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Erin

My first day had gone far better than expected. Not only did Tristan not appear to remember me at all, but he also seemed to value my opinion on the changes he’d made to the hotel.

Frustratingly, there wasn’t one thing that I didn’t like, and a part of me had been determined to hate everything about the change of ownership. I’d talked endlessly to Sloane about how I was convinced the Balfes would ruin everything that I loved about the Astor Cove, and now, unfortunately, I had to eat my words.

When I got home that evening, I said hello to Rua, my lovely ginger feline companion, fed her, did a few chores, then made a start on dinner. Normally, I’d go downstairs to the ground floor apartment my aunt and uncle had purchased, pay Fred and Nessa a little visit and tell them all about the changes to the hotel. But they’d used some of the money from the sale to go on a month-long Caribbean cruise. I smiled at the photos they sent every couple of days, featuring them both grinning into the camera in some new sunny location. They looked like they were having the time of their lives. It was yet more proof that I’d been wrong about the sale. In all honesty, Tristan’s offer to buy the Astor Cove might’ve been the best thing to happen to my family in a long time.

Or at least, that was what I thought until I went to visit my sister.

After dinner, I put on my walking shoes and headed over to Sloane and Cooke’s place. When I got there, she answered the door and quietly motioned me inside.

“Come in,” she said, her voice subdued. “Diarmuid didn’t have a great day. He’s upstairs resting.”

Just like that, all my positivity about my own successful day disappeared as I followed her out to the sunroom and sat down. “Why? What happened?”

“Well, you know how the Balfes brought in those fancy chefs to retrain everyone?” she said, and I nodded. “Cooke messed up a lot during the training, and even Lou did better than him. He feels humiliated and like he’s just not cut out for any of it. He’s done things one way for a long time, and now they’re trying to get him to prepare all the food using entirely different methods and techniques. He feels like he’s starting out completely from scratch, and the stress is getting to him.”

My heart sank as I listened to Sloane talk. I could see from the strain in her features that she was stressed. She relied on her husband a lot, but it wasn’t like she didn’t want to work. Her diminished health took that option away from her, and despite her hopes over the years of one day coming back to the hotel, I wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to return to a job where she was busy all day long. She was going to have to find something with an easier pace.

“Look, this is only day one. Of course, there’s going to be a learning curve. He just needs to stick with it, and then something will click. Remember when you taught me how to drive? I felt useless, like I was never going to get it, but I stuck it out, and then one day it was like, oh shit, I can drive.”

“I’m not sure this is the same, Erin,” Sloane said, dragging her hand through her hair, a shorter version of mine. My sister and I had always been the spitting image of one another, except she had blue eyes, and I had amber ones.

I tried to give her a couple more reassurances, but I could tell by the faraway look on her face that she was internally catastrophising, imagining the worst. It was something she’d always been prone to.

“What about you? How did your day go?” she asked then, clearly making an effort to take her mind off her husband’s problems.

“Aside from the fact that they have a twenty-something-year-old training me how to be a manager?” I said, and Sloane winced.

“They do?”

“Uh huh. Her name’s Katy, and she’s actually very nice, though a little uptight. I think the staff’s relaxed, easy-going way of doing things at the Astor Cove is going to bring her out in hives by the end of the week.”

Sloane laughed. “Oh my, that’s not good.”

“She’ll survive. I’ll take her under my wing if I have to.”

“That’s very generous of you. You know she’s probably angling for your job, right?”

I shook my head. “She already manages the hotel down in Cork. From what I’ve gathered, it’s much larger and far more upscale than the Astor Cove. There’s no way she’s after my job.”

“I hope you’re right,” Sloane said, and despite not feeling uneasy about Katy, my sister managed to plant a seed of doubt. I reminded myself that she was simply in a negative mindset, worried about Cooke and how badly his day had gone.

The next morning, I was on my way into work when I noticed there was a car blocking the entrance to the hotel. It belonged to Molly Weir, the woman who owned the next property over. The end of our gardens met the walled perimeter at the back of her house. My aunt and uncle were good friends with Molly, but I had a feeling she hadn’t been too happy with the renovations going on. She sat in her car, refusing to move and thus blocking two vans full of tradespeople who were waiting to get in.

“What’s going on?” I asked the tall man who’d been shouting at Molly to move her “effing” car.

“She’s blocking the entrance because supposedly there’s been damage done to the road outside her house from all the trucks coming and going. She says she’s not moving until she receives confirmation that the potholes will be filled in.”

I peered down the road towards her property, and sure enough, there were a couple of unsightly potholes. I went over to her driver’s side window and motioned for her to roll it down.

“Hi, Molly,” I greeted as her window lowered.

“I’ve no argument with you, Rinnie. It’s the new owners that I want to speak with, and they’ve been dodging my calls, so this is what I’ve been reduced to.”

They had? That didn’t sound like Tristan. He seemed like the sort of business owner who dealt with issues head on rather than avoiding them, but then again, I’d only been working for him for a day. Still, with the meticulous way he’d coordinated the refurb and renovations, I couldn’t imagine him ignoring anyone’s calls, especially if they had a legitimate complaint.

I pulled out my phone where I’d already programmed in a couple new numbers, including both Tristan’s and Katy’s. I considered calling Katy first but then decided it was better going directly to Tristan since he had the power to sort this out.