Page 4 of Forbidden Hawaiian Nights
Over five months as they had become firm friends, Mia had gleaned a picture of someone who lived for work and ruled his much younger sister with an iron fist. An autocratic, humourless bore with a God complex.
Sitting here now, she was inclined to believe every aspect of that picture that had been painted in not so many words.
Hackles rising, she linked her fingers on the table and looked at him without flinching. He might be able to bully Izzy but there was no way he was going to bully her.
It took a lot of will power to maintain eye contact, and she had to yank herself back from the feeling that she was sinking into the depths of his steady, veiled, darkly mesmerising gaze…that somehow he had the power to scramble her brains.
‘Where is she, Mia?’ he asked softly.
He leaned towards her and she automatically leaned back to create distance between them.
‘I don’t know,’ she said quickly, too quickly, because instead of thinking about her denial he smiled very slowly.
‘Nice try, but I’m not buying it.’
‘What makes you think that I know where Izzy is?’
‘For a start, you’re her close friend, and close friends confide. My sister would never have disappeared without telling someone where she was going. She certainly hasn’t said a word to either myself or her brother and Nat is as much in the dark as I am, which really only leaves you.’ He had ordered one of the local beers, and after Rae deposited their drinks on the table he tilted the bottle to his mouth, although his eyes never left her face, not for a second. He took his time drinking and then he lowered the bottle and broke the lengthening silence between them.
‘Secondly,’ he carried on, as though there had been no interruption to what he had been saying, ‘your face is giving the game away. You know where she is, and I need to find her.’
‘Don’t think,’ she said coldly, ‘that you can bully me into telling you anything I don’t want to.’
‘And don’t forget you work for me.’
Mia gasped. Yes—she worked for him! Of course, the second he had revealed his identity she had subliminally joined the dots, but on some other level she had not consciously registered that she was his employee.
She was registering it now and working out just what that involved.
As a landscape gardener, she had worked for herself for the past five years and had made a good enough living, but this was the first really big job she had ever taken on. And, more than that, she had found herself doing much more than the landscape gardening for the hotel and she enjoyed the additional responsibilities.
She enjoyed liaising with some of the suppliers, sorting out invoices when Izzy had too much on and, after the whole business of Jefferson and the effect he had had on Izzy, she had stepped up to the plate and got involved in most aspects of the business.
And she had been compensated financially for her efforts.
She knew that Max remotely controlled everything, so she knew that he would be well aware of her various responsibilities, and the fact that her pay cheque had been bumped up twice since she had started working for him.
What he wouldn’t know was that she had used that money to get a bank loan to cover some vital repair work on her house. It was a loan that would have to be repaid.
She felt the heavy thudding of her heart as she belatedly recognised the consequences of having her pay stopped for whatever reason.
She would survive, but it would be tough, and she would have to go cap in hand to her parents for help, which was something she was loath to do.
Furthermore, she had been planning on this job leading to bigger and better things.
Word of mouth could be a powerful tool when it came to getting business in these parts. Were she to move on to bigger jobs—landscaping for hotels or offices—then she would be operating in a much bigger ball park and she could really see her earnings multiply.
But for that to happen she would need a damned good reference.
And where was that reference going to come from? The very guy staring at her now with brooding intensity, waiting for her to spill the beans.
‘Are you blackmailing me?’ she asked. She licked her lips and knew that she probably looked as nervous as she felt.
Max shrugged by way of response and sat back, his body language indicating someone utterly at ease with the situation.
No wonder Izzy had launched into a degree she didn’t enjoy after her brother Max had proclaimed a business degree to be the best thing she could do, Mia thought. And she had hated it. He had probably used the same intimidating tactics on his sister that he was using on her now!
‘I’m suggesting a fair exchange,’ he countered. He didn’t add to that, instead finishing his beer, giving her time to absorb the situation between them.
