The landscaping job at the hotel was only in the very first stages but she had been thrilled by the size of the job, and the opportunities it offered to diversify her work, and she had given most of her attention over to it. It was also stupidly well-paid.
She blanched as she did the maths in her head about what would happen should she lose her income.
‘Calm down.’ He sat back as drinks were placed in front of them along with two heavy glass dishes brimming with hot cashew nuts.
‘How can I be calm? You were happy to blackmail me to get what you wanted.’
Max shrugged, unfazed by that accusation. ‘All’s fair in love and war. If I’d thought you were holding out on information that might have put my sister in jeopardy, then there’s no doubt I would have been heavy handed in my dealings.’ He paused to sip some of his drink. ‘As it happens, I do believe what you’ve said, and I trust you haven’t airbrushed the situation. Personally, I don’t see why a disappointing personal relationship is reason enough to dump a dream job and leave the people around you in the lurch but, as I said, we’ll have to agree to disagree on that point.’
Mia took heart from the fact that he hadn’t yet issued her with her final papers. She still felt the need for some Dutch courage, though, so she sipped the cocktail she had ordered and helped herself to some of the nuts. It was late, and she was still hungry after her plate of chicken wings, which she had only picked at because her stomach had been too churned up with tension.
‘Here’s the thing, Mia,’ he drawled. ‘In Izzy’s absence, I’m going to have to hang around here for a bit longer than I had anticipated.’
‘Why?’
‘Why do you think?’ He shot her a quizzical look, as if encouraging her to arrive at what should be a glaringly obvious conclusion.
Mia refused to be cowed. ‘Nat is brilliant,’ she pointed out. ‘So is Kahale. Plus, there’s only a minimum of people on board at the moment because the hotel is only really just getting underway.’
She realised that she was propping herself up on her hands, so she breathed deeply and forced herself to relax. ‘Workers are on board for the building side of things, and I know that there was a hold-up on some of the supplies, but that’s been sorted now. We haven’t got any of the actual fitters in at the moment because there’s so much basic work still to be done. It’s just a twenty-room hotel, though, so it shouldn’t take for ever to sort out. Nothing that the boys can’t handle. Nat is very experienced when it comes to supervising construction.’
Max remained silent for such a long time that Mia began to fidget.
‘You’re very knowledgeable on what’s going on,’ he murmured eventually.
And into that positive remark, Mia jumped feet-first.
If her job was at stake, what better way to secure it than to prove to him that she was worth what she was being paid?
‘I was taken on to do the landscaping,’ she explained with enthusiasm. ‘As you know, the grounds are extensive! I should say that, in keeping with an eco-venture, I’ve made sure to clear as little of the indigenous plant life as possible. I’m a great believer in—’
‘I’m getting the message here.’ He paused.
Mia had hoped to sell her talents a little more comprehensively but she felt she had possibly done enough at least to sway him if he had been thinking about letting her go simply because she had refused to tell him where his sister was.
She wondered whether she should invite him to have a look at some of the ideas she had detailed in a series of scale drawings, show him how she intended to use some of the land for growing fruit and vegetables. Part of the work had already begun, as it was a big job and would have to be done in stages. She could walk him through it.
Then she thought about showing him around, talking it through with him, being in his presence yet again, and she decided to hold off for the moment.
At any rate, he certainly wasn’t making any encouraging noises about her plans for his land. But he did continue to look at her in thoughtful silence until eventually she continued.
‘I know it’s a bit strange that I’ve become involved in more aspects of the hotel than you might have expected,’ she grudgingly offered. When she tried to read what he was thinking, she drew a blank. It was disconcerting. ‘It’s a small team, really. If you exclude the…er…guys working on the building work, there’s really only myself, Nat, Kahale and of course Izzy.’
‘Who is no longer available…’
‘But will be back here before you know it!’ Mia said with a level of conviction she was far from feeling. Reading between the lines, Izzy had fled more than just a crap relationship and a broken heart. She’d also fled the confines of a life that had never allowed her to spread her wings and fly. She had done her utmost to let her creativity shine when it came to the hotel, to give herself that grounding, but she had hated the paperwork and dealing with people down the end of a phone line. Whenever possible, she had fobbed those jobs off on Mia, who had picked up the slack without complaint.
Yes, there was no question that Izzy would return and be better for it, but Mia wasn’t going to bet on her optimistic prediction of ‘within a week or so’…
‘And in the meantime, you’re here,’ Max mused. ‘And here is where we stand—I’m going to be stuck here, because I’m giving my sister the time she seems to need for reasons that are beyond me, but someone is going to have to step into her shoes and bring me up to date with what’s been going on.’ He looked at her, utterly relaxed and yet supremely forceful.
‘What do you mean?’ Mia knew exactly what he meant.
‘I don’t have Izzy, but you’re here. Time to step up to the plate.’
CHAPTER THREE
THIS WAS A situation Max had not catered for. From the other side of the pond, things had seemed straightforward enough when he had boarded the plane to Honolulu. Irritating, but straightforward.
