Under New Management

by June Hopkins

  To distract her from her disturbing thoughts, she questions Jack about what she missed the night before and, more importantly, Lou.

  “So what happened with Lou then? I expected you two to be waking up together this morning,” Mollie asks.

  “Yea well, actually so did I at first. Pretty woman your mate. Nearly as pretty as you Molls.” Jack tells her with a sexy smile.

  Mollie gives him a sarcastic look. Jack snorts with laughter.

  He continues, “I don’t know. After you got carried upstairs we went back in. I was chatting with your dad and Dan for quite a while and then that Florrie bird started coming on to me. To be honest I couldn’t get rid of her. At one point Lou staggered over, she was really pissed you know. She came over and Florrie told her to “do one.” So she sort of smiled, said, “Fair play,” and buggered off. Last seen hanging on the bar talking to one of the blokes serving. She didn’t even try to save me,” Jack says with an injured air.

  Mollie laughs loudly, “Brilliant, sounds like Lou! No she wouldn’t have cared and she certainly wouldn’t have fought for you. Lou gets bored very quickly when she’s pissed.”

  Jack looks insulted, “Charming that is. Well anyway, after she left me I spent the rest of the evening running away from that Florrie. Bloody awful woman, she has a voice that could shatter glass.” Jack grimaces as he recalls.

  Mollie laughs harder, and snorts as she tries to catch her breath. “That’s priceless.” She says breathlessly, “So how did you escape?”

  “I didn’t. For the rest of the sodding night. Pissed me right off she did. After the fireworks, your lot were getting ready to go home in the taxi, she was wittering on about her room and what she was going to do to me in it.” Jack holds his hand up to Mollie to stop her, as she leans forward ready to ask the inevitable question of ‘What did she want to do to you?’

  “No don’t. You really, really don’t want to know, trust me. It was that bad that I didn’t want to know and I’m not normally that fussy. Anyway I asked Dan if I could leave with them and he rescued me. I managed to escape without her seeing me. I watched her from the minibus as we were pulling away. She was running around outside, in and out of groups of people looking for me I’ve no doubt.” Jack laughs at his duplicity.

  “You’re tight you are. Poor Florrie,” Mollie says insincerely.

  “Flippin ‘eck, poor Florrie? She’s like a sodding piranha she is. That’s what I call a close escape.” Jack sighs with evident relief.

  “So what about Lou, did she stay with the bar-man?”

  “Nah, she came home with us on the mini bus, got dropped off first. Dan pretty much carried her to her door and dumped her inside. She didn’t so much as say bye to me.” Jack shakes his head slightly in confusion.

  Mollie laughs again.

  They move the conversation on and begin reminiscing over old friends and whether either of them have stayed in touch with anyone. Interesting though that is, what Mollie is really interested in is Kieran, and why she had never been told about him. So she asks, “Jack, explain the Kieran thing. Did he give you a job, or something? How come you never mentioned him and the hotel chain, etc?”

  “Wow, you like him don’t ya Molls?” Jack asks as he waggles his eyebrows at her.

  “Come to think of it, you’re questioning me on my possible conquests, what about you? Last seen being carried to bed by Kieran. What happened then, did you get it on, or what?”

  Mollie blushes, “No we did not,” she tells him a little too adamantly, “I was hardly in a fit state.” Jack acknowledges the comment as he frowns and then nods at her. Mollie takes a shifty breath of relief and starts talking again to divert him further. “He’s a nice enough bloke, but that’s not why I’m asking. Just seems a strange thing to keep from me for three years. It doesn’t sound like you, hiding a mega rich family member.”

  “OK, OK. I didn’t deliberately keep it from you. I didn’t see much of Kieran while I was at uni. He’s a couple of years older than me and he wasn’t rich back then. We didn’t really start hanging out again until we inherited.” Jack tells her matter of factly.

  Mollie boggles at him, “Inherited? Inherited what?”

  “The hotels. Well, seven of ‘em anyway. Oh, and about 100 million quid,” He informs her in a bored tone.

