‘Look…’ Drinks had arrived, beer for both of them, and he cradled his ice-cold bottle for a few seconds before tipping some down. ‘I’m not in the mood for playing games. I’m on a tight timetable here. I haven’t got time to try and coax answers out of you.’
‘Izzy specifically doesn’t want you to bring her back. She needs to clear her head. She…she had a bit of a relationship with a guy and it didn’t go according to plan.’
Max stilled. He linked his fingers on the table and stared at her. ‘Talk to me.’
‘I shouldn’t have said as much as I did, but honestly, Izzy just needs time to recover.’
‘What happened?’
‘Nothing happened! That’s just it. Nothing at all happened and I think Izzy hoped that something might. That something serious might happen.’
‘Who is he?’
Max banked down a surge of anger at whoever the guy was who was responsible for his sister’s hasty disappearance. All the protective instincts that had been in place inside him for so many years raced to the surface and he clenched his fists, breathing deeply.
‘It doesn’t matter who he is,’ Mia murmured.
Their eyes met, his dark with rage, hers calm and unruffled, and he felt himself relax a little.
‘I’m finding it hard to imagine my sister involved with a scumbag,’ he growled.
‘Maybe,’ Mia said under her breath, ‘you’re finding it hard to imagine your sister with anyone.’
Mia sat back, realising that she hadn’t touched her beer, but then every ounce of her attention had been focused on the guy sitting opposite her.
He emanated such simmering power and restless energy that she was oblivious to her surroundings.
Their food was being brought to them now, and she drank some of the beer and hesitantly began picking at the food, trying hard to marshal her thoughts.
Should she have betrayed that confidence? Should she have mentioned the business between Izzy and Jefferson?
But how else could she have deterred Max from doing what he had threatened to do? Why would he have believed anything else she’d told him? He didn’t know her. And if he didn’t believe her then what would stop him from hiring a PI to hunt down Izzy? He was rich, so that was something he could easily accomplish with a single phone call.
She knew Izzy well enough to suspect that if her brother hounded her down their relationship would take a battering.
Even so…
She dropped her eyes and tried to enjoy some of the fantastic barbecue on her plate, but her heart was pounding, and her head was beginning to throb with stress.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Sometimes you have to stand back and let the people you care about make whatever mistakes they have to make.’
‘I gather from that remark that you and my sister have shared lots of cosy chats together? Izzy has never, never, given the slightest hint that she finds me over-protective.’
‘Well, you asked me why she disappeared, and I’ve told you. There’s nothing more I’m going to add to that.’ She shoved her plate away and wiped her fingers on the damp tissues that had come with the wings.
He had worked his way through a couple of beers and a generous helping of poke. He’d managed to get some on his expensive polo shirt and that small detail made him seem much more human, much less forbidding.
He might be tough and ruthless, and downright arrogant in his assumption that getting exactly what he wanted was his right, but he was also human, and she wondered what it must feel like for him to be told that the sister he had spent years caretaking no longer needed to be looked after.
Mia knew about their unusual and unhappy background. Not in any great detail, but enough.
She had felt sorry for Izzy. She had had a very clear idea of what her brother was like. Driven, ambitious, stifling. But she had never met him before today, and it was easy to form opinions of people based on what was said about them. Indeed, it was impossible not to.
She’d sympathised hugely with her friend. She couldn’t envisage a life without the support of parents, or the laughter of a jostling, rowdy household. It was what she had grown up with. Four sisters, nephews and nieces all meeting up as often as they possibly could because they enjoyed their times together. No family was ever without its problems, because such was the nature of life, but she just couldn’t imagine the sadness of the sort of silent life her friend seemed to have had.
‘I’m sorry.’ She interrupted the growing silence and he scowled.
‘For what?’
‘It can’t be easy learning that your sister doesn’t want you to…follow her…’
‘Thanks for the show of sympathy.’ Max looked away, jaw clenched. ‘But I’ll cope.’
‘If you choose to get someone involved to find Izzy, then I can’t stop you,’ Mia said. ‘But I don’t think that would be such a great idea.’
‘What happened with that man? Was violence involved?’
‘Good heavens, no!’ Mia said, startled. ‘You don’t have to worry on that score at all. Jefferson was an idiot, that’s all.’ She sensed rather than saw the passing shadow of intense relief lighten his lean, handsome face.
She awkwardly offered to settle half the bill, and for the first time, when he looked at her, it was without the cool remoteness that had sent chills down her spine. When his eyes rested on her this time, they were a little bit startled, a little bit amused.
‘I can count on the fingers of one hand,’ he murmured, ‘the number of women who have ever offered to do that. No—scratch that. I have never been in the company of any woman who has ever offered to pick up her share of the bill, so thank you for the offer.’
Mia blushed. Her skin tingled and she was aware of something else that had crept into the conversation, something that didn’t threaten and didn’t make her hackles rise, and that something sent a shiver racing up and down her spine.
‘Well, I always make sure to pay my half whenever I go out with a guy,’ she countered briskly.
‘And I expect those occasions happen frequently?’
