Page 32

The air was abuzz with the chatter of guests checking out and leaving the breakfast room. Mia could smell coffee, but Rachel was taking care of the breakfast service this morning.

She stood behind the desk, shuffling through a stack of paperwork, fingers busy though she was barely looking at what she was doing. For the past few days, it was like she was on autopilot, shifting through her work like she was walking through a fog. The monotony of it all was strangely comforting. But the second her hands stilled, her brain started working, and then there were questions that she just wasn’t ready to answer.

Like, what now?

She’d cut ties with the life she’d always been told that she should want. She’d told Mikey the truth, made it clear to her parents that she wasn’t coming back, that she wasn’t stepping into the polished, predictable future they’d mapped out for her. Which was all very well and good.

But she hadn’t thought beyond that. It was like standing on the edge of a vast, empty field with no sign of a footpath. Limitless and enormous and frightening.

And then there was Luna.

Mia swallowed hard, grabbing a cloth from under the desk and starting to polish maniacally, though there was no dust left to clean. She’d done everything she could not to see Luna, to push her away, to convince herself that she was making all her decisions logically and without influence. But in the end, had it made any difference?

Yes, she’d overheard things she shouldn’t have. But she wasn’t foolish enough to think that that should be the end of things. Luna should have her say, have her chance to explain herself. Yet she’d never given her that chance.

What if love was never the problem? What if it was her own fear, her instinct to retreat when things got messy, that had driven Luna away?

Would bikini-lady, laughing in the changing rooms, have pushed away someone so wild and free and beautiful?

“Mia?”

She looked up to see Rachel standing in the doorway of her office, her sharp but kind gaze assessing her carefully. “You’re going to take all the polish off that counter. Got a minute?”

Mia nodded and followed Rachel into the back office.

The windows were opening, letting in stifling air. Shelves lined the walls, filled with old ledgers and pictures of the hotel in its earlier days. Rachel poured coffee from a pot into two mugs and then nodded for Mia to sit. Mia obeyed, curiosity flickering in her chest.

“You’ve been doing good work here, Mia.”

“Thanks.”

Mia fidgeted with the hem of her sundress, unsure where this was going. Was she about to get fired? Had she overstayed her welcome?

Rachel exhaled, still watching her carefully. “I’m not going to interfere, love. What you do is your own business. But now that you’re free to make your own choices, just what is it that you’re going to do?”

Mia hesitated, then shrugged. “Honestly? I really don’t know.”

With a nod, as if she had expected that answer, Rachel smiled. “I want to offer you something, in that case. A permanent job here. More responsibility. A bigger role in running things. I’m not getting any younger, and I need to think about the future around here.”

Mia blinked. This wasn’t what she’d expected. “What? Why me?”

she blurted out without thinking.

“Because you remind me of me,”

Rachel chuckled. “All at a crossroads and confused. I was like that once.”

She leaned back in her chair, her eyes drifting toward a photograph on the shelf. A picture of an older man with kind eyes and a knowing smile, a hefty seventies mustache and bushy hair. “I was supposed to be a lawyer,”

she said softly. “That’s what my dad was. That’s what my parents wanted.”

“You?”

Mia said disbelievingly. It was hard to imagine slightly dotty Rachel as a lawyer.

“I went to university and everything,”

Rachel said. “And I hated it. Every second.”

Mia listened, intrigued.

“So, I ran,”

Rachel said with a wry smile. “Just like you. I ran, and I ended up here, which isn’t that difficult since a main road runs right by the town. I was broke and unsure and didn’t know what the hell to do. So I came here, knocking on the back door, asking if they needed maids or whatever. The owner took me in. He gave me a job. A place to stay.”

Mia looked at the photograph, the pieces suddenly clicking into place. “He meant a lot to you, didn’t he?”

For a second she didn’t think Rachel was going to answer, but finally, she nodded. “He was more than a mentor.”

“You loved him?”

pressed Mia.

Rachel sighed. “It was complicated. He was so much older than me. We… we never told anyone.”

She looked up fiercely. “But I don’t regret it. Not a moment of it.”

She rubbed her finger over the edge of her coffee cup. “I miss him.”

Mia digested all this, the weight of Rachel’s words settling deep in her chest. Love wasn’t simple, like Sam had pointed out. It wasn’t always easy. It required work. But that didn’t make it any less real.

She could see from Rachel’s face that she was lost in memories, pleasant ones. She was smiling a little dreamily. And Mia wondered if she looked like that when she was lost in daydreams about Luna.

“How did you know?”

she asked.

“Know what?”

Rachel said, coming to her senses.

“That you loved him.”

Rachel smiled. “Because every moment spent with him gave me something. Gave me life, I suppose. Even when we were fighting, I’d never have wanted to be with anyone else. Because he set my soul on fire and tended those flames like they were his children. A blaze like that never goes out.”

Mia closed her eyes, tried to imagine her life without Luna in it, tried to imagine tamping down the flames inside her and moving on with her life. And she wasn’t sure that she could do it.

“What do you do when you’re scared?”

she asked quietly.

Rachel laughed. “Do it anyway,”

she said. “Because on the other side of fear is happiness. You don’t get anything for nothing in this life, Mia. You have to work for it, prove you deserve it. Overcoming that fear is the price you have to pay to get what you truly deserve.”

She did love Luna, she could say that now. But that fear, the fear of stepping into a life she didn’t fully understand, the fear of the unknown, the fear of choosing something that might not come with a guarantee of safety… Mia bit her lip.

“Maybe I ruined it,”

she said, almost to herself. “Maybe it’s too late.”

“It’s only too late if you don’t do anything about it.”

She opened her eyes.

“Mia, my love, you can’t live in this limbo forever. The not-deciding becomes deciding after a while. If you don’t do something for long enough, then life reverts to the default, and you don’t ever do that thing. You’re an adult. You’ve had your summer of indecision, time to find yourself, to discover what you want. Now you’re just being silly. You need to make some decisions in life.”

“You’re right,”

Mia said. “I know that you’re right.”

“Well, let’s start with this. The hotel belongs to me outright. I’ve no children. I’ve got a niece somewhere in Devon that never sends a birthday card.”

“What are you implying?” Mia said.

“Exactly what you think. I think you could flourish here, I think the hotel would do well under your care. I’m not on my last legs yet, but I’d like to know that the place is going to be looked after.”

“Rachel, I couldn’t—”

“Why not? I did,”

Rachel said comfortably. “And no promises. You’ll have to work for it. But first you’ve got to decide to stay.”

A breeze blew in through the window, and a soft rumble of thunder sounded in the hills. Mia grinned. “Yes.”

“Wasn’t that easy?”

Rachel said, picking up her coffee cup. “Now all that’s left to do is deal with Luna.”

Mia’s heart pounded. She’d decided to stop running, decided to make a decision. But now she had to decide whether she was really going to fight for something that mattered. For something life changing and soul burning. For Luna.