  Mollie just manages to save her mug of tea as she nearly drops it in shock. Lukewarm tea sloshes out of the mug and over the carpet, but she ignores it, because she is too busy staring at him.

  “Are you taking the piss, Jack?”

  “Nope, not,” he tells her and she knows, or had known him well enough to tell when he is lying.

  Her mouth falls open and her breath comes out in a whoosh, “Jesus....” she drawls out the word.

  “Yep, mental, ain’t it?” Jack smiles at her.

  “That’s one word for it. So come on, you have to tell me everything,” Mollie demands as she makes herself more comfortable and waits for him to begin.

  He sighs, “Really? Do you have any idea how bored I am with this story? Told it that many times,” he says as he sits up on the sofa.

  Mollie just raises an eyebrow and gives him a look which says ‘don’t mess with me’ and Jack laughs and holds his hands up at her. “OK, I’ll tell all, I promise.” He makes himself comfy on the sofa.

  “So the beginning. Well, as you know I went off to Australia that summer. I travelled about, went over to New Zealand and was going to go to Thailand. Even thought about China. In the March of the following year I got a phone call from Kieran, basically telling me to get my arse back home. Course you know me, I said ‘no way’ at first but he said we had been left some money. Looked like quite a lot of money and no one was getting anything until I turned up alive and well.

  Anyway, Kieran paid for my flight home on his credit card and I managed to get back about a week later.

  We all had to go to the solicitors: me, Kieran and Megan. Turned out we had an uncle, Uncle Hector, his name was. He was my mum’s and Kieran’s dad’s brother; they never mentioned him, ever. Apparently they all fell out years before when we were all little and they hadn’t seen him since. It was something to do with him going to prison and it breaking Gran’s heart… Whatever.” He shrugs and shuffles slightly. Mollie is agog.

  “Anyway turns out he never married, never had kids and died intestate, or whatever it’s called. The solicitors tracked us down. As you know my dad and mum were divorced before she died and Kieran’s dad was killed in a car crash about a year before.” Mollie winces for them, so sad.

  “Auntie Marylyn was well pissed off as she didn’t get anything. Being related by marriage doesn’t count and Uncle Ralph had already gone. My dad wasn’t much happier, but they’ve done alright out of us. Turned out that only the three of us would inherit it all. Uncle Hector had done well for himself; you’d have to ask Kieran all the details. He looked right into it all. He spent months and months looking into the old chap’s life. It was interesting for a while, but you know me. I don’t stay interested for long.” Mollie smirks at him knowingly.

  “He had managed to build up this huge fortune; had seven hotels, one in Yorkshire, one in Surrey, two in the Caribbean. They were the first, I think. The two in the Caribbean, both had acres of land with them and private beaches. We’ve developed them over the last seven years. They’re amazing and doing really well.” Jack tells her proudly. “There is also one in Mexico, one near Paris and one in Sicily. I still think he was up to no good, old Hector. You don’t make that sort of money without doing something illegal. I’m not complaining mind!

  So anyway, it took the best part of a year to get everything divided up and signed over but they came up with some legal way that we could get involved with the hotels to make sure the company stayed afloat.” Jack goes quiet for a bit, lost in his own thoughts, and Mollie stays silent.

  Eventually he starts to speak again. Looking up at Mollie he says, “Well you remember what I was like. Kieran was a mechanic and Me
gan a hairdresser. Not exactly business execs, eh? We had to learn fast, and luckily Hector had some good people working for him who helped us out. Of course he had some shits there as well and they tried to steer us wrong but they weren’t banking on us lot. Being streetwise has its compensations. We had ‘em spotted a mile off. My business degree helped, of course. Not that I was anywhere near as clever as you, but it meant I wasn’t completely clueless. Kieran had been running the garage for two years, not exactly big business but it all helped. Anyway, eventually the big bucks came through and we had about thirty million each, give or take. The McLaren Group was also worth fifty million, more than six times that today, and to cut a long story short, we are all rolling in it.” Jack stops talking again and smiles at her.

