Page 5 of Highland Getaway
‘See?’ he goes on, his Scottish accent contrasting with his Mediterranean looks. ‘No men. Just the ladies.’
‘I understand that,’ replies Daniel Foster, with what’s presumably supposed to be a winning smile. ‘But I’m sure you can make an exception for us. My wife and I come as a package, you see. We’re the Fosters?’
He puts an arm around Bex, and they both look expectantly at the man in front of them, who just stares back at them as blankly as Hunter did when I told him the same thing.
Beside me, Hunter’s mouth twitches as if he’s trying not to laugh.
‘What’s going on here?’
There’s a sudden click-clack of stilettos on tiles as a very slim woman who looks to be in her late forties appears. She has dark, chin-length hair cut into a chic bob, and I could swear the temperature in the room drops a few degrees as she comes clacking up to the little group by the desk.
‘Is there a problem, Dante?’ she says sharply, making it sound like if there is, it’s about to get a whole lot worse.
‘No problem,’ replies Dante, his eyes narrowing at the sight of her. ‘Just a gatecrasher. I’m dealing with him, though.’
‘Agatecrasher?’ says Bex, her green eyes widening in shock in her porcelain face. Combined with the red of her lips, she looks a bit like Snow White; if Snow White had been in the habit of shopping mostly at Harvey Nichols. ‘You’re calling Daniel agatecrasher?’
Stiletto lady’s head whips round so fast I’m amazed it doesn’t make her dizzy.
‘Bex Foster!’ she coos, her whole attitude changing abruptly. ‘And Mr Bex! Well, isn’t this a wonderful surprise?’
‘No,’ says Dante bluntly. ‘It’s not. I have a list. See?’
He holds the list in question out again, and the woman bats it away impatiently.
‘Sabrina Bates,’ she says, shaking hands with each of the Fosters in turn. ‘I’m head of PR for Glow Media, who the Chrysalis have hired to manage their launch. And I know Daniel wasn’ttechnicallyinvited to this event,’ she goes on, glancing at her colleague behind the reception desk, ‘but of course we’d be delighted to have him join us, wouldn’t we, Dante?’
She glares at the man, who immediately returns her look with exactly the same level of ferocity. I can’t help but like him for it.
‘No,’ he says again, shaking his dark mane of hair for good measure. ‘I said no. And I’m the manager of the hotel; you’re just the manager of the PR firm. So I win.’
‘It’s not a competition, Dante,’ Sabrina Bates hisses, leaning in to him. ‘The Fosters are the biggest influencer couple in the UK. Having them both here would be excellent publicity for the hotel. Youdowant this launch to be a success, don’t you?’
She bares her teeth in something that’s presumably supposed to be a smile. Dante bravely bares his own – very white – teeth in return, then shrugs again, before sliding a room key reluctantly across the desk to Bex, who snatches it up as if she’s afraid he might change his mind and take it back.
‘Room number five,’ he says, refusing to meet Sabrina Bates in the eye. ‘I’ll have someone take your suitcases up for you.’
‘And, in the meantime, if you’d both like to come with me, we can have a quick chat about our plans for your stay,’ says Sabrina warmly. ‘I can’t tell you how pleased we are to have you both on board for this launch. It’s going to be so exciting.’
She turns on her stiletto heels and clacks away again, the Fosters following obediently behind her. Now it’s my turn.
I clear my throat nervously as I step up to the reception desk.
This is it.
This is the moment I’m about to be unveiled as the impostor I am, and sent back home again – not that I have a home, as such, to go to – before I even have a chance to change my life.
When I decided to accept the invitation, even though I knew perfectly well it wasn’t mine to accept, my vague plan was to just style it out; to pretend to be as surprised as anyone else to find that Ihadn’t, in fact, been invited to stay at a freaking castle for four days, in exchange for coverage on my Instagram account. As Dante looks up at me, though, his dark eyes registering the slightest flicker of surprise as I approach, looking absolutely nothing like therealRosie Summers, it occurs to me that I should really have thought this through a little more thoroughly. No one’s going to believe I’m an influencer, are they? No one’s going to think that I belong here; because I don’t.
And now I’m about to prove it.
For a split second, I think about turning and running away, just heading straight back out of those double doors and making for the hills I saw from the train on the way here. Well, mountains, really. Very large ones, with snow-capped peaks and jagged sides that I wouldn’t last more than a few minutes on in my strappy sandals and stupid dress.
On second thought, maybe the mountain life isn’t for me after all.
Which means it’s back to plan A: style it out and pretend to be a successful influencer, who has just as much of a right to be here as anyone else.
What could possibly go wrong?
