Page 59 of Babies for the Christmas Grump

CHAPTER TWENTY

Ryder

December 9th

I’m supposedto be sorting through receipts. Something routine and straightforward. Just another box to check off in this endless list of tasks for the hotel.

But as I sit at my desk, papers scattered in front of me, the numbers start to blur together. My mind keeps drifting. There is a fog lingering over everything.

I’m not supposed to be here this late, but there’s this nagging feeling, this itch at the back of my mind that I can’t scratch. I told myself I’d deal with the hotel’s finances later, but the deeper I dig, the more I realize that’s just an excuse.

I’m avoiding something I don’t even want to face yet.

I pull the first receipt from the pile, trying to focus on the task at hand. But no matter how hard I try, my thoughts keep wandering.

To Sunny. To the conversation we had earlier.

I can still feel the warmth of her arms around me, her voice soft and steady, grounding me when I was unraveling.

I hate that she had to see me in that way. I hate how much I needed her, how much I still need her.

But that’s a different problem. One I don’t want to think about right now.

Wait…

A number jumps out at me.

Linens. That should be routine.

Except… eighteen thousand dollars for sheets? Even if they were imported from Italy and woven with gold thread, the hotel doesn’t go through this much fabric in a year. I flip the paper over, then back again.

No, it’s not a typo. It’s signed off and paid.

My pulse quickens. I grab another receipt, this one from a wine distributor. The invoice is for twenty-four cases. But Chef Andre’s handwritten note in the margin says twelve.

The twelve that actually showed up. The missing cases don’t exist.

My throat goes dry. I push the receipts into a new pile.

I check the vendor’s name: New England Hospitality Supply Co. I frown. I’ve never heard of them. I type it into my laptop. No website. No listing. Nothing.

A ghost company.

I flip to another file, this one tied to event bookings. A wedding block of forty rooms was booked last May and paid in full. Fifty thousand dollars.

But in the official ledger, only thirty-five thousand shows up as revenue. Fifteen thousand, gone, disappeared into thin air.

Except money doesn’t disappear, not by accident.

The same vendor keeps reappearing. The same gaps. Inflated invoices. Double payments. Revenue shaved off the top.

Dozens of little cuts, bleeding the hotel slowly, quietly, until the damage looks like natural decline.

My chest tightens. This isn’t sloppy accounting. This is fraud. Calculated. Years in the making.

I slam the receipt down, gripping the edge of the desk until my knuckles ache.

The numbers don’t lie. This is bad. Really bad.