‘Happy New Year, Jim,’ he muttered to himself as he perched on a cold stone bench and saluted the popping fireworks with the bottle before taking a swig. Most people, he knew, would have balked at working over New Year, but Jim had to admit he loved it. The castle was the star tonight, of course, but he had revelled in the attention too, the admiring glances, the back-slapping.
After all, it had only been eighteen months earlier that he’d found this place. He’d been on his way to a grouse shoot, taken a wrong fork in the road, and stumbled across the tumbledown Scottish pile belonging to the elderly lord. As a hotel investment manager with over fifteen years’ experience, he had seen Munroe’s potential immediately – the picture-perfect position on the edge of a heather-fringed loch – and wasted no time contacting Brodie to see if he would sell. At first the old man had been reluctant to negotiate, but Jim had won him around eventually. And now here it was, just over a year later, the hottest new resort in Europe and the crowning glory of the company’s hotel collection.
Drinking champagne from the half-empty bottle, he felt a pang of guilt at turning R
ichard Brodie away from the party. He resolved to call him tomorrow, invite him to spend a complimentary evening at Munroe. He would even throw in a round of golf, he decided, not quite able to shake the sense that he had not behaved entirely honourably.
Pushing his hand into his pocket, he burrowed around to find what Celine Wood has deposited in there a few minutes earlier. He was half expecting, half hoping that it would be her phone number – on reflection, the way she’d wiped her lipstick from the edge of his mouth had been very suggestive. Instead he held out his palm and looked at the wrap of cocaine nestled in its centre.
It tempted him for a moment, but then he gave a soft snort, thinking better of it. Class A drugs were definitely not the answer.
‘I thought it was you disappearing into the darkness,’ said a deep, accented voice.
‘Simon,’ said Jim, standing up and pushing the wrap quickly back into his pocket as he spotted his boss. ‘Sorry, just wanted a breather for a moment.’
‘Sit back down,’ said Simon Desai, waving an impatient hand.
The chairman of the Mumbai-based global conglomerate that owned Omari Hotels unfastened the single button on his dinner jacket and took a seat next to Jim on the bench. Jim couldn’t resist a smile of quiet validation. Here he was, on New Year’s Eve, shooting the breeze with one of the world’s richest men. Admittedly he was only the hired help, but it wasn’t a bad place to find yourself the year you were turning forty.
‘So you did it,’ said Simon finally.
‘We did it. Without your commitment, we’d still be draining the moat about now.’ Although he had spent almost every waking hour on the renovation of Munroe, Jim knew that he had only managed to deliver a fully working luxury hotel because of Simon’s willingness to pour money into the project.
He’d often wondered why Simon bothered with boutique hotels. His empire was vast, spanning every industry from steel to fizzy drinks, and Jim was sure that every single one of his other companies was more profitable and less risk than Omari. But as a shower of golden light sprayed across the black sky like an iridescent willow tree, a babble of laughter playing as its backdrop, Jim knew exactly why he did.
‘Hotels are magic, Jim,’ said Simon, as if he were reading his thoughts. ‘Growing up, I slept on a mattress on the floor with my two brothers. There was no running water in our house, no glass in the windows. But the view – you should have seen it.’ He sighed softly. ‘From our front step you could see the turrets of the Jaipur Palace, the most beautiful hotel in the province, and every night I wondered what it would be like to step inside, how soft the beds would be, what they ate for supper. But after a while it wasn’t enough to wonder. I decided to find out for myself what it was like, so I worked for two whole years to afford a night in the smallest room.’
‘And was it everything you’d hoped?’ smiled Jim.
‘It was. I felt like a king. I thought, “What if anyone could have this? What if living like a king was available to everyone, if only for one night?” That’s where it all started. Within ten years, I’d bought the Jaipur Palace.’
‘You’re such an old romantic,’ grinned Jim, finishing off the last of the champagne.
‘I was a shrewd businessman.’ Simon shrugged nostalgically. ‘So where next?’ he asked a little more brusquely.
Jim cleared his throat. ‘Well, there’s an excellent property coming on the market in Hvar. Personally, I think it’s the new Saint-Tropez. It’s beachfront, a twenty-five-acre site . . .’
Simon shook his head. ‘We have four of the top properties in Europe, Jim, all within two hours of one another. Where we need to expand is in North America.’
‘America’s a saturated market.’
‘It’s a mature market for sure,’ said Simon, ‘but it’s still the biggest travel market in the world.’
‘So where were you thinking?’
‘Somewhere it’s warm all year round. When it’s five degrees on the Hudson, we want somewhere people from New York and DC can escape to that doesn’t involve putting on a goose-down parka.’
‘Florida?’ suggested Jim. ‘Though most of the interesting properties in Miami have been sold, and we’d be paying top dollar for any strip of coast.’
Simon put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m not interested in those beachfront carbuncles. Look at this,’ he said, nodding towards the ramparts. ‘Omari properties have history. They are properties of significance.
‘I was thinking the Deep South,’ he said after another moment. ‘Wide terraces, iced tea and linen suits. The things I used to dream about when I was a child. The things that made me feel like a king.’
Jim rubbed his chin, an uncomfortable memory stirring, but Simon was still talking.
‘I’m thinking of a grand Deep South plantation house with a mile-long driveway flanked with trees covered with those plants that look like cobwebs.’
‘Spanish moss,’ said Jim, glancing across.