we have this company cover our hotel and the events, it could really generate traffic" Edith commented, still in awe of the pictures.

"But what about the money?" asked Mary.

"Add 20% to Jarvis's annual salary and we're good" smiled Bates.

"What, seriously?" Mary asked raising her eyebrows

"Yeah. I've made inquiries; the owner is a passionate photographer. She's well off, doesn't need the money but loves her job. I've asked Jonathan and Mario, the hairstylists for that big fashion week in Paris last year, they hired them and have nothing but good things to say"

A disapproved Violet scoffed from one end and Robert rolled his eyes. "Excellent work, Bates" commented Robert. He continued "Let's do the vote count our usual way. All those in favour of hiring them for our hotel, please raise your hands"

Robert, Isobel, Edith, Matthew, Bates and Mary raised their hands and looked at an annoyed Violet.

"Mama?" asked Robert.

"Well, if everyone is in favour. Do what you like" Violet rolled her eyes.

"Mrs Hughes please write this down, that everyone agreed on this "requested Bates as Mrs Hughes smiled and wrote everyone's names down.

"The owner is the main photographer?" asked Robert curiously.

"Yes" replied Bates

"What's her name?"

"Cora Levinson Bricker"

Hello, guys! Long time no see. I hope you're all well.

So here you go, here's another story. I have received hundreds of messages in these past 3 years for a new story. I was extremely busy and I still am, haha. More so than usual, I am currently in my final year of university and will soon be shifting countries and going for my postgraduate. But honestly, the amount of love I've gotten from you guys and with the movie releasing, I really wanted to give another story to you guys. I hope you guys like this one. I am actually pretty scared because the amount of love and following I've gotten for The Heart Wants What It Wants has made me really nervous. I am grateful of course, so I really hope you guys like this story as well.

Once again, this is literally ONLY FOR YOU GUYS! You all have been so nice and patient with me and have been constantly checking up on me and asking me to update. I love you all, so here's a token of my gratitude.

I will mention however, that I have no idea when and how often I'll update, I will try my best, but with admissions and thesis work, it can get a little difficult. Please be patient with me, and please keep on supporting, as that is the only reason I write. I write for you guys!

You can follow me on Instagram and Tumblr (mcgonneville) if you don't already!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do review, as I'm really nervous for this.

All my love,

Zaibi