  Mollie is dumbstruck. Bloody hell, amazing!

  Finding her voice Mollie asks, “So, didn’t you want to go off, take the money and run? I’d have thought you would have bought your own Island somewhere and buggered off?” Jack laughs. “You know me too well Molls. I did think about it, trust me, but in the end I figured why not give it a go? The three of us get on well enough; we were close when we were kids and we are again now. So I tried, we all did. The next thing we know here we are seven years later just buying hotel number ten. I love it, it’s great. We share the load pretty fairly, although in all honesty Kieran is the one who makes it work. I don’t enjoy all the business dealings, which is ironic given my degree, turns out I’m better at visualising the end result. Megan and I tend to concentrate on the artistic stuff, coming up with ideas to keep the punters happy. We seem to be good at it. Kieran does the hard, boring stuff but he can’t be bothered with the fluffy bits, so it works well.

  Take your Sedgwick Hall. Kieran sees the big picture. He says what he wants, the type of clientele etc. and Megan and I work on the detail to deliver what he wants. He deals with the tax and the VAT man, the councils, the staff, all of that. Megan and I can’t be arsed with that stuff, so we don’t try. Well that’s a bit of a fib, Megan does try she helps Kieran out quite a bit even though she doesn’t enjoy that side of it. I guess you could say that I’m the laziest out of the three of us.”

  Mollie suddenly laughs loudly and snorts, “Well that statement doesn’t surprise me and what’s all this ‘Megan and I’ stuff? When did you learn to speak properly?”

  Jack laughs as well, “That would be Aunt Marylyn. She keeps correcting me, and I guess some of it sticks.”

  “Well it’s not a bad thing is it? Not if you have to deal with all the toffs that I’m sure frequent your glamorous hotels. So what does Kieran’s mum do then she looks as if she’s in charge?” Mollie asks.

  “Ah well, Marylyn is our secret weapon. She took to having money like a duck to water. Before we had even got it she was living the high life, smooching with the crème de la crème. She made friends and got out there. We wouldn’t have found the Hall if Marylyn hadn’t known that Evelyn bird. It was Marylyn who persuaded her to sell to us, and I for one am glad she did, ‘cause I’ve got to see you again.” He gives her a wide sexy smile.

  As her mouth goes dry, she swallows and decides more liquid is called for. Mollie jumps up and heads to the kitchen, “Want another coffee?” she asks as she passes the sofa.

  Jack jumps up and follows her, “Please, and any chance of some toast? I could eat a scabby ‘orse.” He lounges against the kitchen unit.

  Mollie puts some bread in the toaster and clicks the kettle back on. As she hunts around for paraphernalia required to make the breakfast she turns to Jack, “So how’s life changed for you then? Must be weird being that rich... are people different with you?”

  “Yea I suppose they were at first. Not anymore though as we’ve changed the people we hang out with. Most of the people I know now are pretty well off so things are easy. I still see a couple of my old mates. I chucked them a few quid, got them off the estate. They both run businesses that supply the hotels so they are doing OK. Kieran has a few old mates he looks after and the same with Megan. As for new ones, well you know what it’s like. I’ve got a couple I hang out with that I trust - same for all of us I think. Kieran and I, see did it again, well we became pretty close for the first few years, sort of relied on each other as we didn’t know anyone. We sort of hung out with a small crowd that didn’t change much. We partied a lot in the early days, it was pretty mad, but we’ve calmed down loads. Well Kieran more than me; he’s a lot more serious than I am.”

  Mollie looks up from buttering the toast and raises an eyebrow at him.

  Jack laughs, “Yea I know, OK so I’m not that much different. I spend most of my time flying between the hotels. I love it. Come on, you can’t blame me. Who wouldn’t spend most of their time on an exotic beach if they had the opportunity?”

  Mollie acknowledges that, yes probably she would.

