Page 7 of Brighter Together

Five years later, Greenview Manor is one of the most popular hotels in the Lake District.

Ninety per cent occupancy is a quiet week, and I don’t mind making a few sacrifices to keep it that way.

I park in my space beside the entrance and turn off the engine.

For a few seconds, I don’t move.

I’m shattered.

It’s ten in the morning and I’ve already been awake for five hours, hauled an injured walker off a hillside and missed one business meeting.

Movement near the entrance catches my attention.

Ella.

Of course.

She walks towards me carrying her tablet in one hand and a mug in the other, chestnut hair pinned up in the loose style she wears most days.

And there’s the pencil skirt.

Fucking thing.

I close my eyes briefly.

This is precisely why I’m grumpy around her.

I can either maintain a sensible professional distance or spend my working day staring at my assistant’s arse.

I force myself to choose professional distance.

Mostly.

When I get out of the car, Ella gives me the same bright smile she gives everyone else.

“Morning, sir.”

Fuck.

She says it perfectly innocently.

My brain does not receive it innocently.

“Tommy is fine.”

Her eyebrows lift. “Not a fan of sir?”

“Not particularly.”

“Good to know.” The corner of her mouth twitches. “Morning, Tommy.”

Somehow that isn’t much better.

“I moved your meeting with the laundry company to tomorrow morning,” she says. “Mr Hughes was very understanding once I explained you’d been called out with FMR.”

“You told him that?”

“You were.”