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Beneath the Quiet Sky
Quiet Love Book Five
By L.H. Cosway
1.
Erin
If I hadn’t been away, I might’ve put it together sooner. I certainly didn’t expect to come back to work after my annual leave and run into the man who’d almost stolen my heart when I was eighteen years old.
I’d spent two blissful weeks in Italy, followed by another two weeks at home in my apartment, relaxing, reading and spending time with my cat, Rua. When I arrived back to work with a respectable tan and the chilled attitude of a woman who’d been getting eight to nine hours of sleep a night, I was rested and ready to help out with the wedding that was happening at the hotel that weekend.
As the day-to-day manager of the Astor Cove, I was normally a lot more involved in the weddings we hosted, but I’d already had my time off booked. Since the bride chose the Astor Cove because her father and my uncle were good friends—and the hotel was where she’d spent her childhood summers—I took a back seat and let Uncle Fred handle everything. Now I was regretting not being a little more informed on who exactly the groom was.
My uncle’s hotel was a three-story, red brick, Gothic revival building that had once been the estate of some rich entrepreneur. It fell into disrepair for several decades before my uncle purchased it dirt cheap back in the 1980s.
Fred and his wife, Nessa, did their best to lovingly restore the place over the years, but it was getting to the point where more and more things needed fixing without the budget to do so. It was difficult to see the old girl struggling because I adored her. The Astor Cove was my safe haven. The place my sister and I had come to when we’d needed a fresh start and a little help getting back on our feet. It was no surprise that we’d loved it so much we’d decided to stay.
At eighteen, I’d started out in housekeeping but had since worked my way up to management and had been in my current position for almost twelve years. I knew this place like the back of my hand and had dealt with many emergencies over the years, from family feuds breaking out during birthday parties to people cancelling events at the last minute, unintentional double bookings, electricity blackouts and a boiler that often liked to break down.
You name it, I’d been through it.
Which was why I didn’t panic when, only an hour before the wedding ceremony was due to begin, I walked into the kitchen storage room and found a pretty blonde woman sitting on the floor crying her eyes out.
“Do you need some help?” I asked.
The woman lifted her head to me, her eyes red from tears, and shouted, “Just leave me alone!”
I immediately backed off, hands raised as I stepped out of the room and spotted Cooke and Lou working on the appetisers. “Do either of you know why there’s a woman crying in there?”
Cooke, who was the hotel’s head chef and my sister’s husband, told me, “That’s the wedding planner. Adelaide said her boyfriend broke up with her a couple of days ago, and she’s been a mess ever since.”
That didn’t sound good.
Adelaide was head of housekeeping and also a fount of information for whatever was going on in the building. Some would call her a gossip, but I saw it as a valuable skill. Whenever I needed the inside scoop, I always knew I could count on Adelaide.
“Not a great line of work to be in when you’ve just been dumped,” Cooke’s sous chef, Lou, commented.
He could say that again.
I felt for the woman, but at the same time, I worried about who was going to coordinate the wedding if the planner was out of action. “I’m going to have to find someone to help her.”
“Can’t you talk to her?” Cooke asked. “You know, woman to woman?”
“I’m a complete stranger. She also just bit my head off when I asked if she needed help, so no, I don’t think that’s an option.”
“Maybe someone in the wedding party could help. The maid of honour or the best man?”
“Good idea.”
I left and started making my way towards Room 12, which was the bridal suite. However, when I got there, it was a flurry of activity. The bride, a petite brunette with stunning blue eyes, was in the middle of having her makeup done. I couldn’t tell who the maid of honour was, and in order to find out, I’d have to ask someone. Then the bride might overhear, and she was probably already stressed enough, so I made the decision to search for the best man instead. The groom was staying on the next floor up, a safe enough distance away.
Once there, I promptly knocked on the door. A male voice called, “Come in,” so I poked my head in. As soon as I did, my entire body froze. The groom stood by the full-length mirror adjusting his tie. He looked vaguely familiar, but it wasn’t until I glanced at the other person in the room that I truly started to panic. Oh, God. I knew them.
My hands shook, and my heart rate spiked.
Now, normally running into some old acquaintances wouldn’t be cause for concern, but it was how I’d known them that made things awkward. Derek Balfe was the groom. I knew because he was wearing a different suit to the other groomsmen I’d seen milling about.
