Page 5 of Never Been Witched (Starfall Point #3)

Collin

It was unsettling, the way Starfall Pointers stopped talking the moment Collin entered a room.

He supposed there was a certain amount that was expected when you entered a room full of your employees, most of whom who had only known you as their boss for about two days.

Still, the sudden cessation of whispering sort of stung, like he was too stupid to realize they were talking about him.

Still, they could have changed the subject and talked nonsense about something. The foliage. The weather. Football. Michiganders loved to talk about football. Anything to prevent this stifling cloud of conversational awkwardness.

Collin thought of the enchanting Alice Seastairs and her friends.

During his strange encounter with them at the antique shop, they were clearly talking about something not immediately obvious to Collin—Alice with her “more talented” comment and Mina’s references to “novelty.” But they’d been kind enough to pretend it was part of the conversation they were having with him.

It had been a categorically odd morning, he decided as he walked up the elegant staircase that defined the lobby of the Duchess Hotel.

When his family built the hotel, workmen had carved the staircase from walnut imported all the way from England; it had served as the focal point for many a dramatic entrance.

Debutantes and brides, politicians and celebrities, the famous and infamous had retreated for restorative, occasionally scandalous, summers at the Duchess from the moment it opened on the shore of Lake Huron in 1902.

Adorned in pristine white clapboard, the Duchess was square and blockish, emphasizing the real treasure of the property, which was the view.

The Duchess stood on a small peninsula, giving it much-desired waterfront views from the lobby section that faced the lake broadside and two guest wings flexing back toward Main Square.

Each room on its second and third stories had its own little balcony and a stunning view.

The roof tiles were a distinctive brick red that looked like feathers flared back.

The building gave an overall impression of a sturdy, if slightly ostentatious, seabird ready to take flight.

Back then, the Bancroft family had a single focus: providing five-star accommodations off the beaten path for the well-off seeking a little privacy with their opulence.

Generations of Bancrofts had made their money in shipping lines, mining, newspapers, and mysterious military contracts that probably weren’t entirely conscientious.

They’d wanted somewhere they could retreat that wasn’t already populated by other financial luminaries they saw in their daily lives, like Newport and Denver were.

The family legend went that Forsythe Bancroft III saw enough of his robber baron contemporaries in New York City on a daily basis, so when he escaped, he wanted to escape.

He had been a rare titan of industry who had genuinely doted on his wife and children, and he had wanted his time with them to be free of scheming social climbers and business meetings disguised as friendly morning calls.

First, Forsythe constructed Forsythia Manor, the family’s sumptuous “beach shack.” In the early spring, the yard was ablaze in yellow from the bushes for which he’d named the house—a clever twist on his own name.

Then, Forsythe realized that there was money to be made in Starfall Point.

He could enjoy the pastimes the hotel had to offer—boating, beaches, croquet, pastry chefs who would sneak him sweets when his wife wasn’t looking—while watching it make him money, which was his favorite pastime.

And when he wanted, he could retreat to his own exclusive family space.

Construction of the Duchess Hotel had been careful and deliberate, resulting in a building that was comfortable and luxurious, but sturdy enough that it had been used as a storm shelter for the island’s entire population on multiple occasions over the years.

At the time, there were some rampant rumors that the hotel was being built for a duchess—no one was sure who or from where—who was planning a visit to Starfall Point for reasons unknown.

For his own amusement, Forsythe chose to name the hotel after the gossip, since the family vacation home was named after himself.

Despite this initial enthusiasm, Forsythe sold the hotel to a family friend—another robber baron type—a few years after it was completed.

Collin’s parents told him that the project had simply demanded too much attention from an industrialist with extensive business interests, but Forsythe had kept the manor house for the family’s use.

The hotel had exchanged hands multiple times over the years, between family owners and corporate chains, before the Gilford Family Hotel Group gifted the Duchess to their youngest daughter, Aura.

