What had she gotten herself into?
The inn. That was its own conversation, one that made her stomach churn uncomfortably when she thought about it for too long. Her fingers wrapped more tightly around the wheel, and she took a few deep breaths to keep herself centered.
It would get easier.
Ithadto get easier.
She would hit her stride. Beg Hallie to stay on full-time or start the search immediately for someone else to manage the day-to-day. Read every book known to humankind on effective management techniques.
But no, apparently she wasn’t busy enough, so she’d decided to take on a pet project to antagonize Grant.
And because she just couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie—namely, her already shitty relationship with her brother—she’d had to rile him up.
At this point, it seemed like a character defect that she wasn’t able to step away gracefully and accept reality.
Grant could have been the least competent person in the world, and it still wouldn’t have changed the fact that her father didn’t see her as the future face of The Devereux Group.
“It’s nothing personal, honey,” she said, mocking his deep voice as she took a curve and the expansiveness of the ocean came into view.
Boats dotted the horizon, the summer sun still high as she navigated the rental car’s quirks. She really needed to have her car shipped from California.
Add it to her already dizzying to-do list.
She had so much to accomplish, but instead of getting her bearings at The Stone’s Throw and closing out her life in San Francisco, she…
A strange sound bubbled out from her throat.
What had she done?
Gotten caught up with Sydney in some zany idea to torture her brother as he prepared for his wedding? She wouldn’t pretend she was a saint, but even on her worst days, this still felt like a lot of energy to waste on a fruitless endeavor.
Grant would never change.
His wedding would go off without a hitch.
He’d ascend to his rightful place in the world as the head of The Devereux Group once their father retired.
No thirty-minute brainstorm about her and Sydney’s fabricated meet-cute and no well-earned jabs at Grant’s expense would change things.
She looked down at the dashboard clock. Ten minutes until she was late. It didn’t matter that she’d finally returned her mother’s calls this afternoon, after all new check-ins had been completed and the request—or, more accurately, the summons—for dinner had only been three hours away.
She wondered what Grant had already said to their parents. He’d probably run straight back to their too-big house and told a story of woe, about how she was back in town and already trying to ruin his life.
He’d always been good at playing the victim, even as life was served to him on a literal silver spoon.
Beyond the practicalities of whether it was a bad idea or not (it was), uneasiness had settled over Reese as she’d worked through the litany of tasks that helped The Stone’s Throw function each day.
She’d gone to the kitchen with Sydney and Hallie to grab lunch and hatch their ill-conceived plan. The kitchen was chaos personified, even with the small lunch menu the inn had available on weekends for guests and visitors.
Then she’d gone down to the laundry, where she’d strained to heave dozens of pounds of towels and linens into the industrial machines, watching them spin and gurgle and remove any traces of the guests that had used them.
When the sun was high in the sky, she’d shadowed a member of the waitstaff, who served drinks on the patio that overlooked the rocky shoreline.
It had been the only time she’d been outside today. She wanted to spend the upcoming week, when things were hopefully a little slower, familiarizing herself with the property’s grounds, which included a pool and a tennis court that had seen better days.
As she took another curve, the sun glinting off thewaves like diamonds, she let the anxious thoughts that had been whirring inside of her take root.
Five months ago, she’d been blindsided.
