Chapter 4
Four
Reese ached .
Her back.
Her butt.
Her feet.
As she made the fifteen-minute drive to her parents’ house, she was aware of muscle groups in her body that, until today, she hadn’t known existed.
She leaned forward and touched her tailbone, rubbing it gingerly as she tried to keep her eyes on the winding road.
The scenic highway that took her out of town was vibrant with summer foliage, and she kept her windows rolled down, inhaling the smell of salt water and fresh air.
The drive was good for her. Calming.
After the events of today, both physical and mental, she felt wrung out.
What had she gotten herself into?
The inn. That was its own conversation, one that made her stomach churn uncomfortably when she thought about it for too long. Her fingers wrapped more tightly around the wheel, and she took a few deep breaths to keep herself centered.
It would get easier .
It had to get easier.
She would hit her stride. Beg Hallie to stay on full-time or start the search immediately for someone else to manage the day-to-day. Read every book known to humankind on effective management techniques.
But no, apparently she wasn’t busy enough, so she’d decided to take on a pet project to antagonize Grant.
And because she just couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie—namely, her already shitty relationship with her brother—she’d had to rile him up.
At this point, it seemed like a character defect that she wasn’t able to step away gracefully and accept reality.
Grant could have been the least competent person in the world, and it still wouldn’t have changed the fact that her father didn’t see her as the future face of The Devereux Group.
“It’s nothing personal, honey,” she said, mocking his deep voice as she took a curve and the expansiveness of the ocean came into view.
Boats dotted the horizon, the summer sun still high as she navigated the rental car’s quirks. She really needed to have her car shipped from California.
Add it to her already dizzying to-do list.
She had so much to accomplish, but instead of getting her bearings at The Stone’s Throw and closing out her life in San Francisco, she…
A strange sound bubbled out from her throat.
What had she done ?
Gotten caught up with Sydney in some zany idea to torture her brother as he prepared for his wedding? She wouldn’t pretend she was a saint, but even on her worst days, this still felt like a lot of energy to waste on a fruitless endeavor.
Grant would never change.
His wedding would go off without a hitch.
He’d ascend to his rightful place in the world as the head of The Devereux Group once their father retired .
No thirty-minute brainstorm about her and Sydney’s fabricated meet-cute and no well-earned jabs at Grant’s expense would change things.
She looked down at the dashboard clock. Ten minutes until she was late. It didn’t matter that she’d finally returned her mother’s calls this afternoon, after all new check-ins had been completed and the request—or, more accurately, the summons—for dinner had only been three hours away.
She wondered what Grant had already said to their parents. He’d probably run straight back to their too-big house and told a story of woe, about how she was back in town and already trying to ruin his life.
He’d always been good at playing the victim, even as life was served to him on a literal silver spoon.
Beyond the practicalities of whether it was a bad idea or not (it was), uneasiness had settled over Reese as she’d worked through the litany of tasks that helped The Stone’s Throw function each day.
She’d gone to the kitchen with Sydney and Hallie to grab lunch and hatch their ill-conceived plan. The kitchen was chaos personified, even with the small lunch menu the inn had available on weekends for guests and visitors.
Then she’d gone down to the laundry, where she’d strained to heave dozens of pounds of towels and linens into the industrial machines, watching them spin and gurgle and remove any traces of the guests that had used them.
When the sun was high in the sky, she’d shadowed a member of the waitstaff, who served drinks on the patio that overlooked the rocky shoreline.
It had been the only time she’d been outside today. She wanted to spend the upcoming week, when things were hopefully a little slower, familiarizing herself with the property’s grounds, which included a pool and a tennis court that had seen better days.
As she took another curve, the sun glinting off the waves like diamonds, she let the anxious thoughts that had been whirring inside of her take root.
Five months ago, she’d been blindsided.
Megan had been more than her business partner; Reese had thought they were building a life together.
In their second year of business school, Reese had pitched an idea for a hotel management software for one of their projects. Megan, social and affable and vibrant, had given Reese the confidence that the idea had viability.
