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“Tell me about it. The worst part is that Amy is my coworker, and I was the one who introduced them.” Oh, double ouch. “As soon as they set eyes on one another, I could practically see the sparks igniting. It was at that moment that I realised I was never going to be the one for him.”

“Well, perhaps it’s a good thing,” I said in an effort to console her. “Maybe he’s been blocking your doorway.”

Her eyebrow quirked. “Pardon?”

“You’ve never heard of that saying?” Nuala shook her head, so I continued, “Well, when it comes to romantic partners, your door is open, right? You want the other person to either come in or walk out. However, if they choose to stand in the doorway, they’re blocking anyone else from coming in.”

“Wow,” she said, eyes widening as she lifted her vodka and took another tiny sip. “That actually makes so much sense.” She went quiet for a moment, then murmured to herself with a soft chuckle, “He’s been blocking my doorway. That’s perfect.”

I was about to say more, but then another woman appeared, and I recognised her instantly.

“Nuala, I was wondering where you’d disappeared to,” the woman said, and my nerves picked up.

This was Tara, the girl who’d given me a job at her grandmother’s café back in the day. I’d only worked there for a month, and like Tristan, there wasn’t much chance of her remembering me, but my heart still gave a nervous thud all the same. Tara was someone who’d gone out of her way to help me back then, and like Tristan, I’d skipped out on her without a word of goodbye.

Luckily, Teddy had returned to the bar, so I grabbed two packets of ready salted peanuts and some bacon fries before slipping away. I returned to my office, where I managed to get through some of the paperwork I’d missed while on leave. I still couldn’t quit stressing over Tristan’s intentions to buy the hotel. I’d told him adamantly that my uncle wouldn’t be interested in selling, but the truth was I had no idea what Fred would do. I knew how tough the business was and how it was taking a toll on him and Aunt Nessa. Things seemed to break more often than they had the money to fix them, and although we had a steady flow of guests, the higher cost of everything made it harder and harder to turn a profit.

I worked myself up about it so much that when my uncle knocked on my office door later that day and stepped inside, he was met with me yelling, “Please don’t do it!”

Fred shot me a startled look before asking, “Don’t do what?”

“Don’t sell the hotel to the Balfe brothers.”

He chuckled low, his eyes going to the empty packets on my desk. “Been hitting the snacks, eh? You’re only back a day, and already you’re stress eating,” he teased. “Better not have any more. The salt in those things will kill you.”

“Can you blame me? The thought of you selling this place … it doesn’t even bear thinking about.”

“No one’s selling the hotel. Now tell me what got this idea into your head.”

I pouted my lip. “Tristan Balfe asked if I thought you’d be interested in selling the Astor Cove so that he can make it a new location in his family’s franchise.”

Uncle Fred arched an eyebrow. “That’s the groom’s brother, right?” I nodded. “Well, he’s made no mention of it to me, and even if he does, you know me and Nessa have no interest in selling the place. This is our home.”

My aunt and uncle lived in a small cottage to the rear of the hotel. It’s where Sloane and I had shared a tiny box bedroom back when we’d first come here. It had been a tight squeeze, but it had been safe, and that was all that had mattered to us at the time. Fred and Nessa’s little house had been a place that oozed comfort and cosiness.

“Is this why you’ve been overdosing on sodium?” he went on. Again, I nodded. Uncle Fred came around my desk and bent to give my shoulder a comforting squeeze as he softly chuckled. “You’ve gotten yourself all worked up for nothing, Rinnie. We’re not selling the hotel, so you can rest easy.”

He pressed a kiss to the crown of my head before leaving. His words gave me the comfort to know that Tristan wasn’t going to get his way, yet I had this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, a feeling that despite my uncle’s reassurance, everything was about to change.

3.

Erin

“You wanted to see me?”

I stepped into my uncle’s office and found him sitting by his desk, Aunt Nessa standing just behind him, her dyed, plum-coloured hair a perfect helmet of curls around her head. She wore matching cat’s-eye glasses, with the addition of white polka dots.

“Rinnie, come in and take a seat,” my uncle said, his thick grey eyebrows still peppered with some black.

“Okay.” I lowered into the seat in front of his desk and clasped my hands together in my lap. What was going on? They both looked really nervous, and it put me on edge. Fred fiddled with the end of his moustache, while Nessa wrung her hands like she was about to tell me someone had died.

“Is it Sloane? Did something happen?” I asked. It had been a few days since I’d visited my sister, and her health could be up and down. I’d also been rushed off my feet all morning with work, so I didn’t have a chance to check my phone.

“Sloane’s fine. It’s nothing like that,” Fred replied. “This is about the hotel. We wanted you to be the first to know.”

Just like that, my stomach dropped all the way into the soles of my shoes. “What about the hotel?”

Fred shared a look with Nessa before glancing back to me and rubbing his neck. “I know this is going to come as a bit of a shock, especially since I reassured you only last month that I had no interest in selling, but—”