“Mr. Vance… sir, I had no idea you were arriving tonight.”
“That was the entire point, Robert.”
The general manager swallowed hard, looking between Ethan and his terrified front-desk staff. “I am incredibly sorry for any administrative confusion—”
“It wasn’t confusion, Robert,” Ethan cut him off cleanly. “It was profiling.”
Lily stirred against his shoulder, blinking her groggy, sleep-swollen eyes as she looked around the brightly lit lobby. “Daddy… are we at the hotel room yet?”
Ethan kissed her forehead gently. “Yeah, sweetie. We’re heading up right now.”
Lupita took a step forward, gesturing to the elevator. “If you’d like, sir, I can escort you and the little girl up to the suite myself. I’ll bring the vase up and get her a warm glass of milk.”
Lily looked at Lupita with the innate, uncorrupted intuition of a child who recognizes safety without needing an introduction. “Can you carry my bunny too?”
Lupita smiled warmly. “Your bunny is getting the V.I.P. treatment tonight, sweetheart.”
For the first time all evening, a genuine smile crossed Ethan’s face.
But Robert, desperate to salvage his position, tried to step between them. “Mr. Vance, please allow me to handle this internally. I’m certain Patricia and Karla were simply following our strict security protocols.”
Ethan turned his sharp gaze onto the manager. “What protocol dictates mocking a guest because of the jacket they’re wearing?”
Robert didn’t have an answer.
“What protocol allows a front-desk agent to deny a valid corporate booking without thoroughly checking the database?”