20
LOCKE
“Shite,” I muttered under my breath, glancing at the email that had just pinged into my inbox. It was already seven p.m., but I’d taken my work home with me. I tried to lead by example to my staff by not staying at the office too late—I never wanted my employees to think that was expected of them. But the truth was, my workday didn’t actually end when I went home. It just changed locations.
There was always some email to respond to or some file to read or some property to consider. And every now and then, there was a real crisis that had to be handled. Like tonight. The property I was flipping in West Lothian had just crashed into a massive roadblock. The area had a historic royal palace, a gorgeous loch, and tons of day-trip traffic. A luxury hotel overlooking the loch just made sense. But now I was staring at an email with a subject line that includedarchaeological significanceandheritage survey.
The only word that popped into my head wasfuck. I knew from prior experience heritage surveys were extensive, expensive, and slow. Thankfully, I hadn’t had to deal with too many, but thatmeant I wasn’t crystal clear on what steps I needed to take now. Frustration grew as I read through the email. I could feel my pulse beating in my temple. That was never a good sign.
I snatched up my phone, dialing my father. “Hey, you got a minute?” I asked when he answered.
“What’s wrong?” he said immediately.
“You know the West Lothian project?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve just gotten an email about it, and I wanted your opinion. A local heritage group has claimed that part of the land has archaeological significance.”
“In what context?”
I read the email out loud to him.
“Mmm,” Dad said. “That’s going to waylay construction.”
I ran my hand down my face. “Yeah, I know. They’re saying that they want to start with a heritage survey.”
“Which is notoriously time consuming.”
I sighed, knowing he was right. There’d be delays, unpredictable costs, and if somethingdidturn up in the survey, there was always the risk of my planning permission being denied. “What the hell do I do here?”
Dad clicked his tongue, and I knew he was rubbing his jaw in that way he did when he was pondering something. Irritation with myself itched at the back of my neck. I’d been so obsessed with getting the distillery project off the ground and how wellthat was going that I’d briefly taken my eyes offthisproject. I shouldn’t have been away as bloody long as I was.
“Well, I’ll tell you what youcan’tdo,” Dad said. “And that’s anything that’ll rile up that heritage group. If you don’t do things by the book, you’re facing potential PR backlash on top of your legal problems. And I’m not sure that’s something you want to deal with right off the back of the last one.”
Christ, I hadn’t even been thinking along those lines. I drummed my hand against my knee. “No, I definitely can’t afford that kind of shite right now. I don’t need this to eclipse the news of the Braeburn deal.”
“You know what,” Dad said. “Now that I’m thinking about it, something from that email rang a bell. It sounds like the situation is similar to what happened when we acquired the Fulham Estate up in Milngavie.”
I vaguely remembered that deal playing out, but that had been when Dad was the boss, not me. I hadn’t worked directly on the deal and didn’t recall what we’d done. “How sharp is your memory of it?” I asked.
“Not very,” he admitted. “It was years back. I’ll have to go through my files to see what we did back then. But I’m pretty sure we had to switch contractors to someone that dealt with heritage-sensitive builds.”
“Do you think you still have those contacts?”
“Probably. You’re also going to want to re-phase construction to avoid financial bleed while the survey is ongoing.” I could hear him riffling through a drawer. He must have been in his home office. “Yeah, let me take a look at what I still have, and I’ll get back to you.”
“Thanks, Dad. I appreciate it.”
We hung up, and I sighed, firing off an email to my PA to arrange a team meeting for first thing in the morning and to reprioritize my schedule accordingly. West Lothian was the main fire we had to put out this week, and I wanted everyone’s focus on that until we had a game plan. I spotted a message from Jo a few emails down in my inbox and groaned. I could really do withnothaving to attend the summer festival. I had so much on my plate already—I really didn’t know how I was supposed to squeeze in some haggis.
I reviewed the email from the heritage society once more, following the link at the bottom to their website. The first step to tackling a problem like this was understanding the parties involved. I made note of their board members and sent another email to my PA, asking her to find out whatever she could about them. At some point, I was going to have to sit down with these people in order to move forward, and I wanted to be able to make a good impression. I’d learned my lesson with Dougal.
When I was done with that, I remembered the dinner I’d popped into the microwave an hour ago. I retrieved it and scarfed it down while I stressed about what was probably some half-decayed medieval wall in West Lothian. I’d encase the entire thing in glass and build the hotel around it if they wanted me to. I just didn’t want to have to spend the next six months in some miserable construction limbo.
My buzzer sounded, and I glanced at the door. I’d assumed Dad was just going to call me when he found what he was looking for, but maybe he’d decided to swing by with his old files instead. I imagined the contacts I needed were scribbled on some scrap of paper he’d been hanging onto for years. The man was brilliantwhen it came to this business, but his filing system was utter shite.
“Coming!” I called, dumping my plate in the sink. I hurried to answer the door, my words catching in the back of my throat.
