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Chapter One
In the wide hallway of the Dolphin Cove Hotel, a line of torn-up paper trailed from the kitchen servery, across the edge of the dining room. Emmie Hewett followed the litter scattered upon the worn, faded red carpet until it stopped at a small door under the nineteenth century, sweeping staircase that rose from the once-grand foyer to the first floor. She found her four-year-old daughter, Teagan, singing to her dolls in the makeshift cubby created in the disused cupboard.
“Mummy, you found me.” Her daughter grinned. “Like Hansel and Gretel.”
“Teagan, you can’t tear up the napkins,” Emmie snapped, and Teagan’s dark brown eyes welled with tears. Emmie sighed. Not enough sleep—because she was worried about her current life-changing decisions—made her grumpy, and she shouldn’t take it out on Teagan.
“But how would you find me in this big house without the trail of crumbs?” Teagan’s lip trembled.
Emmie pulled the door half closed and crouched. She hugged her daughter and swallowed back the tightness in her throat. “Mummy is sorry for yelling, but I need them for the guests.”
Teagan pressed into her chest, and Emmie drew warmth from the little bundle. Emmie had convinced herself that uprooting her life to help her parents wouldn’t affect her child, but living in a three-storey country pub that had twenty rentable hotel rooms, a large dining area, two bars and a deck that looked over Dolphin Cove was a huge change from their two-bedroom inner-city apartment.
Teagan sniffed. “Bored.”
Of course, the kid was bored. She no longer hung out with her friends at playgroup or kindy, but was instead surrounded by adults telling her to be quiet and behave. Everything was different and dark. Half of Teagan’s toys and belongings remained in the city. They’d only brought the essentials and packed so quickly that some important stuff was forgotten. Last night, Teagan had requested her unicorn doona, because the blue one was scratchy. When she cried, Emmie had nearly joined in. What sort of life was she providing for her daughter?
But there was no choice. Her father had undergone surgery three days ago, and her mother was recovering from a car accident. Her sister was in Europe, and her brother couldn’t leave the city because he was an elite footballer and was required to stay in Perth, when he wasn’t flying interstate for games. Emmie had to step up and run the family’s hotel, even though she was the last person her father trusted to do the job.
While she had grown up in the hotel, Emmie had lived in Perth for the last ten years, a city three hours away. As a kid, sliding down the curved staircase banister was one of her favourite pastimes, but Teagan was too small for that. Teagan was a city kid used to drinking babycinos at her favourite coffee shop, not fishing off a jetty or building sandcastles on the estuary shore.
“Let’s go outside and look for dolphins,” Emmie suggested, thinking of the wide deck at the back of the hotel that overlooked Dolphin Cove, but her daughter didn’t move.
“Who made this mess?” A deep voice bellowed from outside the little cupboard. The chef’s checked trousers were just visible through the door crack. Emmie tucked her daughter back protectively. Since they had arrived two days earlier, she had tried to keep out of Greg’s way. He yelled at the staff, he was rude to the customers, and his cooking was terrible.
She stood, trying to use her height, but she was no match for the thickset man, who was a few inches taller than her. Her hair was falling out of the makeshift bun she had created at six that morning. Still wearing yoga pants and a T-shirt, she wasn’t dressed to take on a misogynistic chef. And she had to protect her daughter, so it wasn’t the time for a fight.
“I beg your pardon?” Emmie fisted her hands.
“Are you responsible for the scattered paper down the hall?” Greg sneered. “I can’t believe you think you can run this hotel. You can’t even keep the place tidy.”
“And you can?” she snapped. He had no right to speak to her that way. He was another person who didn’t think she could handle the role, but she was the only one available. Her parents had placed her in charge, not the jumped-up chef.
“The state of your filthy chef’s whites, or should I say greys, proves you’re no cleaner than a trail of paper across the floor.” Emmie pointed at Greg’s stained shirt. “Never speak to me or my daughter like that again. My father may not be here, but he has given me full control, and I have the final say. I’ll handle my daughter, and you can return to your responsibilities in the kitchen. Leave the dining room and everywhere else to me.”
After years of working in events at a large city hotel, she had dealt with difficult staff, bridezillas, drunken guests, needy clients and self-entitled corporates. She’d faced worse situations, and it was time for a show of strength, even though her body shook and her heart thumped. If she didn’t stand up to Greg now, he’d walk all over her. She raised her chin and glared.
He crossed his beefy, scarred arms across his chest. “I don’t know what Keith was thinking. You won’t last a week.” He spun around and stalked back to the kitchen.
Emmie dropped to the floor. The surge of adrenaline that had swept through her body when she faced the pig of a man had left her legs jellied. Her hands trembled, but she had to show her daughter that she wasn’t terrified despite the lingering question: How would she cope for the next eight weeks running the hotel, working with that beast?
“You okay?” Margie stood at the end of the hallway, her hands filled with the paper scraps of Teagan’s trail. Margie had worked at the hotel for fifteen years as the assistant manager. She was dressed in dark trousers and the black hotel uniform shirt with the Dolphin Cove Hotel emblem on the pocket, with her greying hair scraped back into a ponytail and her reading glasses perched on the top of her head.
“He’s awful,” Emmie muttered. There were better ways to describe someone who abused everyone in their path, but nothing that she would say in front of her four-year-old.
“That’s being nice.” Margie’s eyebrows raised a fraction. “Teagan, why don’t you come and help me in the office? You can do some drawing.”
“You love drawing.” Emmie tried to inject enthusiasm into her voice. “Thanks, Margie.”
“Word of advice for a brute like that.” Margie grabbed Teagan’s hand. “Stay off his radar and don’t get riled by his barbs. Guys like him aren’t nice to women in control. Trust me, I’ve worked with his type for over thirty years and nothing helps, because you’re a woman. Your dad wasn’t like that, but he can’t protect us now.” Margie walked Teagan down the corridor without waiting for a reply. “I like your pigtails, Teagan.”
“The pink ribbons are my favourite.” Teagan tousled the right bunch. At least one of them had neat hair.
It was the twenty-first century, and no woman should have to tolerate a ‘Greg.’ Margie was from another era, and coped differently, but Emmie wasn’t standing back and letting a Neanderthal think his male authority usurped hers. He was on a long list of things that needed fixing, but first she had to determine what to say, and change into some fighting clothes. Yoga pants didn’t scream management.
Teagan drawing with Margie would give Emmie enough time to scrutinise the stock orders. Apparently, there weren’t enough vegetables to get through the day—another black mark against Greg, as that was his responsibility. But worse, the hotel was bleeding money. While her parents recuperated, she planned to get everything under control. She’d noticed recent cost blowouts compared to six months ago, and the hotel hadn’t seen a reflection in higher takings, despite the increasing bills. She needed to ensure they weren’t being ripped off by the suppliers.
Her father may have given Greg control of the ordering when he got sick, but now she was in charge; things would be different. Just because her dad wasn’t around didn’t mean their preferred providers could take advantage and hike up the prices. If something didn’t change, including Greg’s woeful cooking, there might not be a hotel for her dad to run when he recovered.
There was only one issue. Her dad had insisted that even though she was in charge, she couldn’t change anything, and certainly not introduce any of her big city ideas.
End of Excerpt
