Chapter 4
4
JONAH
She’s late.
Which is really bloody frustrating.
This is the one thing she promised me would never happen. But it appears I’ve been taken for a fool by a woman who had me convinced she just needed one more chance to show she was taking her role here seriously, despite a voice in the back of my head telling me not to believe a word she said.
What the hell is wrong with me? You’d think after the humiliating shitshow I went through with Tessa, I’d have learnt my lesson about trusting the things women tell me.
I’m ashamed to say that in my desperation to get the position filled quickly and things back on track after Tessa left, I only glanced at Delilah’s CV before I met her at the interview and didn’t follow up on her references. When she turned up, confidently promising she’d do a stellar job, I just hired her on the spot. She has a knockout smile and that day, I just needed someone around who had both positivity and agency.
I’ve regretted it since though.
The way she full-on flirts with me, not to mention the incident the other day, makes me think she’s intent on securing more than just a job here.
But I can’t have a relationship with my Events Manager. It would be way too tacky. People are bound to see it as a desperate move to even things up with my ex.
They already think I’m a massive loser after that bloody meme went viral.
Anyway, there’s no way I’m launching into anything new so soon after what happened with Tessa. Mixing business and pleasure is a sure-fire way to implode your life – I’m living proof of that.
But I can’t think about that right now.
I have a job to do.
This investor meeting we’re hosting for my friend, Harry, today needs to go without a hitch. It’s not only vital he comes out looking good, especially after all the support he’s given me in the last year, but it’s imperative for my own self-worth: to prove to myself I’m capable of successfully running things here on my own.
Unfortunately, today that involves Delilah pulling her finger out and making sure nothing goes wrong – as everything else under her supervision seems to have done so far. It’s not been too much of a problem up to this point as they’ve only been small events and easy fixes, but if she doesn’t do a good job today, she’s going to have to go. No matter how much work that’ll make for me in the short term.
I have to be able to trust my staff.
Just as I’m thinking this, I see her car coming down the drive and pulling into the staff car park.
Finally.
I watch her as she gets out. Her movements seem a little rushed and panicky, as if she’s afraid I’m watching out for her. I’m guessing she’s hoping I won’t notice her late entrance though and just breeze in here in her usual carefree way.
Despite my irritation, I can’t help but admire her long-legged, graceful gait as she makes for the staff entrance to the hotel that will bring her right past my office door. She’s a snappy dresser and today she’s wearing a slim, pencil skirt and a fitted leather jacket with a long, chunky scarf draped round her neck.
She’s an attractive woman all right, with her big, blue eyes and wide, cupid-bow mouth.
Before the fucked-up events of a few months ago, I’d have found her increasingly unsubtle advances both entertaining and charming, but I’m well past that point now. They just remind me of what an idiot I was to have been so trusting of Tessa. In retrospect, I realise I let her beauty and charisma dazzle me to the point where I missed what was going on right under my nose.
I’m never letting myself fall for that bullshit again.
There’s a bang as Delilah lets the outside door to the staff area shut behind her and I stroll out from my office, folding my arms across my chest in readiness for the confrontation.
‘Morning, Delilah. Good of you to finally join us,’ I say.
Okay, so it’s not my wittiest retort ever, but I’m not in the mood for any nonsense today.
She comes to an abrupt halt when she sees me there, waiting for her.
‘Oh!’ she says, staring at me like she’s seen a ghost, her eyes wide and a little wild. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you this morning.’
Is she high?
Surely not. She knows how much the smooth running of this event means to me – and that I’ll fire her ass if anything goes wrong with it.
‘You’re late. You promised me you’d be on time.’
She visibly swallows. ‘I… yes. You’re absolutely right. I’m really sorry. There was some traffic. I think some animals got loose and were roaming?—’
But I don’t have the patience for her excuses and I hold up my hand in a halting gesture. ‘Whatever. Just make sure everything else goes perfectly today.’
Her answering nod is firm, which makes me think she took the lecture I gave her on Friday, about the fine line she’s treading at the moment, seriously.
Not that her continuing to work for me is guaranteed anyway. Things clearly need to change around here if I’m going to make this place a success.
‘Okay, will do, Mr Jacobson.’
That’s weird. She’s never called me Mr Jacobson before. She usually just calls me, ‘Boss,’ in that teasing way of hers.
In fact, now I look at her properly, there’s definitely something slightly off-kilter about her. Not bad off-kilter though, just… she’s giving me a different vibe to the one I usually get from her.
What the hell is it that’s bothering me?
‘You seem different. What’s different about you?’ I snap. The need for everything to go smoothly today is clearly fraying my nerves.