One wayward sister who had to be located and brought back to that little thing called reality—namely the job she had abandoned without prior warning. One friend who would spill the beans because she would find out fast enough that she had no choice. Quick debrief with Nat, probably with Izzy in tow so that she could be reminded in no uncertain terms of the very cushy number she was fortunate enough to have. And then he would be able to return to his high-powered life in the fast lane.
That was his comfort zone.
Max Stowe led a life that would have driven many to a nervous breakdown. He never stopped. Everything took second place to the demands of work. He knew that, accepted it and was indifferent when it came to changing his priorities. Why would he? He enjoyed control and he had ultimate control over every aspect of his life.
He worked hard. He liked the pressure. He had enough money to enjoy an expensive life a million times over, but that didn’t mean he had any intention of ever slowing down. He worked long hours and, when he rested, he rested with women who knew the score, who knew that he was never going to be in it for the long term. He was a red-blooded male with a libido to match. He enjoyed the women he dated but he was intensely disciplined when it came to knowing just where they featured in his life. He’d never, not once, allowed his head to take second place to any other part of his body.
Buried deep in his formative years were lessons learnt about the havoc emotion caused and the disastrous roads it took people down. As the eldest in the family, he had registered, in ways neither James nor certainly Izzy ever had, the self-indulgence of his parents, who had been so absorbed in one another that parental responsibility was just a game they played at now and again.
He had been conveniently sent to boarding school at the age of seven. By the age of ten, he had given up on his parents showing any real interest in his achievements. By the time he’d hit adolescence, he’d stopped caring.
Bit by bit, he’d sealed the emotional side of himself off. He
was naturally gifted academically, and could take his pick when it came to sport, so studying and sport became the two things he’d relied upon. You knew where you stood on a rugby pitch or in a physics exam. Once those values had been cemented, they had hardened over the years, and so here he was now. Pleased to be the controlling hand at the rudder, knowing exactly where his life was going and knowing that it was never going to deviate from the path he had carved out for himself.
Except…things at the moment weren’t going quite according to plan, and that got on his nerves. He’d had no hesitation in rousing his PA at six that morning to brief her about various meetings that would have to be put on the back burner or delegated to a couple of his trusted CEOs. He had told her that James would be available should the need arise, but he was stretched dealing with his own arm of the family empire.
Now, sitting in the boardroom he had requisitioned from the hotel, waiting for Mia to show up, he tried to timetable his week going forward. Even dividing it into sound bites did little to paper over the fact that he really had no idea when he would be able to head back to London. The maximum amount of time he would spend here was a fortnight, but it was intensely frustrating not to be able to have a more precise idea of when within that two-week period his departure would take place.
He was sprawled back in the leather chair, computer in front of him on the glossy marble conference table, staring out of the window at another dazzlingly sunny day, when the door opened quietly.
From behind it, Mia paused, heart hammering. He wasn’t aware that she had pushed open the heavy boardroom door. He was absorbed in whatever he was thinking, which was probably work-related, given a laptop was open on the massive table in front of him.
She took a few seconds to look at his averted profile and the lazy sprawl of his muscular body as he gazed through the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out at a stunning vista of buildings and blue sky and, in the distance, the radiant blue-green ocean.
He was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a grey polo shirt and loafers. She wondered whether this was the most casual outfit ever to grace this fabulous space with its long walnut sideboard, on which someone had kindly placed plates filled with various breakfast pastries, its marble twenty-seater table and its elegant drapes.
Mostly, she wondered whether she should have knocked, but then she wasn’t his secretary, although she did indeed work for him. She was filling in for Izzy. Bringing him up to date with stuff to do with the hotel. He probably would have this one meeting with her and that would be the end of their communications. He could pick Nat’s brain for any additional information.
Couldn’t he?
She had spent a restless night, head too full of the day’s unexpected events to allow her much sleep.
Surprisingly, top of the agenda for things bothering her hadn’t been the fact that he had shown up out of nowhere and tried to demand answers out of her, or the fact that she had released information about Izzy that had been said in confidence—even though at the time Izzy had said nothing about Mia keeping any of the information to herself.
No, what had bothered her, what had kept her awake, had been her own incomprehensible physical reaction to him. In her mind’s eye, she had been able to envisage all too clearly for her liking the strong, chiselled lines of his lean, handsome face…the muscularity of his body…the sweep of those long, dark lashes…the brooding intensity of his eyes.
His appearance had impacted her in ways that were vaguely unsettling because they had come from nowhere and caught her unprepared.
She cleared her throat and he turned around. Thankfully, her legs did what she wanted them to do, and she walked towards him, not quite knowing where to sit at the enormous table. If she took the opposite end, she would need a megaphone to be heard.
He spared her the decision by almost imperceptibly nodding at the chair directly adjoining his and sitting up, waiting until she had shuffled into the seat.
