Billionaire Bear Shifters A Paranormal Romance Complete Series Boxset - Brittany White Page 0,155

ended up going back and forth with her, mostly petty arguing. If he was honest, it was often the best part of a day, but he didn’t want his brothers teasing him about Brooke, so he hadn’t mentioned her to any of them. There was no point involving them anyway; it was only a flirtation. That was all. A distraction to take the edge off, a way to vent.

“Connor!” His brother Nathan appeared from around a corner. The handyman did not look overly pleased, his tool belt loose on his hips. He had been running himself ragged fixing the tiniest little things around the place and Connor knew he’d rather be looking after Emily, his new born cub with his mate, Alanna. “Room thirty-two says their room smells like paint. They’re upset, and I don’t know what to do about it.”

Connor sighed heavily. All the rooms had been repainted recently, but that particular room had to be striped and repainted a second time. He nodded. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll talk to them myself, offer comped room service or something. It should be fine though, I made sure to air it out.”

Nathan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but they’re a little much in there. Good luck.”

Connor patted Nathan’s shoulder and passed him in the hall before hollering back, “Have lunch with me in the hall later. Bring Em and Alanna. Please?”

“We’ll be there,” Nathan said, shooting him a finger gun.

Connor smiled to himself. The thought of hanging out with Nathan and his new family for lunch made him feel lighter, even as he made his way to room thirty-two in an attempt to please the picky guests.

That conversation took a half hour, and mostly consisted of Connor standing there and listening to the wife of the middle-aged couple whine. He ended up offering champagne and free use of the spa, which was overkill. Bordering on ridiculous, in his opinion, but at the beginning of the season he was much more willing to be generous and solicitous towards guests than at any other time. Nearly any complaint, no matter how small, was likely to get you something for free. Sometimes he suspected they knew that; complaints were more common around this time, but he couldn’t bring himself to care too much.

Connor found himself slammed with request after request for another hour. Finally, his phone buzzed just as he was heading back to his office and Nathan asked if it was a good time for lunch. Connor was so tired and wanted nothing more than to sit down, but forced himself to text a yes and made his way to the dining hall instead. His stomach rumbled in anticipation of whatever his brother Cody had on the menu for the day.

The dining hall was pretty packed, but Connor went straight for one of the private dining rooms with the RESERVED sign on the knob and let himself in, nodding at one of the servers as he did. He dropped into a padded dining chair and took a deep breath. He had been on his feet every second since five o’clock in the morning. It felt good to sit for a minute.

The server was one of the seasonal hires, bright eyed and bushy tailed. They seemed to get younger every year. He poked his head in. “Can I get you something to start, sir?”

“Yeah, that Moon Bear Brandy we just got in,” Connor said, nodding. “Oh, and that cheese log appetizer. And if you see Nathan or Alanna tell them I’m in here, would you?”

The server nodded obediently. Connor jogged his leg under the table for a couple of minutes until his drink was set in front of him. Nathan came through the door, carrying baby Emily in a carrier on his chest, followed by Alanna. Connor stood and kissed Emily’s head and gave Alanna a quick hug. Though he had seen them both just the day before, it felt like it had been months.

“Where’s Eric?” Alanna asked, eyes never leaving Em’s face as she fussed.

“Still on the front desk,” Connor replied. As the concierge, his youngest brother arguably worked harder than any of them, constantly dealing with customer complaints and requests. The workload had more than doubled since the hotel had reopened.

“You look tense,” Nathan said, laughing.

“Yeah, well…” Connor answered with a raised eyebrow.

“He loves it,” Alanna said firmly, just as the cheese log arrived. She lit up and scooped up a bite. “This is his favorite time of year, I bet.” She