Mia’s blush deepened. Suddenly, she felt out of her depth. Since Kai, she had been on a handful of dates, all of which had ended up in the ‘just good friends’ category.
She had not gone on any of those dates because she had really wanted to. All of them, all five of them, had been arranged by one of her sisters and Mia had politely gone along because she hadn’t wanted to seem ungracious.
She was the odd one out in her family, the only one without a significant other. Two of her sisters were married with kids and the other two were engaged. She was twenty-seven years old and she knew what the unspoken commentary on her life was…
When is she going to settle down?
When will Mia get over her failed marriage, which was four years ago, and find herself a nice, decent guy…?
So when they’d arranged for her to meet one of those ‘nice, decent guys’, she had known they’d done so because they loved her, and the last thing she’d wanted to do was hurt their feelings.
‘It’s getting late,’ she began, reaching for her backpack.
‘I wouldn’t dream of asking you to pay for a plate of chicken wings and a bottle of beer, incidentally,’ he said with authority.
‘In that case, thanks,’ Mia returned awkwardly. ‘Especially as I didn’t give you the answer you wanted to hear. I’ll head off now, if you don’t mind. I’m going to have to tell Izzy that I’ve mentioned the business about Jefferson, and of course if she wants you to get in touch then I’ll relay the message. Or she’ll contact you herself. But if not…’ She let the unspoken rider hover between them. If nothing was said, then Izzy didn’t want his interference in her life.
‘I’ll walk out with you.’ He stood up and dropped a handful of bills on the table, plenty to cover what they had eaten.
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‘It’s okay.’ Mia backed away and licked her lips. She felt ridiculous in her sarong, tee shirt and flip-flops, especially alongside him.
‘Well…the truth is,’ Max drawled, ignoring her protest and following her outside, where the air was balmy and the beach after a brief lull post families and small kids, was once again busy with young people hanging out in groups, ‘we haven’t quite finished this conversation.’
‘What do you mean?’ She looked at him with alarm. ‘Like I said, I can’t stop you from—’
‘Oh, I know what you said, and I agree.’
‘Sorry?’ She looked up at him, puzzled, and once again was overwhelmed by that weird, disconcerting force-field he seemed to emanate without even realising.
He cupped her elbow, moving her out of the way of a couple of kids jogging past, and that passing physical contact sent a jolt of awareness through her like a bolt of electricity.
He was escorting her away from the beach and towards the road that separated the coast from the metropolis.
Oahu, sometimes nicknamed the Heart of Hawaii, was the most metropolitan of the islands. Honolulu, the capital, boasted bars and restaurants and galleries and museums, and right now all those buildings formed a backlit drop that stretched as far as the eye could see. This was as close as urban could get to coastal, man-made to nature, and at night it seemed even more impressive. The black ocean soothed while the frantic city thrilled. The heat, the noise, the lively thrum of people, traffic and life never failed to give her a kick.
Right at the moment, however, it wasn’t quite delivering on that front because she was way too conscious of the man walking beside her. He’d dropped his hand from her elbow but the place where he had touched continued to burn and she had to resist the temptation to rub it in the palm of her hand.
‘My hotel.’ He nodded. Mia knew that he would be staying at one of the most expensive hotels in the city, with views of the sea. She hoped that he didn’t have plans to continue their conversation inside his hotel because if he did then she would have to put her foot down—not that she had any idea what more she could contribute anyway.
The thought of being inside a hotel with Max brought her out in a cold sweat because there was something intimate about the confines of a hotel.
‘I’m afraid I really must get back home,’ she said in a prim, breathless voice, and Max laughed under his breath.
‘There you go again,’ he drawled as they crossed the busy ribbon of road and began heading into the city at an easy pace. ‘Assuming the worst. I wasn’t interested in chatting you up on the beach and I’m not trying to coerce you into the hotel with me.’
Mia was relieved he couldn’t see the mortified flush that rushed into her cheeks. What must be going through his head? How big must he think her ego?
Her first reaction to him had been to assume that he was chatting her up, presumably because she thought herself so irresistible. Then that remark about all those numerous dates she’d gone on! She’d done nothing to dispel that inaccuracy because her private life was none of his business but even so…
And now here she was, assuming, as far as he was concerned, that he was trying to entice her back to his place.
The ironic thing was that Mia was very far removed from having any kind of ego when it came to men.
No matter what she looked like, the bottom line was that her marriage had failed, and she’d realised long ago that, although she had surfaced from that brief and unsuccessful union, she still carried, deep inside her, a sense of personal failure that, because things hadn’t worked out, she had misjudged a situation so badly. It had been her own secret shame.
So to have Max, or anyone, somehow thinking that she was full of herself couldn’t be further from the truth!
There was no reason for her to defend herself, because his opinion didn’t matter, but she still bristled at his misconceptions.
‘I’m taking you to the hotel because it’ll be easier for you to get a taxi back to your house from there.’
‘I’m fine with public transport.’
