The Guest House Hauntings Boxset by Hazel Holmes (novel books to read txt) 📕

There was a moment of relief. At least he wasn’t going to quit, and Lyla would do just about anything to get him to stay. He was right, of course. He did more than any employee should have to do. He certainly deserved the pay raise. But right now, considering their finances…

“In fact, I think it’s only fair that instead of my typical salary, I should get a portion of the profits. I think I’m doing enough work to justify that, and it’ll incentivize me to work even harder because my work will directly affect my pay. I just want to see a payoff for the extra time and effort I’m putting in. I’m going above and beyond, and as you said, business is thriving. So, I feel like I should see the direct reward of that. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy, but it does have to be fair. I think I deserve it after all this time.”

Lyla’s instant reaction was panic and anger. He was putting so much on her right now when that was the last thing she needed. She couldn’t deal with this while trying to fix everything else. She needed him to remain just as steady as he’d always been. They couldn’t afford this kind of change.

She curbed the anger though because he couldn’t possibly know what she was going through, and perhaps if he did, he wouldn’t be asking her this right now. She felt she couldn’t tell him the truth about their finances, because it might sound like she was making an excuse. She didn’t know what to say though because she just couldn’t do it.

Sure, before the mysterious issues with their finances arose, it’d certainly be something she’d consider. He was right, he did deserve it. If things were like they once were, she’d have a conversation with Richard about it and his wish would possibly be granted.

Now, they just couldn’t afford that. They needed all the profits they could get to claw their way back up to their former success. Furthermore, those profits weren’t great lately anyway. If they paid Billy a percentage of their earnings, he’d soon see the truth of the current state of the bed and breakfast, and Lyla was far too ashamed to let anyone see that. She needed to fix their current predicament before she could even consider his request.

It put her in a tough spot. She didn’t want to say no to him. She thought of her family. As much as she cared about Billy and knew he deserved the extra money, she had to focus on her family and getting the business through this rough patch.

“You do deserve it,” she admitted. “As I said before, you have been incredibly helpful, that hasn’t gone unnoticed. However, I’m sorry to say we just can’t do that right now.”

Billy’s face fell and she hated to see it. She wished she could do something to make it right.

“It’s certainly something we can discuss in the future,” she said, hoping he’d stick by them until then. “I can see it working well at that point. But right now, we simply can’t afford it. We can maybe look at a small raise, but we’re just not in a good spot to offer much more currently.”

Silence fell between them and it was awful. Things between Billy and the family were usually happy and carefree. Neither of them liked the turn this was taking.

“I don’t understand,” he said, trying to keep a level head, trying to keep the bitterness from his tone. He wasn’t fully successful. “You’ve been doing all these events, spending money on advertising and trying to bring people in. You’ve brought people in. How are you unable to afford paying me what I deserve?”

He was right. They were having more guests for quite some time, but the events Brittany hosted were draining them a bit. She had known for a while she needed to put a stop to it, but they did help bring more people in and she cared about her friend. She had hoped it would even out over time. She couldn’t admit that she made a few mistakes. Plus, very recently things had changed with their guests. Numbers had decreased a little.

“You know about the rumors being spread about us, don’t you?” she asked. “Some people are saying this house is haunted. Scary stories are being spread. It’s impacting our business.”

It was. Lyla’s spending contributed to their downfall, but so had these ghost stories. She tried to track down the origin, but she couldn’t figure out who started them. She couldn’t figure out how to stop them. Lately everything regarding the bed and breakfast was a mess and she needed to focus on that. She needed to do everything possible to make it better.

“Sure,” he replied. “But those rumors are so stupid. They’re going to be taken care of soon, I’m sure. And they can’t have impacted business so badly that you can’t afford to pay me what I deserve, when my hard work is helping to drive profits up.

“Besides, in paying me a portion of the profits, you’re ensuring you can afford to pay me even if the rumors impact business a little bit because it’ll also impact my pay. You won’t have to keep paying me extra during those times. It’ll ensure that if you thrive, I’ll also thrive. If you fall on hard times, I’ll work a little harder to get us out of them.”

Frustration seeped into Lyla’s bloodstream. She was already under so much pressure and dealing with this uncomfortable conversation with Billy wasn’t helping anything. She wished she could afford to give him what he wanted, and the fact she couldn’t made her angry and embarrassed.

“Listen, I care about you, Billy. We’ve built a great friendship between us. We have a great working relationship too. I don’t want anything to come between that, so