“For now,” said Marian, glumly collecting the plates. “See you in a week, Gaspard.”

Chapter 9

T he following week, Isla walked up the steps of the hotel somewhat tentatively.

She’d been to the Rock before, normally to help waitress at parties. But that was different; then she was just in and out the back door in a black skirt and a white shirt, handing round haggis canapés and refilling people’s glasses, except for Wullie Stevenson, who wanted his filled a tad too often, even by Colton’s generous standards.

She’d never really thought of it as anything other than the big house, the hotel. She’d never considered that one day it might be a place where she worked every day.

Nervously, she fiddled with the zip of her padded jacket. Would she be able to handle such a big job? Flora seemed to have confidence in her, but wasn’t it just that Flora was so distracted with the baby and that grumpy boyfriend? And Fintan being so miserable that he wouldn’t even care?

Isla hadn’t always lacked confidence. Not when her dad . . .

Well. There was no point thinking about that now.

The huge oak doors were propped open and a bright fire was burning in the grate. The receptionist, Gala, was a beautiful American girl, a niece of a colleague of Colton’s who was supposedly on work experience and had gotten rather more than she bargained for, but she was friendly enough.

“Isla! Yeah! Sure! Got your name right here!” chirruped Gala.

Isla glanced around. Beyond the welcoming hallway with the flickering fire, the restaurant was sitting cold and empty and the kitchen lay cold and bare. There were so many chairs to fill, so many mouths to feed. Flora kept saying it was just a bigger version of what she was already doing and that there’d be a boss in place, but she wasn’t sure. Not at all.

She passed on through the heavy oak doors at the back of the restaurant into the kitchen. It was huge! State-of-the-art burners and grills, walk-in freezers, a wood-burning oven for bread—wow. Colton had stinted on nothing. Lines of shelving with butter, eggs, flour, everything she could conceivably need, tidy and neat and brand-new.

Well, maybe, she thought. Maybe she could make this work. Her dad would have been pleased. Roddy had adored his only child. Lost in a fishing accident, the industry as dangerous as ever it was, his death had broken everyone’s hearts. Especially his daughter’s. It had turned her mother’s heart hard as flint, everyone said.

ISLA WAS FIRST, but it was a day of arrivals at the Rock, and Flora somehow found herself turning up to help Fintan welcome the new chef. The servants’ rooms on the very top floor of the house had been repurposed to be as comfortable as possible for seasonal staff; Gala had already taken the best one on the corner.

Fintan had gone down to the dock to meet Gaspard off the ferry. Isla found him and looked up at him shyly; she was slightly terrified of him.