The Reluctant Heiress (A Christian Romance Novel)

Chapter 12: Resolved!

Wednesday.

As Telly was casually browsing through some of his daddy's documents in the office, she chanced upon a book. The history picture book of Hotel de Lavi, made when they celebrated the hotel's silver anniversary five years ago. She flipped though the pages and she could not remember having seen that before. Or maybe she just didn't care to look at it.

"Hotel de Lavi, a B&B gem. Georgia's best-kept secret" says the front cover.

The boutique hotel that her mama and daddy loved so much... The hotel that was birthed because of their passion... The hotel that was a home-away-from-home to many travelers... The hotel that was a witness to many family traditions...

The hotel... that she did not care about as much as her parents did.

Growing up, her daddy would tell her stories about her mama and told her "that every detail of the hotel was meticulously chosen to keep her memories alive. The choice of color. The kinds of plants and blooms. The preservation of the arched entrance. The selection of precious artworks. The preference of cutlery."

From the small details to the big details, almost everything in the hotel shouted Mrs. Louise de Lavi. In fact, the twenty rooms had different themes inspired by the places Mr. and Mrs. de Lavi explored before. Kenyan Safari room, a Moroccan room, Boracay Room and Arabic room to name a few. Each room had personal souvenirs they took from their trips. And two of the luxury suites were inspired by the southern hospitality of Georgia, while the other two were based upon the posh Victorian era, which was her mom's favorite as mentioned by her dad.  

That was how Ric wanted it to be. That was the only way he could cope up with his beloved's sudden passing away: by keeping her alive.

Louise passed away when Telly was only five, so she barely had memories of her, except for her daddy's stories, and a couple of their family pictures, one of which was hanging there at their office.

She stood up, walked towards where the picture was hanging, unhooked it, walked back to her seat and stared at it for a long time.

In that picture, they were seating on the bench in front of their house, on a beautiful day. She was sitting in the middle of her love-struck parents. They were looking at each other while she looked up to them, all of them smiling. Whether it was candid or posed, it didn't matter. She remembered him saying that that picture perfectly summed up their life: happy, fun and full of love.

"She was the answer to my prayers," her daddy used to say to her. 

And the next line would automatically be "And you are the answer to our prayers"as he taps the tip of her nose with his index finger, and we'd burst out laughing and hugging. That was some of their precious moments together when she was much younger. Instinctively, she touched her nose and started to tear up. 

Her daddy told Telly their love story when she started dating at age sixteen.  She remembered how giddy she was listening to him, because it kinda seemed like a fairy-tale come true to her then. 

"She walked into that restaurant, and she was the most beautiful thing my eyes ever beheld," her dad used to say. "it was love at first sight for me. I know it's crazy, but it was. She didn't like me at the beginning because she thought it was creepy. But I persisted, and finally won her over after almost two years. And it was so worth it." 

He would narrate it like it just happened yesterday. "And the first time I held her hand," he looked at Telly the giddy teenager. "There was electricity that ran all over my body."

"Yuck Daddy! You're so dramatic!" she remembered her saying. And she would close her eyes and tell him to stop telling the story.  But he would not relent, he would continue telling her the story until the first kiss.

And that had become her standard of a relationship. She wondered if her perfect standard was the reason why she couldn't keep a relationship for a long time, or why her engagement collapsed and why she was still single. Perhaps.

Telly held the picture close to her heart. As she closed her eyes, tears ran down her cheeks. She didn't realize how much she missed her daddy, and now, her mommy. As she tried to recollect all the precious stories her dad told about her, all of a sudden her momma became all the more real to her.

And her mama becoming more real, meant her loss was real as well. And that reality brought an agonizing pain in her heart that she had not felt before. You know, the kind where you deeply miss somebody that it hurts, knowing you cannot do anything about it anymore. Nothing could bring her back, could bring them back. It was crazy but it was real. Soft tears started to ran on her cheeks, until she couldn't stop it and she just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

When she accepted this role a few months back, her hands were on deck for the job because she didn't have a choice. It was her dying father's request.

When she went to New York and learned of what happened to her ex-boss from her talk with her friend Kay, her hands AND mind became on deck. She didn't want that to happen to the hotel, not on her watch.

But that day, things had changed. Now, her hands, her mind, AND her heart were on deck because she was choosing to fulfill the wishes, not just of any dying man's wish, but of her beloved daddy and mommy's. Two most important people in her life. And whatever was important to them, she's choosing to be important to her.

This is not just their hotel, but OUR hotel, she thought resolutely.

And like her daddy, this may be the best way she could cope up with the loss: by keeping them alive, by keeping their legacy alive!

And to keep the legacy alive, she needed to protect it.

And how will she protect it? Can she do it on her own?

&&&&&&&&Author's Note&&&&&&&

I just got butterflies on my stomach imagining this tender daddy-daughter moments. Ain't that the sweetest? I know we have a lot of father's who have been doing their best raising up their children alone.... Cheers to your dads!