He was casually dressed. She, on the other hand, had fished out the most formal outfit she could get her hands on. Her work uniform rarely strayed beyond the parameters of jeans or shorts and tee shirts, with the occasional sarong thrown in for when she was teaching surf to the kids at the weekend. She lived in flip flops, sandals or trainers.
Today she had opted for a sensible knee-length skirt and a blouse, neatly tucked into the waistband. And some proper shoes.
Was it her imagination or did she glimpse a flash of amusement in his eyes when he looked at her?
She pursed her lips and perched on the chair.
‘Relax.’
‘I’ve downloaded some facts and figures I thought you might want to have a look at.’ Straight down to business. She reached into her backpack and extracted a plastic folder, which she held out to him. He ignored her outstretched hand, so she awkwardly dropped it onto the table.
‘No need. I expect there’s nothing there I haven’t found out for myself.’ He sat back, relaxed, and looked at her for a few moments. ‘First of all,’ he drawled, compounding the image of a male utterly at ease by folding his hands behind his head, ‘There’s no need for you to change the way you dress because your role has slightly altered.’
Two hot patches of colour appeared on her cheeks. ‘I don’t think that a sarong, a baggy tee shirt and some flip-flops would be the right dress code for this sort of situation,’ she said stiffly.
‘Nor do you have to feel obliged to wear clothes you find uncomfortable,’ Max returned gently.
Mia didn’t say anything. He’d made very clear that she worked for him and she was going to have to curb the desire to snap back at everything he said.
‘I spoke to Nat last night,’ Max continued briskly. ‘He brought me up to date with the supply shortages with the timber. What I’m getting is that Izzy may have been quite out of her depth. I thought I was doing her a favour in handing over more or less complete responsibility for guiding this project through from visual to completion. It seems I was mistaken.’
‘She’s only twenty-two!’ Mia protested.
‘You’d be surprised how capable a twenty-two-year-old can be when thrown into a situation,’ Max replied coolly, his navy eyes guarded. ‘We communicated by email, with the occasional phone call. I was under the impression that this was to be a top-of-the-range, no-expense-spared-when-it-came-to-luxury kind of hotel. From what Nat has said, that was far from what my sister envisaged.’
‘I couldn’t really comment on that,’ Mia muttered.
‘I’d planned on going through some of the financial figures with you here,’ Max said crisply, shutting his laptop and standing, ‘but I think I’d be better served if we leave immediately for the hotel so that I can see for myself exactly what the footprint on the ground looks like.’
He waited for her to get to her feet and then, heading towards the door, continued, ‘We’re going to be outside. We’re going to be tramping through the foundations of the hotel. I don’t suppose there will be any convenient air-conditioning so my suggestion would be for you to get out of those stiflingly hot clothes and wear what you would normally wear if you were working outside.’
Every word he said riled Mia. Not only had he managed to hijack her normal life but now, she having made a special effort to turn herself into someone resembling an assistant rather than the gardener she was, he saw nothing wrong in sending her off to get changed.
‘Of course.’ She stalked towards the door but before she could fling it open his hand was on her arm and she froze.
‘I’ll come with you to your house and wait for you.’
‘Why?’ Heart speeding up, she looked at him, banking down a flare of alarm.
‘Because it makes sense. I have a driver. You can fill me in on the general design of the hotel on the way to your house and then he can deliver us to the hotel so that you can show me round.’
She nodded curtl
y and her lips were compressed as they headed down to the lobby and out into the blistering sun.
He was right. If she did anything outside in this weather, wearing these clothes, she would pass out.
But she still felt awkward as she slid into the back seat of the car and told his driver where she lived.
They were travelling in style. The driver was uniformed, with the stony expression of someone highly trained to conceal all emotion and only to speak when addressed. The car was a shiny, black top-of-the-range Mercedes with blacked-out windows and a level of air-conditioning that made her want to sigh with pleasure.
She stroked the soft leather with one finger and, when she glanced across to Max, it was to find that he was looking at her, a smile tugging the corners of his mouth.
‘I can’t help it,’ Mia muttered defensively.
‘Can’t help what?’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been in a car like this before,’ she admitted. ‘It’s beyond luxurious.’
Max smiled, genuinely amused. He’d started the morning at precisely five a.m. He’d powered through a number of emails and spoken to whoever had been available at that hour, time differences taken into account. He had devoted a considerable amount of time to the situation with his sister, replaying in his head what Mia had told him—that Izzy had specifically requested he not contact her. Specifically. He had shrewdly noted Mia’s discomfort when she had told him this and knew that Izzy’s insistence on not wanting him to find her was probably even more urgent.
Mia would have tried to soften the harsh reality. That had hurt. He had been assiduous when it came to looking out for his sister and he couldn’t deny that it hurt to realise that he had been found wanting.
It was something he had chosen to put out of his mind, however, because the main thing was the business of apprising himself of what had been happening in his absence. He had handed over too much responsibility to his sister, trusting that she would follow through.
Forbidden Hawaiian Nights Page 4
