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I could see that I hadn’t made things any better when she took the last sip from her coffee and turned to face me. “Well, I look forward to being escorted into the twenty-first century, Mr Balfe.”

I watched as she stepped away and went to join one of the other employees, a dark-haired woman in a pink top. When I looked up, my brother was eyeing me, a smirk shaping his lips as he shook his head.

“That didn’t look like it went well,” he said as he joined me. “The niece, right?”

“I think she might actually hate me. She never wanted her uncle to sell.”

Derek clasped my shoulder. “Well, that’s to be expected. Can you imagine if Dad sold our hotels instead of letting us take over? We’d be fit to be tied.”

“I was actually just thinking the same thing.”

“Give her time. She’ll come around.”

“I hope you’re right.” My gaze travelled to where Rinnie stood, speaking quietly with the dark-haired woman before I noticed a bit of a commotion.

“Oh, um, I’m really not sure about that,” Katy said, looking a little uneasy as she’d been circled by the sous chef and two other women.

“But it’s been a tradition here for decades,” one of the women complained.

“Right, but it might not fit with the new branding,” Katy responded, and I thought I saw a vein bulge in the woman’s forehead. Time for some intervention.

“What seems to be the issue?” I asked, coming to Katy’s aid while noticing Rinnie watching the exchange from where she stood on the other side of the room. After our conversation, I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to help smooth things over this time.

“Hi, I’m Lisa. I work in housekeeping,” said the woman who’d been confronting Katy, her tone a little less aggressive as her eyes ran over my suit.

“A pleasure to meet you, Lisa. How can I help?”

“Well, the thing is that we have a tradition here amongst the staff that was started by my good friend, Adelaide,” she replied, and I recognised the name. Adelaide was the head of housekeeping and one of the employees that we’d had to let go. She’d been offered a very nice severance package, but I knew that given the choice, she would’ve preferred to stay on. The trouble was it simply wasn’t feasible to keep everyone. If we were going to bring the Astor Cove up to a five-star standard, we needed to bring in some of our own people. I sensed her colleague’s absence was still a sore spot for Lisa.

“Adelaide used to perform as a singer in a disco band,” Lisa went on.

“Amazing set of pipes on the woman,” the sous chef added.

“Anyway, she no longer performs, but she continued her love of the genre by setting up a monthly disco night for the staff and guests here at the hotel. We already have the disco balls and the lights in storage, so all we’d need is permission to set up here in the function room once a month. It’s a really fun evening, and the guests have always enjoyed it.”

“I’m just not sure it’s feasible,” Katy said, and Lisa shot her a venomous glare. My young manager swallowed thickly before looking to me. “This room will be booked for various events throughout the year. We can’t just set aside a day for a disco party every single month.”

She was right, of course. This room needed to be free for weddings, birthday parties and other special occasions. Those bookings brought in a lot of revenue, and I knew Katy was very much invested in this location. I’d told her outright that we were keeping Rinnie as manager, but I could see that she still had the position in her sights. It was obvious that she was determined to change my mind. I wasn’t sure how to convince her that it wasn’t going to happen, at least not so long as Rinnie was happy to keep working for us. Despite the fact that she very obviously didn’t like me, I was keen to keep her on.

Besides, running a business wasn’t always about being liked. Sometimes it simply boiled down to a meritocracy, and although Katy was an excellent employee, Rinnie had far more experience managing this particular hotel. She knew the individual staff members and their temperaments, the building and all its quirks, and that kind of knowledge was priceless.

As I looked around the room, it seemed that everyone was really keen to hear my verdict, and as out of fashion as it sounded, this disco night was clearly a big morale booster for the staff. Then I locked eyes with Rinnie, and there was something almost challenging in her stare, which was why I found myself coming up with a compromise. “How about we have disco night every two months instead? We can schedule it for a night when there are no events booked.”

“It has to be a Saturday,” the sous chef argued. “Disco night has always been on a Saturday. It’s tradition.”

“Can’t be dancing to ‘Saturday Night Fever’ on a Monday,” Lisa added.

“Okay, well, I can’t explicitly promise a Saturday, but we will do everything in our power to make that happen. And before we reopen, we’ll hold a very special disco night just for the staff. How does that sound?”

They didn’t seem entirely assuaged, but they’d lost a little of their confrontational steam. I was going to have to keep an eye on this sous chef. He might be a bit of a rabble rouser amongst the staff, which could become a problem.

“I suppose it’s better than nothing,” he said, glancing at Lisa, and she nodded as though in agreement. I shared a look of relief with Katy, but I could tell by the tight set of her lips that she thought I shouldn’t have given into their demands so easily. The thing was, Katy had only been in management for a couple of years, so she didn’t always see how you sometimes had to capitulate in order to flourish. And when you had a good team of people who actually liked their jobs, it was vital to give them something back for all their hard work. If a disco night once every two months was what kept them happy, then so be it.

The breakfast meet-and-greet came to an end without any further issues being brought up. I was aware of Rinnie the entire time. It was odd, but even when I wasn’t looking at her, I was conscious of her position in the room. And okay, yes, half of it was because I found her attractive, and no, I didn’t plan on acting on it. I might’ve asked her out for a drink at Derek’s wedding, but that was before I became her boss. I’d made a rule for myself a long time ago not to date employees. The power dynamics would be off, and I didn’t want to ever feel like I was taking advantage of the person I was with. But there was something else about her, something that kept prodding at my brain.

It was no surprise when I found myself seeking her out at the end of breakfast.

“Would you like a little tour of the place?” I asked, and her eyebrows shot up in surprise.