Page 74 of Highland Getaway
‘Bet you can’t,’ I reply, annoyed by his confidence, and how much it reminds me of my gaslighting ex. ‘But you can give it a try. I can’t wait to hear it.’
I lean back against the rough wall of the cellar, my arms folded across my chest.
‘OK. Right. Well. Where to start?’
Hunter sits heavily down on top of a barrel and scratches his head, looking lost.
‘How about starting with you being the Laird’s nephew,’ I say helpfully. ‘And then you could move on to the bit where you’ve been scheming to sell the hotel behind everyone’s backs?’
He looks at me warily.
‘I wouldn’t call it “scheming”, exactly,’ he says, in a tone that suggests he knows he’s not off to a strong start here. ‘I’m just trying to do the best I can for everyone, Rosie. This deal with WanderNest –ifit happens, and that’s still a pretty big if, mind – is worth a fortune. Way more than we could ever hope to make without them. It would—’
‘So it’s all about the money, then?’ I interrupt, struggling to reconcile the man who sneered at the so-called materialism of influencer culture with the one in front of me, who’s apparently willing to sell his family’s inheritance to the highest bidder. ‘You just want to make as much as you can, then go back to Glasgow with your .?.?. your spoils?’
‘No,’ he protests, stung. ‘No, it’s not like that at all. I don’t care about the money. I’ve never cared about the money. It’s Dougie I worry about.’
‘Dougie?’ I blink, wondering if he has another child he’s neglected to mention.
‘Douglas. Lord Glenmuir,’ he explains. ‘He’s the one who needs the money. God knows, there’s none of it left.’
He rubs his eyes, and I somehow get the feeling this is an old worry of his; one he’s used to poking at, and prodding, and turning around in his hands without ever really solving.
‘Do you have any idea how much it costs to run a place like this, Rosie?’ Hunter says quietly, looking at me through his fingers. ‘I don’t just mean as a hotel; I mean the building alone. The heat, the light, the non-stop maintenance.’
I shrug, thinking about the flat I used to rent in London, and how extortionate everything connected to it was. I can only imagine what the upkeep a place the size of the Chrysalis must be.
‘It’s a lot,’ Hunter goes on, without waiting for an answer. ‘And Dougie .?.?. well, let’s just say, he hasn’t always stayed on top of things, financially speaking. There’s .?.?. well, there’s debt. Quite a bit of it, actually.’
‘I know the feeling,’ I mutter, surprised to find I have something in common with Lord Glenmuir. ‘That doesn’t mean selling up is the only option, though. Especially when you haven’t even given the place a chance. You never know, the launch could go really well. The hotel could take offwithoutWanderNest and their money. You haven’t even tried, Hunter. How can you give up on it without even trying?’
‘Think about it, Rosie,’ Hunter says. ‘People don’t want boutique hotels anymore. We’re right on the route of the North Coast 500. We’re competing with people in camper vans and tents. With glamping pods and budget hostels. And here we are, trying to market ourselves as a luxury five-star spa hotel. I’ve done my best to cut as many costs as I can, but I had to take out a loan for the renovation and the extension, so now I need to cover that, too. It’s not going to work. I can already tell it’s not going to work.’
He shakes his head despairingly, and I’m tempted to go over and shakehimright along with it.
‘You don’t know that,’ I tell him stubbornly. ‘You’re being ridiculously defeatist about it. The only way you can know for sure that it won’t work is if you don’t even try.’
‘I’ve run the numbers, Rosie,’ Hunter says, as if I haven’t spoken. ‘Over and over again. We have fifteen bedrooms; all of them huge. WanderNest could triple that easily.’
‘How?’ I ask. ‘By taking everything that’s unique and special about the place and turning it into something ordinary? That’s going to be your gimmick, is it?’
I take a deep breath, aware that I’m starting to sound like Millie.
‘No. No, that’s not what I’m talking about,’ Hunter says, his voice rising to match mine. ‘What do you take me for, Rosie? I’m not some vandal, willing to destroy the place for the sake of a few pounds. I’m trying tosaveit. I don’t know why you can’t see that? And I’m from Edinburgh, by the way,’ he adds, almost as an afterthought. ‘I don’t know where everyone’s getting this Glasgow thing from.’
‘Sorry,’ I reply, flicking my hair over my shoulder. ‘I didn’t know. Just like I didn’t know you were the Laird’s nephew, say. I’m starting to think there’s a lot I don’t know about you, actually.’
‘You’ve only known me for a few days,’ he points out, not unreasonably. ‘I’m sure there’s probably a lot I don’t know about you, either.’
I pause, momentarily wrong-footed.
He does have a point there, actually.
‘I know we haven’t known each other long,’ I say, slightly less confidently. ‘But, even so, that seems like a pretty big detail to leave out, don’t you think?’
‘Not really,’ Hunter says. ‘I haven’t even known about it myself for long, so it’s not the first thing that occurs to me to blurt out to a pretty girl I’ve just met, and who’s only going to be here a few days. And Dante and I had agreed not to tell the staff who I was just yet. I didn’t want them to feel like the owner of the hotel was breathing down their necks all the time,andI wanted to be able to get to know them all without them thinking of me as “the boss”. So it wasn’t just you I kept it from, Rosie; it was everyone.’
I take a ragged breath, my mind desperately trying to latch onto the ‘pretty girl’ comment, but snagging instead on the bit about me only being here for a few days.
