Page 10 of Brighter Together

“What?”

“The coffee’s hot.”

She disappears inside before I can answer.

I look down at the mug.

Little minx.

Chapter 2

Ella

The heavy entrance door closes behind me with a thud.

Tommy won’t come in this way dressed in his FMR gear. He’s ridiculously strict about standards at Greenview Manor Hotel, including his own, and I’ve seen him stop halfway through reception because he noticed his tie was slightly crooked in the mirror. There’s absolutely no chance he’ll wander through the lobby in muddy rescue trousers while guests are having coffee in the great hall.

He’ll use the staff entrance at the back, shower and reappear in a suit looking as though he hasn’t spent half the morning on a mountain.

“Tommy’s back, so the heads of department meeting will go ahead this afternoon,” I tell Lindsey as I pass reception. “Can you let everyone know?”

“Of course.”

She nods just as an elderly couple approaches the desk, so I leave her to it and carry on towards the stairs leading to the first floor, where Tommy and I have our offices.

I love the Greenview Manor Hotel.

Tommy has somehow managed to make a Victorian hotel feel grand without turning it into the sort of place where you’re scared to put your coffee cup down. The great hall beside reception is my favourite, with stained-glass ceiling overhead, dark wood running along the walls and the huge original fireplace dominating one end of the room.

I pass beneath the stained glass and run my hand briefly over the smooth wooden banister as I start upstairs. The staircase creaks beneath my heels, another little sound I’ve become used to over the last four months.

Tommy was particularly grumpy with me this morning. Not that there’s anything unusual about that.

That’s the thing I can’t quite work out about him. I know he can be lovely. I’ve watched him stop in reception to ask a porter how his exam went, remember returning guests by name and turn up with so many presents for one of the waitresses and her new baby that Anna had to help him carry them in. The staff adore him, the guests adore him, and he gives up what little free time he has for FMR.

Yet the moment I appear, apparently all that charm packs its bags.

With me, he mostly communicates through grunts, frowns and requests delivered as though I’ve personally caused whatever problem he’s trying to solve. A few weeks after I started, I asked Anna whether he was unhappy with my work. She looked genuinely surprised, and for the next three days Tommy was suspiciously pleasant to me, which told me she’d almost certainly said something.

It didn’t last, but by then I was close enough to passing my probation that I’d stopped taking every frown personally and privately christened him Lord Grumpiness instead. These days, if he gets too arsy, I push back just enough to catch that brief look of surprise before he mutters something and retreats into his office.

This morning was much the same, except for his reaction to sir. I can’t help smiling as I reach the first floor. That little word had definitely got to him.

My desk sits in the small office outside Tommy’s. Both rooms used to form the study of the man who originally built Greenview Manor, although somebody committed a crime against interiors along the way and covered the walls in magnolia paint and the floors in beige carpet.

At least the furniture still has some character.

Tommy’s office is marginally less depressing than mine, thanks mostly to the corner windows. One frames the mountains, the other Windermere, dotted with little boats shifting lazily across the water.

I put my tablet beside my laptop and head for the coffee machine. Tommy doesn’t spend much money on himself because most of the hotel profits seem to disappear straight back into the business. New mattresses, refurbished rooms, staff training, better kitchen equipment.

Coffee is the exception.

But not just any coffee. Definitely not the freshly ground stuff they serve downstairs. Apparently only the little capsules from the ridiculously expensive machine in his office meet Tommy Atkinson’s exacting standards.

I load one and leave the cup ready beneath it because he’ll want another after his shower.

The callout came at five this morning. That’s when he texted to say he’d be late because, of course, even whilst heading out to rescue someone, he worries about whether his diary is covered.