‘Er, my hair maybe? I fancied having long hair today so I’m wearing a wig.’ She flashes me a smile but her eyes don’t quite meet mine. What’s she playing at? There’s something not right here.
‘Well, for God’s sake, take it off. This isn’t fashion week. I need you focused on being professional and making sure this meeting runs like clockwork, not disappearing off to the ladies’ every five minutes to pimp your appearance.’
Her eyes narrow a fraction before she readjusts her expression to one of consolatory cheerfulness. ‘I’ll tie it up out of the way.’
I sigh. ‘No. I said take it off. If you fight me on this, you can consider yourself fired.’
I won’t have it, this obsession with appearance. It’s an unnecessary distraction. And I’ve had enough of her trying to get round me with her flirty ways. She’s here to do a job.
She appears a little shaken by my demand, her hands shooting up to her hair as if she’s afraid I’ll whip the wig off her head right there in the corridor, and I experience a sting of self-reproach. But I’m not going to pander to her whims right now, not when Harry’s due to arrive at any moment.
Colour rises in her cheeks.
‘The thing is, I let a student hairdresser cut my hair at the weekend and she made a bit of a mess of it. I didn’t have the heart to ask her to fix it. That’s really why I’m wearing a wig.’
This small act of humility does something to my insides. Delilah’s never struck me as the compassionate type. She seems a little too self-centred for that.
I guess it goes to show that you shouldn’t judge people before you get to know them – something I’ve deliberately been avoiding doing with Delilah since she started here. It seemed too risky, considering the way she looks at me from under her lashes with such intensity, like she’s sizing me up for a fling.
Despite my annoyance with her, I feel my skin prickle at the thought of it. It’s been a while since I had sex and the lack of it is clearly getting to me.
My gaze drops to that perfect cupid’s bow on her top lip. It’s so pretty, I want to run my finger over the undulations of it. But I know where that could eventually lead and that’s the last thing I should be getting into.
Huh . That’s strange. There’s a small, faint scar on her top lip, just to the right of the bow, that I’ve never noticed before. Not that I’ve spent a lot of time looking at her mouth. Or at least, I’ve tried not to. And I really shouldn’t be doing it now. She might read more into it than just idle curiosity.
Glancing back up, my gaze locks with hers and a strange connection seems to pass between us, like the air’s alive with the potential for something wholly improper to happen here. She’s staring back at me as if she’s thinking the same thing I am.
My heartbeat picks up its pace and I feel it thudding in my chest.
Ah hell. This isn’t good. I really need to kill this. Right now.
‘Okay, fine. Keep it on today, but I want it gone by tomorrow. Is everything set for this morning?’ I ask, to distract myself from my wayward thoughts.
She seems to snap to attention at my question and raises a folder she’s had tucked under her arm. ‘I think so, yes. I’m just going to go over everything to make sure.’
‘Good,’ I say, then turn and get out of there, away from her unnerving presence and the inappropriate impulses she’s teasing from me.
This event’s in her hands now so I should leave her to it.
I head back to the reception desk to check whether Harry’s arrived yet, my blood still pulsing hard through my veins.
Just as I’m walking into reception, I see the heavy oak front door swing open and Harry comes striding in.
‘Hey, man,’ he says, giving me a salute. ‘How’s it going? Are we all set?’
‘Yeah, good. We’re ready,’ I say, going over to clap him on the back, hoping to God that Delilah isn’t going to make me look like an idiot today.
‘Cool, I’ll head to the room and get my laptop set up with your projector then. The team should be arriving in fifteen.’
‘No problem. Delilah should be here in a minute, ready to greet them.’
‘Ah, the lovely Delilah,’ Harry says, his voice heavy with meaning. He met her briefly last week and seemed pretty taken with her. He even went so far as to suggest she might be a good distraction for me, since I’ve totally failed to get back in the dating game, like he’s been urging me to do.
Harry never really took to Tessa, so he wasn’t entirely surprised, or concerned, when she took off.
I wait till Harry heads off to the room we’re using to host his investor’s meeting in today, then walk out of the main hotel doors for a breath of air.
Turning back to survey the building, I feel the usual rush of affection for the impressive, honey-coloured, stone-fronted grandeur of the house.
Gladbrooke House is a Grade I listed Georgian country manor, surrounded by a hundred acres of fields and woodland just south of Bath, and the place I most feel at home. There’s something about it that makes me feel happy to be here. It has such a warm, comforting air. Despite the neglect it’s seen, it still feels as though it’s hosted a lot of happy memories throughout its existence.
