Page 42 of Forbidden Hawaiian Nights
‘Shame we have to work,’ she said, drowsy and flushed in the aftermath of their morning lovemaking, and he smiled a long, slow smile.
‘Work? I don’t think so. For once in my life…’ His tone was oddly quizzical. ‘I think I’m going to take some well-deserved time out…’
CHAPTER NINE
TIME OUT WAS…a holiday.
Max hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Mia that time out was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for him. When was the last time he’d jettisoned work in favour of relaxation?
They spent three nights in Maui. They were driven to local beauty spots as Mia’s foot healed. There was over one hundred and twenty miles of coastline and over thirty miles of beach. They went to South Maui and sat with an elaborate picnic at one of the tables at Makena Beach, watching the people and the activity, and the deep turquoise sea and the billowing clouds, blowing fast in a blue sky.
She was discovering just how the world of the truly rich worked and it was nothing like anything she’d seen in her life before. People jumped at his command. After their first night together, the following day he had announced that he wouldn’t countenance her sleeping separately from him.
‘We could…er…get the hotel to unlock the adjoining door,’ Mia had suggested.
He was used to obedience. He spoke, people listened and then they duly did as they were told.
She could understand how Izzy had fallen into line with all the laws and regulations he had laid down over the years.
She wasn’t his sister, however, and, although she was his employee, they were now on a different standing, in a different place, and she was not going to succumb to the overwhelming power of his personality.
At least, she certainly wasn’t going to join the troupe of yes, sir people who surrounded him.
She fought to stick to sleeping apart but an open door between their suites had been a recipe for a very disrupted second night.
He’d come to her bed and scooped her up, had carried her to his, and then had duly delivered her right back to her own bed. But she missed him. If he wanted to have her right there at hand, then it was a two-way street, because she wanted the same thing.
By night three, all notion of sleeping apart had duly been abandoned.
‘You’re very bossy,’ she’d told him at one point, and he’d burst out laughing.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. No one’s ever called me bossy before.’
‘That’s because they’re all scared of you,’ Mia had retorted without blinking an eye, which had resulted in yet more mirth.
‘Everyone but you,’ he had said softly.
‘When you come from a large, noisy family, it doesn’t pay to be shy and retiring.’
But she was uneasily aware that the power of his personality and his assumption that he called the shots was an almost irresistible force and, quite often, she just relished basking in his alpha male strength.
They left Maui on the very same private jet that had delivered them there, flying in to Kauai.
He’d booked yet another luxury five-star hotel.
Now, as the jet disgorged them into brilliant sun, and humidity that made her clothes instantly stick to her back like glue, Mia tilted her head up to look at him.
He took her breath away. Especially now that her thoughts were no longer forbidden. She was allowed to admire him; she was allowed to appreciate his superb masculine beauty. The very slight breeze ruffled his dark hair, which was longer now, and her breath caught in her throat. He was in a white polo shirt and a pair of light grey shorts that just about hit his knees and loafers, and he looked every inch pure sex on legs. His fingers linked through hers was a vibrant reminder of the bond they now shared.
Over the past few days, he had expanded his wardrobe. The prospect of actually going to one of the many designer outlets and trying anything on had clearly bored him to death so he had simply snapped his fingers and got someone to do the leg work, returning with everything he’d asked for. He’d simply glanced at what had been bought, nodded and got someone else carefully to put them away.
‘You’re so spoiled,’ Mia had said, although his complete expectation that he could be spared all manner of what he called ‘dreary, non-profitable nonsense I can’t be bothered with’ was somehow incredibly appealing and very amusing.
‘Why do what other people can do better?’ he had countered. ‘I’m a lousy cook, so I have a personal chef, and I dislike shopping so I get someone else to do it for me. Seems to make perfect sense, as far as I’m concerned.’
‘This hotel we’re booked in,’ Mia said now, as they were escorted from the opulent confines of the jet to a similar level of opulence in a shiny black Range Rover.
‘Yes?’ Once inside the car, he turned to her and raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m beginning to recognise a certain tone of voice. It usually warns me that your school mistress hat is about to be donned…’
