“Agreed. Let’s arrange a time to talk about that.”
She waited until he left the room and closed her eyes. “He heard you. This is terrible.”
“Terrible? It’s not terrible,” Donna said, “it’s brilliant. Luca! Why didn’t we think of him? We need to add him to our list. True, he’s changing things that don’t need changing which isn’t great, but he is the hottest guy we’ve had around here in a long time. And talking of hot, your cheeks are flaming. I could fry an egg on them.”
“Thanks to you, I already have egg on my face. I don’t need more. And what is this list you’re talking about?”
“The list of potential men you could date. We spent an hour on it last night when we were in the Smuggler’s Inn.”
Evie was appalled. “You were discussing my sex life in the pub? What if the people at the next table heard you?”
“Funny you should say that because they did. It was Anthony and Jeff. They were out celebrating the fourth anniversary of the gallery, but they happily joined in.”
“Joined in?”
“We had quite a large group on it in the end. The more the merrier, I always say.”
“Oh well, that’s great then. Maybe you could have openedit up to the whole pub. Fixing my love life is more entertaining than quiz night, I’m sure.”Thiswas why she should be applying for that job. “Don’t you have more important things to talk about?”
“More important than you? No. We all care about you.”
“Well, that’s nice, obviously, but I can handle my own romantic life, and right now dating is not a priority. And I’m especially not dating someone I work with.”
“Why not? That man is hotter than a chilli pepper, and it’s convenient that he works here. It means that a rendezvous in the laundry room is a definite possibility. Or one of the empty bedrooms.”
And there were far too many of those.
“Stop!” Evie held up a hand. “You have to stop.”
“I’ll stop if you tell me what secretive thing you’re doing on that laptop of yours. And don’t say nothing because I know you well enough to know when you’re hiding something.”
“It’s nothing of interest, really.” Seeing the speculation on Donna’s face, Evie wished she was a better liar. “You said you wanted to talk to me?”
“Is it Pat’s anniversary you’re planning?” Donna was still peering at Evie’s laptop, as if it held the clues to the universe. “Can you believe she has worked here for twenty-five years?”
Yes, she could believe that. She also believed that Pat probably should have moved on to other things at least twenty years ago when she was still feeling fresh and enthusiastic.
“We have a loyal staff,” Evie said. And that, of course, was part of the problem. They’d been here for so long they were set in their ways and refused to change. And she had no idea how to motivate them to do things differently.
She adored Gerald, who had been the general manager for the past fifteen years, but after his heart attack she’d stepped upinto the GM role in the hotel and what she’d discovered had almost given her a heart attack, too.
How could he have let things get so bad? The whole place was a disaster.
For the first month she’d worked eighteen-hour days trying to get a full picture, and once she’d got the full picture she’d spent a few more days in full panic mode before sitting down and trying to form a workable plan to save the place. But her plan required everyone to join together and change the way they did things. Unfortunately, most of the staff, though lovely and loyal, liked the way things were done and weren’t prepared to change anything bigger than a lightbulb.
She didn’t have a fraction of Gerald’s experience, but even she could see it was only a matter of time until head office made the decision to intervene in a big way. She knew a developer was interested in the site. He’d had the audacity to spend three nights at the hotel, during which he’d poked his thin hooked nose into every corner and asked intrusive questions. He reminded Evie of a weasel. She’d managed to resist the urge to give him scratchy sheets or feed him dodgy seafood. What was the point? What difference would it make? The ship was sinking and she was trying to bail it out by herself with a teaspoon.
All she could do was grab herself a lifebelt, which was why she really should be applying for jobs. This was the push she’d needed to do what she probably should have done a long time ago.
Maybe calling herself “an experienced hospitality professional” was pushing it. If she was being honest she should probably be describing herself as “burned out, disillusioned and hopeless at establishing boundaries with the staff.” She’d thought that over time they’d start to respect her experience but thatwasn’t happening. And maybe it was unrealistic to expect it. To some of them she was still the child who had sat on their laps and watched TV with a glass of milk.
She felt a pang, because there were some things she’d miss, of course.
She woke every morning to the sound of waves crashing onto the rocks and the shriek of seagulls. She ran on the beach and the coast path and bought her fish straight from the boats that landed on the quay.
But she kept those thoughts to herself and tried again to make Donna focus on work. “You came in here to talk to me about something.”
“Did I? Oh yes—” Donna nodded. “I’d forgotten for a moment. Mrs Dodds is refusing to pay in full because she says she asked for hypoallergenic bedding and she was given feathers. She hasn’t had a wink of sleep for three nights because her airways have closed up.”
