Chapter 57
Erin stopped in her tracks as bright lights flashed overhead followed by the sound of popping. One by one, the fireworks whizzed and crackled, shooting into the night sky and ensuring it was way too loud to talk.
But it also meant that everyone, including Mack and Trevor, was distracted, so she took the opportunity to usher an increasingly disheartened Molly away from the bonfire area before either man noticed.
‘Promise me you won’t sign anything yet,’ she urged her and the woman nodded, her face stricken. Much like Erin, she’d evidently started putting the pieces together.
‘You think Mack and Trevor might be working together?’ Molly asked, her tone plaintive. ‘Trevor wouldn’t do that, though. He has family in St Lucia; he wouldn’t agree to help someone else destroy part of his heritage, surely?’
Erin had to agree with that much at least, though she’d seen the promise of money topple the most upstanding person’s principles.
‘I honestly don’t know yet,’ she replied, her thoughts whirring a mile a minute.
While Mack engaging Trevor in his scheme on the fly seemed pretty outlandish, it also made some sense.
A resort insider would’ve discovered ahead of time that Eugenie Cooke’s grieving daughter was scheduled to stay there at a particular time, so enlisting someone she trusted to manipulate the securing of her shareholding made Molly a far easier target.
The fact that her stay here happened to directly coincide with Mack’s apparent scouting of the resort for a so-called partnership was also a convenient ‘coincidence’.
It meant that both men could work in tandem, one softening Molly up, while the other sought to upset day-to-day proceedings in order to weaken the resort’s reputation.
While Erin’s intention first and foremost was to get Molly out of potential harm’s way, she also knew she couldn’t stay away from the event for very long.
She was still on the clock and Grant would be wondering where she was.
Once Erin had ensured the woman was safely back in her room having assured Molly that she’d get to the bottom of everything, she thought back to what Roger had said earlier about the general manager forcing him out of the job ahead of Mack’s visit.
That didn’t make sense either. Surely in order to give The Palms the best chance of securing a partnership, a long-standing staff member – and safe pair of hands, so to speak, someone used to overseeing resort issues – would have been far more preferable to help broker a deal? As opposed to a complete newbie.
Unless …
All of sudden, Erin figured she understood exactly what the general manager’s aim was in employing her, and recalling his most recent fawning, insincere compliments, her fury rose afresh.
It wasn’t because of energy, talent and determination; it was because Grant had wanted, no, expected, Erin to fail.
Well, he was right about one thing at least, she thought, gritting her teeth as she marched back down to the beach to seek out the general manager.
He’d completely underestimated her.