The Instagram-conscious socialite-slash-aspiring-lifestyle-guru spent most of the early 2000s trying to turn the Duchess into the Michigan version of an ultramodern luxury boutique hotel.

She even tried to change the name to The Hotel D.

It didn’t go well.

But somehow—most likely because Forsythia Manor stood so close to the hotel—the island’s residents still seemed to think of the hotel as belonging to the Bancrofts.

It had been odd, growing up so closely associated with something he had no real connection with or power over.

Collin’s parents only inherited a share of Forsythia Manor because the family tree had dwindled down to a handful of (extremely wealthy) people by the time Collin was born.

He’d spent childhood summers staring up at the hotel from the manor house lawn, wondering how their family had let such a gem slip out of their hands.

Not only that, but the family had largely avoided the property.

They didn’t sleep there. His parents didn’t eat at the hotel restaurant or use the pool or any of the other amenities. It felt like a waste.

Purchasing the Duchess a few months earlier had been the culmination of Collin’s lifetime dream, including years spent learning the hotel business from the ground up, careful investments of his late parents’ resources, and making his move when Aura was looking to off-load a property that wasn’t as profitable as it once had been.

And, yes, maybe he had taken advantage of their tenuous, friend-of-a-friend, “grew up in the same circle” acquaintance, but his offer had been for fair market value.

The market just wasn’t great at the moment.

Even now, the lobby was not as crowded as Collin would like.

At this time of year, they should have been enjoying late-summer crowds eager to make the most of Michigan’s last balmy, humidity-free days before the school year started.

He couldn’t get his general manager, Robert, to show him what the actual occupancy rate was, but Collin could tell that it was way below what it should have been.

He turned right and paused at the entrance of the second-floor office suite, pricking his ears as lobby conversation rekindled.

He shook his head, smiling to himself despite the dilemma of what to do about Robert, who considered himself an indispensable fixture of the hotel.

Collin had kept Robert on as manager on a probationary basis in an attempt to maintain some continuity of operation and comfort for the staff.

Robert, who was currently sitting in Collin’s chair with his feet up on Collin’s oversize antique walnut desk.

Collin made plenty of noise while entering the office, thinking to give Robert an opportunity to rectify his error.

To his surprise, Robert didn’t seem remotely embarrassed by his posture and didn’t move to take his shoes off the shining wooden surface.

In fact, Robert’s smart blue suit jacket was hanging on a brass clotheshorse in the corner, near the dark fireplace. He looked very comfortable.

Collin supposed he couldn’t blame Robert for wanting to use this office, to keep his own award plaques and yuppie executive toys on a desk that was no longer his.

Collin could only be grateful that Aura hadn’t liked the “vibe” of the space and had elected not to remake it in the bright orange tones she’d splashed all over the rest of the hotel.

The owners, over the years, seemed to have respected the original elegance of this office, with its dark-wood floor-to-ceiling bookshelves over every wall not covered in navy-and-cream watered-silk wallpaper.

It also offered a beautiful view of the water, had lots of space, and housed a ridiculously oversize sailboat in a bottle that had apparently belonged to Forsythe Bancroft III himself.

“Collin, my boy, how’s your morning going?” Robert asked, his florid face peering over his copy of the Detroit Free Press . “So glad to have you bringing your expertise to the hotel after all this time.”

Collin paused to force his jaw to relax.

He’d be without tooth enamel within a week if he kept this up.

Insincere toadying aside, Robert seemed to enjoy calling Collin “my boy” just a little too much.

Collin supposed it was to be expected, as Robert had started working at the hotel as a bellhop when Collin was just a kid.

“That’s my desk,” Collin noted, staring pointedly at Robert’s shoes.

Robert dodged this comment with a cheerful shrug. “Well, I’ve been using it for so long, I really didn’t see much point in changing now. I believe it’s appropriate for me to use this workspace for my daily duties. And I’m very comfortable here.”