Page 62 of The Wexley Inn
I’ve attached the initial details of the compensation package, which I believe you’ll find reflect both the importance of the role and our sincere desire to welcome you into the Rousseau family.
I understand you’ve recently started a personal project, which shows your dedication to hands-on restoration work. That entrepreneurial drive is exactly what we appreciate. However, I encourage you to consider whether your vision might have a bigger impact if applied to multiple landmark properties, each with its own story to tell.
Given the scope of the role and our expansion timeline, we need your decision within two weeks. I recognize this is a tight schedule, but securing the right leadership is essential for our plans, and we want someone in the position shortly after the first of the year. We are willing to be flexible about your transition if you accept.
I hope to hear from you very soon.
Warmest regards,
Claire Rousseau
Isabella stared at the screen, her breath shallow. She opened the attachment with trembling fingers. The compensation package was absolutely staggering - more than double what she’d earned at her peak in corporate hospitality. Executive housing was located in the most exclusive part of Paris. Equity participation would make her a genuine stakeholder in the company’s growth. A professional development budget that exceeded what most hotels spend on their entire management team. Four weeks’ vacation and travel expenses for property visits across Europe.
Vice President of European Operations for Rousseau International.
It was the position she had fantasized about during those soul-crushing corporate meetings where bean counters dismissed her preservation proposals as too expensive. The role she had envisioned holding someday when she was stuck reviewing budget spreadsheets instead of walking through buildings that held centuries of stories.
The validation that everything she had learned, every compromise she made, and every political battle fought in corporate hospitality had been building toward something truly meaningful. She could do for a dozen historic European properties what she is doing for The Wexley Inn. She could establish standards, create templates, and demonstrate that preservation and profitability are not mutually exclusive. She could train a generation of hoteliers who understand that these buildings are not just assets, but responsibilities.
The vision struck her with such unexpected force. The Wexley Inn would open, succeed, and become exactly what she’d envisioned, but it would be one inn, one restored property on a small island off the South Carolina coast. A beautiful project, indeed, a meaningful accomplishment, but ultimately small.
What if she could do this ten times? Twenty? What if, instead of creating just one haven for travelers seeking a connection to history, she could build a network of them across Europe’s most beautiful cities?
The thought felt simultaneously thrilling and treasonous.
She closed the laptop abruptly as if the email would contaminate her if she looked at it too long. Her hands were shaking. She pressed them against the desk’s cool surface, trying to ground herself.
But this was her dream: The Wexley Inn - building something entirely her own, making decisions without corporate oversight, and creating a business that reflected her values without compromise. She’d walked away from security and status specifically to have this freedom. She’d poured her entire life savings into these walls, spent months learning about the Lowcountry history and island politics, and earned the trust of people like Maggie and Luella, who didn’t give it easily.
And Thomas. Oh gosh, Thomas. She was falling in love with him, had maybe never stopped loving him, the feelings just buried under thirty years of other lives lived. The way he looked at her across the room made her feel seen in ways no one ever had. The careful way he restored the inn’s architectural details mirrored the cautious way he seemed to be restoring the broken pieces of her heart.
She stood up quickly and walked to the window, looking out at the grounds where the workers were arriving for the day. The inn was almost done, the bones restored, the systems updated, the finishing touches underway. In just a few weeks, they would open the doors. Guests would sleep in these rooms and dine in that kitchen. They’d walk through the gardens she’d meticulously planned right down to the colors of the flowers. The building would live again, serve its purpose, and become a part of the island’s fabric.
But the treacherous thought wouldn’t leave her alone. One inn. Just one.
Someone would have that job. Why not her? Didn’t she deserve it?
She pressed her forehead against the cool glass, watching Thomas’s truck pull into the driveway. He got out, grabbed his tool belt from the cab, and said something to Wade that made the other man laugh. He moved with such easy confidence here, so entirely at home. This was his island, after all, his community, his territory, in ways that it might never be hers, no matter how many ladies’ club luncheons she attended or how graciously Maggie championed her.
What if something happened to the inn? What if Grayson found some way to sabotage it, despite the review board approval? What if she couldn’t make the business successful in a seasonal market with a limited local population?
What if - and this fear felt almost too disloyal to acknowledge - what if she’d made a terrible mistake putting all of her eggs in this one beautiful, fragile basket?
The European job was about security, not just financial security, although that mattered a lot. It was also about professional security and the validation that she belonged in the industry at the highest level. If she failed at The Wexley Inn, she’d become a cautionary tale, the corporate executive who couldn’t quite succeed as an entrepreneur. But if she accepted the Rousseau position, she’d be seen as a visionary who learned from hands-on restoration work to lead strategic expansion. She could frame it that way. The inn was just a learning experience, a proof of concept, a stepping stone to something bigger. It was not a failure but a successful experiment that taught her what she needed to operate at true scale.
The rationalization tasted bitter even as she formed it. Isabella pulled out her phone and looked at Thomas’s contact information. She should tell him. They had just agreed to explore this relationship carefully, honestly. Keeping something this important a secret was exactly the kind of dishonesty that would destroy trust.
But what would she even say? I got offered my dream job, and I’m considering leaving even though we just decided to try dating again. It sounded absurd, it sounded cruel, and it sounded exactly like she was already looking for an exit before they even started.
Besides, she hadn’t even decided anything. This was just an email, an offer to consider. She was keeping her options open. That didn’t mean she was planning to leave. Smart business people always explore opportunities. They always stayed aware of their market value and always maintained flexibility. She would think about it, research the company, review the package again, and consider any implications. This wasn’t dishonesty; it was just due diligence.
The guilt that twisted through her chest suggested otherwise, but Isabella pushed it down. She closed the email app on her phone, sat up straight, and prepared to greet Thomas with a smile that would reveal nothing about the turmoil churning beneath her carefully maintained surface.
Two weeks. She had two whole weeks to decide whether to choose the dream she’d built with her own hands or the dream that someone else was offering her on a silver platter. She told herself she hadn’t already begun to lean toward the latter, and she almost believed it.
Thomas took his entire crew to Charleston that afternoon. A specialty lumber supplier had finally found the period-appropriate trim molding for the veranda restoration, and he wanted to personally inspect it before committing to the purchase. He had kissed Isabella goodbye that morning in the inn’s driveway, a brief touch of the lips that sent warmth through her that lingered hours later.
Should be back by four, he had said, his hand lingering on her waist. Then we’ll go for those final paint selections.
