It wasn’t often that my research into a resort proved me wrong, but this dinner was full of surprises for me.

The one part of the resort I hadn’t expected to have to change was the kitchen. From everything I had heard, there was a masterful French chef on staff who’d worked for the company for years. Supposedly, he hand-picked the kitchen staff and ran a very tight operation.

The menu didn’t look anything near that level of class.

“Pork tenderloin,” I murmured in disbelief as I browsed the menu. It wasn’t a bad menu, necessarily, but it wasn’t the caliber I was expecting, based on the place’s reputation. The look on my face must have made the server nervous, because when I noticed him finally approaching, he had an apologetic look on his face already.

“Good evening, sir,” he greeted me, “a pleasure to have you here.”

“What Scotch do you recommend?” I asked without missing a beat, peering up at him and setting the menu down. He looked like a deer in the headlights, obviously not prepared for the question.

“I’m not much of a Scotch drinker,” he admitted. “I do know we have a rare, top-shelf single malt that’s supposed to be imported from a very old distillery in the Highlands.”

I gave him a tight smile and let silence hang between us for a few painfully tense seconds.

“I would hope it’s imported, if it’s Scotch,” I explained, barely holding back my condescension. The server laughed nervously, but I just stared back at him.

“If you have something that has a number ‘18’ or higher on it from the top shelf, bring me that,” I requested slowly, handing him the menu. “And I’ll take the lamb stew.”

“Excellent choice, sir.” The server hurried away. I watched him go with a glare made of steel.

I was sitting in the far back of the resort’s restaurant where I could see everything from the most shadowy corner of the room. The fact that there was a part of the room more shadowy than the rest was another mark off in my book.

Fortunately, I wasn’t really inspecting this place so much as taking stock of everything.

I was assessing my purchase.

While I waited for my food, I surveyed the room. There were a few handfuls of people around, but it certainly wasn’t a full house. Not the kind of night you’d expect at the peak of skiing season. At one of my resorts, this would be considered a stunning failure of a night.

Meanwhile, I could have sworn I caught some of the conversation between two of the bartenders complaining about how busy things were this evening.

Some of the guests were younger people, including a group of young women at bar who were less than subtle about throwing glances my way, but I ignored them for the time being. If I wanted a little fun after my initial assessment of the place was finished, I’d give them the attention they were craving, but business was business.

I never got distracted. That kind of behavior was my little brother’s attitude to life. He was part of the reason I was so busy nearly all of the time. With him always distracted by fooling around with every woman from waitresses to multi-billion-dollar heiresses, the actual business was handled mainly by me and partly by my younger sister.

She had a good head on her shoulders, but she had her own affairs to handle. Besides, I preferred going it alone in times like this.

My food arrived longer than I’d expect, especially for a table of one. Some kitchens can get away with longer wait times for big tables where the guests distract each other with conversation, but an experienced staff knows that a lone man as well dressed as me at a table is going to be impatient, an inspector, or both.

But I was more than halfway through my scotch when my food arrived, and the presentation was more underwhelming than the service. It smelled fine, but it looked more like something I’d get at an upscale airport hotel than a supposedly world-class resort.

“Anything else for you, sir?” the waiter offered, and I just tapped the rim of my glass of scotch meaningfully. He nodded promptly and hurried off to bring me another glass.

The food tasted about as good as it looked. Not bad, but not nearly the kind of quality this place deserved. I made short work of it and didn’t bother with dessert when the server brought me the menu. He was getting increasingly nervous around me.

At least one person here had a good sense for when things were going badly.

The scotch was fantastic, I had to admit. At least that much was hard to screw up. But the only thing that still puzzled me was just how a place with this kind of reputation could have fallen so hard and fast.

The servers were slow. It wasn’t just my table, it was everywhere. My eyes flitted to each one, and all had the same vaguely stressed looks on their faces. I caught snippets of their conversations here and there, carrying from all the way across the bar.

Someone was running late for her shift. Another had swapped shifts with another employee at the last minute, and there was some confusion about the new schedule. They were running out of mint, and someone was frantically trying to call in a favor from another employee over the phone who was near a grocery store.

I shook my head. There was a serious breakdown of authority here. The servers themselves weren’t that bad, just a little inexperienced. A waiter who’d been properly trained would have been able to tell me what kind of scotches they had, or better yet, it would have been on a menu. The staff was trying hard, but there was only so much they could do when the lower management was clearly having trouble getting their act together.

The whole place was just mediocre. I was growing bored. There wasn’t any one glaring flaw that needed fixing, it just reeked of inefficiency.

If I had any doubt that I’d need to gut the place and rebuild it according to my exact specifications, it vanished with the last of my first glass of scotch.

But as soon as my second glass arrived, something else caught my attention.

My jaw nearly dropped, and I didn’t even acknowledge the waiter.

She strode through the restaurant, a wild yet determined look in her eyes as she scanned the room. Her blue eyes were as crisp and vivid as I remembered them, drawing your gaze to them with the intensity of a painting. Her black hair hung over her shoulders like a mantle, even richer and darker than I remembered it the last time I saw her all those years ago.

That was Haley Simmons.

There was no doubt about it.

And just what on earth are you doing here?

But in truth, I knew the answer the moment I saw her. And for once in my life, I wished I was wrong about my gut instinct.

The way she carried herself around the restaurant was unmistakable, though. There was a kind of casual authority she carried with her despite the anxiety of not being experienced and showing it. She walked like she owned the place.

She walked that way because she did.

I knew I was taking this place over from a Simmons family, but the idea that it was the same Simmons as the stock Haley came from never even crossed my mind.

I knew Haley from college. She was stunning then as she was stunning now, and the years had only made her more beautiful. It was more than that, though--the confidence that leadership gave her made her all the more attractive. It was instinct that drew my eye to her, and our history held it there.

So many sweet, lustful memories flooded my mind. I knew what was under those clothes, and the image of her naked body was locked in my mind no matter how much I tried to forget it. She was impeccable. And for a while, she had been mine.

My relationship with her was the last meaningful one I’d had. Sure, I took dates to dinners and galas when it was necessary to have someone beautiful on my arm, but I just didn’t have time for anyone I could talk with for hours like Haley and I had talked.

...and it was her that I was here to wrest the resort from.

I felt my gut twist into a knot, and I frowned.

This evening had just gotten a lot more complicated than I expected.