My father bought the place in the noughties in order to ‘diversify his portfolio’.
The previous owner had been pummelled by inheritance tax and had totally let the place go, before reluctantly selling up, so it was in a real state for a number of years.
My dad brought in a team of people to bring it back to life from the broken-down wreck it had been, but he didn’t spend the money on it that it really needed. So it just sat there, unloved for most months of the year while he was off performing on his international tours.
Since my brother and I were at boarding school from the age of seven, we only got to visit here sporadically during the holidays when we were young. My mum and dad never married and they split up when I was eight, so after that, I came here less than half the time, spending the rest of it in London with Mum and her new partner, or in one of my dad’s other homes around the world. I’ve always loved the place though and during the breaks from university, I used to invite friends to come and stay and we’d have wild parties here.
Good times.
Last year, after my stint in rehab, my dad offered it to me as a bolthole till I was back on my feet. He’d been intending to put the place on the market but hadn’t quite got round to it. He has very little attention these days for anything other than playing with his band or living a sun-drenched, booze-soaked life on the Italian coast with his fitness-obsessed new wife.
Rock stars. What a charmed life they live.
I’d thought for a while that that’s what I wanted from my life too, but when it came down to it, it turned out I wasn’t cut out for it. The expectation that I’d be as successful as my old man weighed heavy on me.
From the outside, it must have looked like I’d got everything I wanted in life – but in reality, it didn’t feel like that.
As an unconscious response, I let myself get sucked into the partying lifestyle around it and ended up turning to booze and drugs to prop me up and turn off the fear and self-loathing I felt.
Which led to me completely losing the plot, my career and any kind of status I’d worked to achieve.
So that’s how I ended up here, keeping a low profile and trying to make a fresh start in a new profession.
I’m determined to make my own mark on the world now, independent of my dad’s fame.
I’ve persuaded him to let me run the place as a boutique hotel for a year, partly so we could keep the house that means more to me than any other in the family, but also because I was struggling with what to do with myself at that point after my music career hit a brick wall. For once, he didn’t give me any shit about the sorry state of my existence and gracefully agreed to let me ‘do my best’ with it.
I have six months left to prove I can make a success of it as a business so I can apply for a loan to buy the place off him.
To prove to everyone that I can stand on my own two feet.
That I’m not the waste of space some people have me pegged as.
I’ve devised some grand plans for moving the business forward, now I’m in the right mindset to take them on, some of which have had to go on the backburner for now. I’m hoping Dee will be able to help me bring them to fruition, now that Tessa’s fucked off.
It was meant to be the two of us doing this together, but that’s never going to happen now.
Despite her initial reluctance to leave London and move here, I’d thought Tessa had seemed to come round to the idea of running the hotel with me.
When we first opened to the public, we offered bed and breakfast accommodation in five of the twenty rooms, which we’d updated to luxury standard, thanks to the money I raised from selling my flat in London. The rest of them still need a lot of money spending on them to bring them up to scratch though, which I was hoping to fund through profits, so they’re an ongoing project.
The whole enterprise was much more of a slog than either of us had anticipated.
A marriage wrecker – if we’d actually got married, like we’d planned to.
Trouble was, I didn’t want to use my fame to bring in business, so I kept a low profile, leaving Tessa to be the face of the hotel. But it turned out that people coming to stay were there to try and catch sight of me – and the fucked-up mess I was after becoming such a social pariah – which frustrated both them and Tessa.
I wasn’t in any kind of state to face the judgemental stares of strangers though and once word got out that I was nowhere to be seen, visitor numbers and bookings started to dwindle.
This didn’t sit well with Tessa at all.
I run a hand over my face, trying to dispel the tension that always pops up whenever I think about how our relationship imploded.
Those first weeks after she left are a total blur now. I spent most of the time drunk. But after Harry’s take-no-prisoners intervention, I managed to get my shit together. Not that I haven’t thought about reaching for the bottle pretty much every morning since. But I promised him I’d not rely on the demon booze to get through my days any more.
And I, at least, am a person of my word.
Trouble is, it’s now become clear that running things here single-handedly isn’t going to be as straightforward as I’d imagined.
I’d thought word of mouth would be enough to get new business in, but it seems I can’t rely on that to bring in enough regular revenue in low season. So I now need to consider whether it’s worth the stress and hassle to keep the place going and I’m feeling the pressure of only having six months left to prove that either way.
The sound of a car coming up the long, tree-lined driveway towards the house distracts me from my thoughts and I turn around to see that Harry’s associates are starting to arrive.
Okay then, here we go. Show time.