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The effrontery!

Okay, so maybe she could teach me a thing or two, but still, my ego felt slighted.

“I’ll leave you to enjoy your breakfast,” Tristan finished with yet another charming smile. All right, keep it in your pants. “Please feel free to come chat with your new colleagues. They’re happy to answer any questions you might have.”

Of course, Lou chose that exact moment to pipe up. “I have a question.” He stood near the back of the room, arms folded, with his mullet haircut that seemed to be all the rage with the twenty-somethings and his tattoos of varying quality that adorned his neck and forearms on display.

“Of course,” Tristan said, his demeanour cool and easy while Lou stepped forward. “The kitchen staff are now having to come in at five in the morning instead of six.”

“Yes, that’s correct,” Tristan replied. “Was there a question?”

“More of a request,” Lou shot back. “I think the change is unnecessary. Six is more than early enough for a morning start since breakfast service begins at seven. We do most of our breakfast prep the previous day anyway.”

“At our hotels breakfast begins at six-thirty,” Tristan explained. “Which is why the earlier start is necessary, but if the new schedule doesn’t work for you, I can have HR find someone else to cover those hours.”

I tensed when Lou’s features hardened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I beg your pardon?” Tristan replied.

“Just sounds like a bit of a threat,” Lou shot back, and Cooke and I shared a concerned look from across the room before my brother-in-law intervened. “I’m sure Mr Balfe had no intention of threatening you, Lou.”

“He just said he’d find someone to replace me if I couldn’t come in at the arse crack of dawn,” Lou retorted, not calming down in the slightest. “So, you know what means? Shut up and put up. Ah, yeah, I see how it’s going to be around here now.”

Tristan took a step forward. “I really wasn’t trying to insinuate—”

“Do you know what’s interesting?” I found myself announcing as I stepped in front of everyone. Inside my head I was screaming at myself, What are you doing?! But someone needed to calm Lou’s temper, and I could already see that his outburst was making a few others feel emboldened. Lisa, who worked in housekeeping and was close friends with Adelaide, was still rather upset that her pal had been let go. I saw her nodding her head while Lou spoke, as though amping herself up to do the same.

And now everyone’s attention was on me. What was I going to say? Oh, yes, something interesting. “Cooke is our head chef, and his name is Cooke. Isn’t that cool? It’s called nominative determinism, and it’s when people end up doing jobs that match their names. You know, like that way Usain Bolt is a sprinter? I also heard of a meteorologist in Britain called Sara Blizzard.”

I’d once read in one of Sloane’s armchair psychology books that you could dispel tension by distracting people with a random, unexpected fact or piece of information, though the jury was still out on whether it had worked for me. Then Cooke looked my way before letting out a big chuckle. “You know what, Rinnie? That is interesting.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” Lou griped, though he’d visibly lost some of his steam. Lisa, too, had taken a step back.

“It just popped into my head,” I replied then glanced to my left and saw Tristan staring at me with warmth in his eyes and the hint of a smile tugging at his lips.

5.

Tristan

I smiled at the pretty manager, impressed by how she’d de-escalated the sous chef who obviously had a couple grievances about his new employment contract. I knew instantly that it was a good choice keeping her on, even though Katy was extremely interested in her job. She currently managed our Cork location, but her family lived in Wicklow, so working at the Astor Cove would bring her a lot closer to home.

Rinnie was far too much of an asset, though, and it didn’t hurt that she was stunningly gorgeous to look at. Her uncle had spoken about her during the few occasions I’d met with him while negotiating the purchase. He’d told me all about the improvements Rinnie had made to the Astor Cove over the years, how she’d breathed new life into the place with very little budget, and how the staff both liked and respected her. Good managers like that were hard to come by, so there was no way I was replacing her with Katy.

She was standing next to the head chef, the bloke who’d appropriately been born with the surname Cooke, as he and several others chatted with Moira and Blake. I made my way over, joining the group as I slid beside Rinnie and quietly said, “Thanks for the save.”

She startled a little, obviously not having expected me to appear beside her, then flicked her gaze briefly to me. I noticed a slight stiffening of her shoulders and remembered how adamant she’d been that her uncle wouldn’t sell the hotel. I understood if she were still upset about it all. She’d worked here for a long time and had put a lot of effort and care into her job as manager. She’d probably felt a certain ownership over the place, likely hoped to inherit it one day, and now it was mine and my brother’s. So, yeah, I definitely didn’t blame her if she resented me. Hell, if I’d put two decades of my life into my father’s businesses and he’d decided to sell them off instead of passing them on to Derek and me, I’d be pretty pissed off too. More than that, I’d be furious.

“No worries,” she responded, still tense, and I found myself admiring her profile. Her button nose and pert lips, smooth skin and feline eyes had something niggling at my mind. There was something so familiar about her, like I’d known her in a past life. Or perhaps I was just very attracted to her, and my brain was providing echoes of a false memory.

“Have you met Katy yet?” I went on, my eyes still glued to her.

“Oh, yes, she came and introduced herself,” Rinnie replied, and a different sort of stiffness enveloped her, a certain tension. “She’s the one who’ll be training me how to do the job I’ve already been doing for over a decade, right?”

My lips twitched at the hint of attitude. “Yes, that’s correct. But please don’t feel like the training is any kind of slight against your capabilities. It’s simply that your uncle ran the Astor Cove using a very outdated system—”

Her eyes flared. “Excuse me?”

“It’s a system that worked, don’t me wrong, but as I’m sure you’re aware, there have been many technological advances since Fred first opened this place, advances that can make your job a whole lot easier.”