  “Does Dan know? Did you tell him last night? He was well fed up with you when you stopped contacting him. Was that because of me?” she asks as she hands him his toast, to which she’d added strawberry jam, just as he liked it all those years ago.

  Jack doesn’t comment on the toast, “God Moll, no! You didn’t think that did you? No it was nothing like that. I used to ring him now and again while I was travelling. Of course when all that happened with the inheritance and stuff, my life sort of got a bit mad. I lost my phone on a night out just after we found out, so had no numbers. Events just sort of took me to a new place. I never meant to not get in touch but the longer it went on I got to the point where I wasn’t sure what to say. So I did nothing. Sometimes it’s easier, isn’t it?”

  Mollie sighs, “I suppose. And it’s not as if Dan hired a detective to find you either. He met Julie and to be honest none of us saw much of him for the first couple of years, they were that loved up. I met David and we moved on with our lives. I suppose you didn’t remember that we lived here either; you never actually visited did you? You always met my lot when they came to see me in Bristol.

  “It is weird actually. I must admit when Kieran mentioned the name a few months ago something seemed familiar but I couldn’t for the life of me work out what. I couldn’t believe you were all there last night. That has got to be fate that has, don’t you think?” He takes a bite out of his toast and eyes her wickedly.

  Mollie shakes her head at him, picks up her tea and toast and heads back to the lounge. “Come on you, let’s go and sit back in the warm. The others will be up soon. It’s not like Dad to be up late; he must have sunk a fair few last night.”

  They settle back in the lounge and Mollie opens the curtains. Morning sunlight shines into the room. Taking her seat they quietly munch on their toast. Mollie finishes the last bite and licks her fingers, “So, where do you live now?”

  “Er... would it be too weird to tell you that I’ve got three houses?” He tells her sheepishly.

  Mollie shakes her head at him, “To be honest after the last lot of revelations that is hardly surprising, although how the hell do you manage to live in three houses?”

  “Easier than you think. I have people who live in each one; they look after them for me. You know, keep up repairs, sort the gardens, and clean the pools, that sort of thing.”

  Mollie snorts loudly at that statement, “Christ, you’re right, that’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard. So where are these houses, and more to the point, do you let your friends spend holidays there? Free of charge, of course!” She waggles her eyebrows at him and smiles widely.

  Jack laughs, “You daft cow. Yea course, you and yours can visit anytime you want. Take your pick. One’s in St Lucia near one of the hotels, another in Bristol up by the suspension bridge and the others in Newquay, near Fistral Beach. Got to be near the surf, you know that.”

  Mollie laughs again, “OMG only you would choose Bristol and Newquay to buy houses when you have the world to choose from.”

  “Yea I know, but Bristol’s home. It was nice to move off the council estate and I love the view of the bridge. I’ve my own indoor pool, i
t’s great. Newquay, well I just love it down there and the house isn’t huge; it’s a four bed-roomed place with great views out to sea. Love it down there in the summer and a lot of mates I met in Oz come over for the surfing championships most years, so it’s a chance to catch up.”

  Mollie nods at him with a smile. He definitely doesn’t seem to have changed much.

  “Dad lives in the St Lucia house. He loves it out there; he keeps an eye on the hotel for us and it gives him something to do in between sunbathing, snorkelling and messing about on his boat.”

  Mollie smiles. She used to get on really well with Jack’s dad, Bill Murphy and his Irish twang. “Aah, how is Bill? I miss him you know. I’m sorry I never kept in touch after you left.”

  “He’s good, same old. They call him Billy out there, the locals love him. He’s in his element. You know how hard he worked to keep me in school and uni. It’s great to be able to pay him back, he deserves it.”

  “So, what about women? Anyone special in your life? Given what you have already divulged, are you saving the really shocking news for last? I suppose you’re about to tell me that you have five kids and have been married twice into the bargain?”

  Jack’s eyes widen, “Christ no, well none that I know of anyway. Last thing I want is a couple of ankle-biters running around.” Jack shudders at the horror of it.