They’d worked on the project tirelessly, eventually taking it into Stanford’s incubator program for startups and securing their seed funding before graduating.
Megan was the front woman and had happily taken center stage everywhere from TED conferences to meetings with angel investors, a place where Reese had never felt entirely comfortable.
After being told her entire life that she didn’t have the type of main character energy it took to be at the helm of a company, she’d started to believe it.
So while she worked on the engineering and financial sides of things, Megan was focused on getting their name out there and connecting with the right types of properties, the ones who’d be great customers for Checked.
Reese had built the software, one painstaking line of code at a time, tweaking and improving and updating the product until they were ready to go live six months after graduation.
She’d never wanted it to be all hers, but she loved that it was something she’d built, a testament to her hard work and determination.
And in the midst of it all, she’d found more than just a business partner. Megan had kissed her at their business school graduation, and from that moment on, they had become a team, in every sense of the word.
Which was why, even though her company had been ripped away from her, it hadn’t hurt half as much as Megan’s betrayal.
Reese’s skin still felt hot and itchy whenever she thought about the conversation in which Megan had told her that they were selling the company whether she was on board or not.
With their last round of funding, a little over two years ago, they’d owned fifty-one percent of the company between them.
If they’d voted as a team, the company was in their hands.
Reese had always believed that would be the case.
But when Megan put her shares in with the investors, who were eager to see their return realized as soon as possible, it had tipped the scales.
It hadn’t mattered what she wanted because she didn’t have the power to stop what was happening.
Reese didn’t trust herself.
She’d been so blind. So stupid. So trusting.
She’d lost her company. Gotten her heart broken. And then, to prove some sort of misguided point, she’d dumped millions of dollars into a seaside inn, though she had zero practical, day-to-day knowledge of the realities of running a hotel.
So, was throwing herself into this convoluted situation for nothing more than a little ill-advised gratification at her brother’s expense really the right path for her?
By the time her parents’ veritable mansion on the water came into view, she’d talked herself out of the insane plan.
She didn’t need to add this heaping dash of chaos to her life when it was already verging on unsustainable all on its own.
After dinner, she’d go home and let Sydney and Hallie know that she’d made a mistake.
They’d understand. With everything going on, it didn’t make sense.
Easy.
Reese had been inside her parents’ house for fifteen minutes, and already, she was looking around for sharp objects with which to put herself out of her misery.
The fire poker she’d passed when she’d moved through the living room had been a suitable option. Too bad she’d been ushered past too quickly to grab it.
She sat across from Grant, who’d been glaring at her since they’d first made eye contact, stabbing at his salad like he wanted the arugula to be her.
“Reese,” her mom said casually, like it hadn’t been a year since they’d seen one another in person, “I’m shocked you didn’t tell us you’d be in town.”
Last summer, she’d taken a weeklong trip to Stoneport, during which she’d made the ultimate mistake of staying with her parents.
Her mom hadn’t understood the concept of remote work, her dad was barely home before sunrise, and the few dinners he’d had with Grant had been just as painful as the present one.
But instead of mentioning any of that, Reese smiled broadly. “Luckily, good news travels fast.”
Grant scoffed.
Her mom delicately picked at a cranberry in her salad, like she could hardly stomach the idea of consuming so much food. “Will you be summering in Stoneport?”
Sharon Devereux was the quintessential ‘almond mom,’ something she hadn’t given up with age. At fifty-six, she looked like she was in her mid-forties. Reese truly didn’t know who’d win in a footrace between the two of them, and hopefully she’d never have to find out.
Reese took a sip of her wine, wondering if this was the right time to tell them she’d purchased the inn. She hadn’t done it in opposition to her family, not even close. Until today, she’d had no idea they’d even been interested in the property.
For her first venture, she’d wanted a place she was comfortable in, where she understood the people and the town. The mechanics of ownership were all foreign to her, but she knew Stoneport.
“Yes. I’m going to be here through the summer.” Understatement of the year, but they didn’t need to know that .