‘Do you ever concede anything without a full-blown argument? Are you like that with everyone you meet? I’m going to concede that you might be right about my sister. It’s disappointing that Izzy is somehow afraid of talking to me about what’s on her mind, but so be it.’ He’d slowed down as they approached the hotel, with its dramatic columns and graceful, semi-circular marble frontage and sculpted trees guarded by a stiff and serious-looking official in uniform. As expected, there was a bank of taxis waiting outside.
He drew her to a stop and looked down at her. In the shadowy darkness of the night, his face was all sharp angles and, staring up at him, Mia felt her mouth go dry.
Was Izzy afraid to talk to him? She suddenly wanted to tell him that afraid wasn’t quite the right term.
But, frankly, she was unable to get the words out because he took her breath away. Literally. She was having trouble remembering how to breathe.
‘You tell me that she specifically does not want me to know her whereabouts. That being the case…and I’m going to take your word for it that a blip in her emotional life is the cause of this drama rather than anything more serious…’
‘You shouldn’t underestimate how awful heartbreak can be.’
Staring up at him with the sort of ridiculous fascination that annoyed her intensely but was somehow impossible to control, she realised that he didn’t understand what she was talking about.
Yes, he had accepted that getting a private investigator involved to track Izzy down might not be the best option, and to all intents and purposes he had trusted Mia when she’d told him that Izzy hadn’t rushed off because she had become involved in anything shady. But, judging from the cynical expression on his face, the notion of anyone tailoring their behaviour because of a broken heart made no sense to him at all.
Against her will, Mia felt a surge of curiosity.
He was so cold, so aloof…
So controlled.
Was he like that in every aspect of his life? Had he never had a broken heart? She vaguely remembered Izzy once telling her that her brother was a workaholic. Did that mean that he had no time for relationships? Surely not…?
She imagined that there would be no end of women banging on his door begging to be allowed in, with him looking the way he did.
Her nostrils flared and a sudden heat coursed through her body. She was shocked to the core by the damp pooling of moisture between her legs.
‘We’ll have to agree to differ on that score,’ Max was saying coolly.
Mia, eye level with his chest, was busy trying to ward off intrusive, inappropriate images of what he might look like under that polo shirt.
She heard herself grunt something non-committal by way of response.
‘Are you listening to what I’m saying?’ Max demanded, and she reluctantly looked up at him and nodded.
‘Yes, but I’m beginning to flag. I don’t know what else you want me to say about this. I feel terrible about breaking Izzy’s confidence, but it was the only way I could think of to stop you from employing someone to find her. But now you know why she vanished, and now you know that she’s going to be heading back, and I’m sure she’ll be in touch within the next week. So what else is there for us to talk about?’
Max sighed and shot her a kindly and only mildly questioning look.
‘Your status as my employee, of course…’
Mia stilled. How could she have let that slip her mind even for a moment? In her head, she had pictured herself heading back to her house never to lay eyes on him again. How naïve of her.
‘Well, yes…’
‘I hate to get between you and your beauty sleep, but this is going to be slightly more than a five-minute conversation, Mia. Of course, we can conduct it out here, with the passing traffic and beeping of
horns interrupting us every two minutes, or we could actually go inside the hotel. To the bar. Where we would be able to sit and converse in relative comfort.’ He paused, then added in a tone intended to make her hackles rise, ‘Naturally, if you still feel wary about that situation, then we can remain standing out here. I will, of course, choose not to insist that we go inside.’
And there, in a nutshell, was the fist of steel inside the not-so-velvet glove, she thought. She worked for him and, like any boss, he was entitled to give orders. He’d managed to make that clear without actually saying so in so many words.
He’d also managed to remind her of the inaccurate picture of herself she had managed to paint. The implication was that there would be people around them so she could go ahead and feel safe that he wasn’t going to do anything inappropriate because she was simply just too irresistible.
Mia ground her teeth together and clenched her fists and thought that she had never wanted to smack someone more.
‘Sure.’ She did her best to paint a casual smile on her face.
Max tilted his head to one side and was silent for a few seconds, then he nodded and began moving off towards the brightly lit, guarded entrance.
Infuriating man, she thought, following him into the hotel and feeling really under-dressed amongst the designer-clad tourists milling in groups.
The lobby was huge and dissected by four impressive marble columns. The white columns and the white walls were a stark contrast to the highly polished dark wood of the floors and the huge rugs, with their pale green leaf motifs that looked too expensive to walk on.
It reeked of opulence and she felt a kick of nerves as she walked alongside him, feeling self-conscious in her beach wear.
It was blessed relief to get to the relative dark sanctuary of the bar, with its bank of arched windows and its long, granite-topped bar behind which several beautiful young people were serving drinks. It was a huge space and very much conducive to conversations not being overheard.
Mia slid into a chair and, once orders had been taken, she leaned forward and linked her fingers on the table.
‘You said you wanted to talk to me about my…my status as your employee. I know I didn’t give you the answer you wanted to hear, but please tell me whether I still have a job.’ Her voice was low and urgent. She was already trying to work out how she might supplement her income should she get the sack.
Forbidden Hawaiian Nights Page 3
