Page 21 of Forbidden Hawaiian Nights
He was a persuasive listener. The tablets had kicked in and the throbbing in her ankle had eased. The tension had seeped out of her and she’d never felt so relaxed.
Relaxed enough to sigh as she considered all the stuff she’d been through… Relaxed enough to say, as he neatly began finishing the job he had begun with the bandage, ‘I guess it’s because I come from such a close family that I ended up getting married so young…’
CHAPTER FIVE
‘MARRIED?’
It wasn’t often that Max was shocked, but he was shocked to the core now.
He almost burst out laughing at himself and his erroneous assumptions. Was his version of a divorced woman so one-dimensional? Did he really think that all divorcees were hard, bitter and plastered with war paint?
No. He didn’t. But it was a telling assumption, and for the first time he found himself a little unsettled at realising just how pervasive his cynicism had become over the years. It coloured all his opinions and every aspect of his life.
Mia had told him that she felt sorry for him. Naturally, that was a laughable criticism. Anyone sharp enough to have mechanisms in place to deflect the slings and arrows of uncertain fate could never be an object of pity. The thought of it was ridiculous.
And yet, when he thought about it, his life was so intensely controlled…
He was accustomed to obedience on the work front. He might have groped his way for a while, when he had been thrust into a position of responsibility at the age of twenty-two. He had been surrounded by men and women twice his age. Many of them he had been forced to let go. Many more he had been forced to relocate. He had gritted his teeth and done what he had had to do. Life in a boarding school from the age of seven had toughened him. Sacking people to refine a business that would have to pay for his siblings had toughened him even further.
And now, many years later and with a business that was a thousand times bigger, he had learnt every aspect of control.
Handing over the building and running of this hotel to Izzy was the first time he had ever let go of the reins and look where it had got him.
He should have been the overlord in the equation, and everything would have run to plan. He would have had his hotel with its marble and glass and infinity pool and wouldn’t now be wading through a bunch of designs, purchases and supply chains that shouldn’t have been required in the first place.
The truth was, though, that his control extended way beyond what happened in his sprawling empire. When it came to women, he allowed no one past a certain point. He had been raised with the consequences of impulse. His parents had specialised in that to the exclusion of everything else. He had been brought up to distrust the so-called power of love and the irrational need to let other people in. His parents had certainly been indulgent when it had come to their all-consuming love, and in the process had ignored everything and everyone else, including their kids. Or at least him.
Holding the world at a distance had been one of his strengths. But now he wondered just how insular he had made his fabulous, moneyed world. He let no one in. He knew his parameters at all times.
Coming here had been a step out of his intensely controlled comfort zone. Under normal circumstances, were one of his smaller projects to need a helping hand on the ground, he would dispatch a member of staff. But he had needed to find his sister, so he’d made the trip himself.
And, since then, where was all that control he had always held dear?
He had arrived to find his ideas for the hotel in tatters. His aim to find his sister and leave within a couple of days had been trashed. He seemed to be permanently engaged in a standoff with a woman he couldn’t go near without wanting to touch.
There was a battle raging inside him.
Sure, he was attracted to her. She was an incredibly attractive woman.
He’d been out with very many incredibly attractive women. So why was it that this particular one had managed to get under his skin in a way no other woman had?
It made no sense because, beyond the physical appeal, she should have been a turn-off.
She’d kicked off by not telling him where Izzy was. That in itself should have solved the problem of hanging around. He should have just gone ahead and taken the practical route of hiring someone to find her. It would have been easy. Not the most desirable option, but an easy one, given the fact that Mia had dug her heels in and refused to co-operate. Hire someone to do the job, get Izzy back at the hotel within hours—job done, bye-bye Hawaii and hello to the concrete jungle that was the city of London.
But he hadn’t.
He’d listened to her—but had that put paid to her mouthiness? Not in the least. She felt utterly free, it seemed, to say exactly what was in her mind. Sometimes, he could tell that she was trying hard to hold back, despite the fact that she worked for him, but the thread that held her back from speaking her mind was gossamer-thin and often broke.
And yet, bewilderingly, he didn’t seem to object as much as he knew he should. He was beginning to think that, the more she tried his patience, the more attracted he was to her and the faster his self-discipline got flushed down the pan.
He was her employer! She worked for him. He had always made a point of keeping business very far removed from pleasure. You let someone who worked for you into your life, and you lost control of the reins. That had always been his motto.
And yet, not even her status could detract from her appeal.
And now, finding out that she’d been married…
Been married? Or still was…?
