Cover

Dedication

A special thank you to Suzanne Matthews for answering my many questions and sharing her experience in hotel management.

Chapter 1

“Coconut shrimp?” The tuxedo-clad waiter held out the silver platter of plump shrimp that were lightly battered, coated with toasted coconut and fried to a golden crisp. Paula never said no to coconut shrimp. She took two and a paper napkin.

“Thank you, Tony.”

The server nodded and wandered off to the next guest. Paula ate her shrimp and took a sip of chardonnay as she glanced around the event and back at the hotel itself. Everything was going beautifully, so far. About a hundred and twenty people were sipping cocktails and nibbling on passed hors d’oeuvres before heading into the hotel ballroom for the dinner part of the wine tasting.

It was a perfect night. A warm, early May evening with soft breezes coming off the shore. If Paula turned, she could watch the sun set over Nantucket Harbor. But her attention was focused on the people milling about. She thought, not for the first time, when they’d held events on the front lawn that it reminded her of The Great Gatsby. The rolling lawn was so expansive and green. The crowd attending the event was elegantly attired—the women in flowing dresses, the men in expensive suits and in the distance, there was a well-dressed family playing croquet.

This event was the most desired of the many events that happened during the Nantucket Wine Festival. All week, various dinners and wine-related events took place at restaurants all over Nantucket. That was in addition to the wine festival itself, which was a fun event, an afternoon or evening of roaming around and tasting hundreds of wines. Of all the wine dinners, the one at The Whitley Hotel, was the most expensive and sold out the fastest.

Paula glanced at the time on her phone. She was waiting for her grandfather to arrive. She’d offered to pick him up at the airport, but he wouldn’t hear of it and insisted she send one of the hotel drivers. He knew she was knee-deep in financials as they were bringing in some kind of a consultant and he’d asked her to pull years of financial data to send to him. He hadn’t explained what the consultant was going to do with the information, but that was fairly typical too. She knew he’d reveal his plans when he was ready to. Her grandfather always had a flair for drama. He’d texted her an hour ago that his plane had been delayed and again she offered to come get him, but he insisted that she stay and keep an eye on the event. She wasn’t in charge of it, that wasn’t her role at the hotel, but he trusted her to be there and to help out if needed.