Free Hotel Vendome by Danielle Steel Page A

jacket who had turned her face away, and they disappeared rapidly up the stairs. They turned up nowhere else. And then the same two people came down the stairs that morning. The homeless man looked somewhat less untidy than he had the night before. He had a spring in his step; he was smiling, looked cleaner, and had combed his hair. And the person with him dodged the camera again. And that person came back into the hotel again a few minutes later and bounded up the stairs.
    “What is that?” Hugues asked, looking upset. “ Who is that? What the hell is going on? Am I running some kind of homeless shelter here? Do you think one of the kitchen people let him in?”
    “Look again,” Bruce said softly with a slow smile. He was one of Heloise’s biggest fans and had carried her around when she was two so she wouldn’t get hurt while they were doing the renovations. “Does anything look familiar to you?”
    Hugues stared at the screen with wide eyes. He was relieved that Heloise hadn’t sneaked a boy in instead of her friend, but she had done something far worse, and she could have gotten hurt in the process. Hugues shuddered as he looked at the man.
    “Oh my God,” Hugues said with a horrified expression. “Are you telling me she brought a homeless man in? Where did he sleep?”
    “Probably in one of the rooms.” Bruce picked up the phone and called housekeeping then, but they had no knowledge of Heloise using a room. And then he called room service, and they told him Heloise had ordered breakfast and dinner for 202, but the DND sign had been on, so they left it outside. He turned to his employer then and gave him the news. “She ordered a steak, mashed potatoes, chocolate mousse, and a hefty breakfast this morning of fried eggs and bacon and a pastry basket at six-fifteen.”
    “I can’t believe she’d do a thing like that,” her father said in amazement. He called her on her cell phone then and asked her to come downstairs. She was in his office five minutes later, and she tried to look nonchalant when she saw Bruce and gave him a big smile.
    “This is very serious,” her father said without preamble, with a somber expression. “Did you bring someone into the hotel last night? A homeless man?”
    She could see the images on the screen herself. She hesitated for a moment and then nodded and jutted out her chin. “Yes, I did. He’s old and sick, and he was starving and it’s too cold outside. He couldn’t get into a shelter,” she said as though she knew him well.
    “So you brought him here?” She nodded soundlessly as her father looked genuinely panicked. “What if he had hurt you, or another guest? He could have hurt you … or worse. Do you have any idea how foolish and dangerous that was? Where were you all night? In the room with him?” He looked even more terrified by that. What if he had raped her?
    “I slept in the first aid station till midnight. And then I slept behind the ballroom curtains till six. He’s a good person, Papa. He didn’t hurt the room. I cleaned everything up myself.” Listening to her, Bruce Johnson was trying not to smile. She looked so earnest and so serious. He was well aware that she had taken a terrible risk, but at least she hadn’t gotten hurt. He was sure the Secret Service wouldn’t be comforted to know there were homeless people being sneaked in and sleeping in the rooms.
    “I’m not going to let you have friends here anymore if you lie to me and do things like that,” her father said sternly.
    “You always say that we have an obligation to poor people, and to remember that everyone isn’t as lucky as we are. He might have died on the streets last night, Papa.” She wasn’t apologizing for what she had done, and she was thrilled that it had gone off without a hitch. And if she was punished for it now, it was well worth it and she didn’t care.
    “We can fulfill our responsibilities in other ways,” her father said sternly. “We give to the food