Page 15 of Forbidden Hawaiian Nights
She’d had no opportunity to talk about the hotel. She’d been sucked into frantic curiosity about his approach to life, had marvelled that he could be so world-weary when he was still in his mid-thirties. She’d found herself wondering how this all translated into his personal life and had blushed for ever letting her thoughts wander down that route.
If he hadn’t taken a call, she was afraid that she might have asked him personal questions that were none of her business. Now it was a relief to hop out of the car and head inside the coolness of her house, with Max safely still on his call and barely seeming to notice that the car had stopped and that she had left it.
Her house was small with a wooden veranda at the back holding old wicker chairs and a bamboo table. It was her favourite spot to relax because her back garden, which was a mixture of earth and patchy grass, overlooked the sea, albeit the view was a distant one. She barely paused to gaze out at that view now, instead heading directly to her bedroom. Now that she was out of the air-conditioned confines of the Mercedes, she couldn’t wait to get out of the skirt and blouse, and she rid herself of both in record time.
She’d put a lot of thought into what she had chosen to wear to meet Max and, uncomfortable as it had been, the outfit had conferred some essential distance between them.
She would have to wear comfortable clothes to show him around the hotel, which was currently a building site, so she dressed accordingly in jeans, a tee shirt and her walking boots.
He was still on his call when she slipped back into the car a mere fifteen minutes after it had arrived at her house.
She was still clutching the backpack and now she extracted the sheaf of papers she had taken with her to the boardroom and which he had casually dismissed.
‘Ah.’ Max ended his phone call and shoved the mobile phone into his trouser pocket. ‘You decided to dump the office garb. Good. Feel a little less restricted?’
‘I didn’t feel restricted,’ Mia rebutted. ‘But this is more appropriate for looking around a building site.’
‘Which is going to be a more condensed visit, as it happens. I’ll have a quick look round, but I’ve scheduled a meeting with Nat for this afternoon to discuss various aspects of the costings that will have to be assessed before anything further gets ordered. If I don’t like the direction all of this is going, then everything gets halted, and I’ll make sure what I want is followed to the last letter.’
‘And what about when Izzy returns? She’s put her heart and soul into her plans for the hotel. I know they’re probably not what you had in mind, but she’s spent a lot of time coming up with ideas…’
‘That was then and this is now,’ Max imparted flatly. ‘I can’t hang around waiting for my sister to decide that she’s got her act together and is ready to return, and even if she does…’ He paused for a few seconds, then raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Then her role may need to be revisited.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If there are aspects of the job she doesn’t like, then there’s no point to forcing her to do them.’ He wearily pressed his fingers over his eyes but, when he looked at her, he was once more in complete control. ‘I intend to hire a full-time accountant to deal with the day-to-day financial running of the place and in time, when things start gathering momentum, I will ensure a team is taken on.’
In that moment, Mia felt all her prejudices against him slip and slide uneasily beneath her feet.
When it came to his sister, it was clear that underneath the hard, dictatorial exterior was a real well of love. He might have been too aggressive when it had come to directing her life, but it hadn’t been for a lack of strong, fraternal protectiveness.
Life experiences changed people, made them veer off in all sorts of directions that sometimes made no sense to the people around them.
Wasn’t she a victim of that herself?
She had married young in a subconscious desire to repeat what her parents had done, what her siblings had done. Marrying young, having a family and replicating what she knew had been a given when she and Kai had married. They had both gone into marriage blithely assuming a happy-ever-after ending, blithely assuming that they would slide seamlessly into the noisy, wonderful chaos of family life.
It had unravelled with speed. The easy familiarity they had always shared had very quickly become the tension of two very young people who had never had to put their relationship to the test. The business of sharing space had revealed flaws they had never noticed before.
But divorce had come at a price. She had retreated from the business of finding love and had made her checklist of required traits so meticulous that the years had gone by. With each passing year, Mia had known that her ability to feel was shrinking just a little bit more.
So who was she to point fingers at Max? He was as cold as ice, but having responsibility for two siblings when you were barely out of your teens yourself would have been punishing.
‘That’s probably a good idea,’ she agreed.
‘Any interest in applying for the job?’
Mia relaxed and laughed. ‘No chance. As it happens, I’m pretty good with the books, but I like the outdoor life.’
‘Change of plan.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You can sit in on my meeting with Nat. He’s the supervisor on the job and he will have a pretty good idea of the supply chain, because I know he’s been dealing with some of them, but if you’re good at accounts then your contribution might be useful.’
‘I’m not dressed for a meeting in that boardroom!’
She stared down at the casual clothes and then blushed as their eyes met and held.
