Chapter 3: The Story Behind the Scratches
An hour later, in the quiet, sunlit executive office on the top floor of the hotel, Sienna sat in a dark leather armchair. A private hotel doctor was carefully applying a sterile dressing to the scrapes on her left arm and cheek.
Harrison Miller, the hotel group's senior legal advisor and Arthur Mercer’s longtime confidant, stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows, holding a hot cup of tea. He watched Sienna with a mixture of concern and admiration.
"You should have let us arrange an escort when you came to inspect the property today, Sienna," Harrison said softly. "Arriving unannounced on the same day as the Sterling Group's private gala was bound to cause friction."
Sienna took a slow sip of water. "If I arrived with an entourage, Harrison, I wouldn't have seen how the hotel actually operates. My father always said that a hotel’s true character isn't shown in the boardroom—it’s shown in the way staff and visitors are treated at the back door."
She looked down at her scraped knuckles. The injuries hadn't come from Victoria. Less than an hour before the lobby incident, Sienna had been near the loading bay behind the hotel, checking on the progress of a newly installed employee breakroom. While there, a heavy wooden supply crate on a delivery truck had slipped from its harness, threatening to crush a young junior housekeeper standing nearby. Sienna had lunged forward, pushing the worker clear just as the crate crashed against the concrete wall, scraping Sienna's face and arm against the brick.
Instead of going straight to the medical room, Sienna had walked through the service corridor into the main lobby to retrieve her spare bag from the executive desk. That was when Victoria Sterling, exiting the ballroom in a state of high self-importance, had spotted the disheveled young woman near the private wing, assumed she was a trespasser, and physically grabbed her by the arm to throw her out.
"Victoria thought she was defending her territory," Sienna murmured, looking at her reflection in the glass. "She didn't see a person. She saw an inconvenience."
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"Her father, Julian Sterling, has called my office four times in the last twenty minutes," Harrison noted, pulling out his phone. "He’s frantic. He knows that if you press criminal charges or terminate the Sterling Group’s management lease, their firm will face immediate insolvency."
Sienna leaned her head back against the leather rest. "Tell Julian Sterling I don't want his money, and I don't care about his social standing. I want a full board meeting tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. In this room."
