Page 47 of Forbidden Hawaiian Nights
‘Grateful…’ Max murmured.
‘You’ve done me a huge favour,’ she said brightly.
‘And you could do me a huge favour now,’ he growled with an edge of harshness to his voice that she just didn’t get. Because what the heck did he have to be annoyed about? Wasn’t he about to head back to his high-powered life with its sophisticated women? Back to what he knew? He probably couldn’t wait. She’d done her bit and now he’d probably had his fill of down time for the next five years. Leopards never changed their spots.
‘How so?’
‘By coming here.’ He didn’t give her time to answer. He moved towards her and cupped the nape of her neck and drew her towards him. Their bodies were still sticky from the heat and the humidity. He kissed her. Long and hard and with a hunger that was like nothing she’d felt with him before.
He propelled her back towards the bed, holding her so tightly that it was very nearly painful.
And then everything in a rush. Clothes shed… His hand on her breasts, her thighs, between them… Just time to fumble for protection but barely breaking away from his devouring embrace…
He lifted her off her feet and she wrapped her legs around him, felt the powerful thrust of his erection hard inside her as he backed them towards the wall.
She heard herself cry out on a guttural sob of release, a long shudder tearing through her, and afterwards she clung on. Just for a while. Just for her time to say goodbye in that embrace. Tears would come later.
CHAPTER TEN
MAX STARED OUT into an impenetrable night. Two weeks. Two weeks, three days and he could probably count the hours if he put his mind to it.
In short, a lifetime since he had boarded that plane back to London, and back to his precious comfort zone, without which he had been convinced he could not live. Life was work. Work allowed him the control he craved. He knew where he was in the complex, cut-throat world of making money and he liked knowing where he was.
That was what he had told himself when he had left Hawaii, and he had kept feeding himself the same lines, over and over and over.
Izzy was still away, playing Good Samaritan to their mother’s elderly nanny and friend. They had now spoken several times and a cool layer of ice he had not really known existed was rapidly thawing. He had gone to Hawaii to drag his sister out from wherever she was hiding, to find out what the hell she thought she was playing at and to return to London, mission accomplished, within the week.
Instead, his life had been turned on its head.
He now had more insight into his sister than he had ever had before. She would be returning, but with a new, creative role and his absolute trust that she would do a fantastic job taking the hotel down a completely different direction from the one he had originally had in mind.
The new accountant was settling in with flying colours. He’d had frequent communications from Nat, in which details were given of each and every aspect of the hotel in laborious detail.
And Mia…?
Nothing. Not a word. Zilch.
He had walked away and she had cheerfully waved him off. That last night on the island, in that special bubble that had been about to burst, had been incredible. If something inside him had been strangely painful, he had successfully managed to sweep the feeling under the carpet, because he had already begun his mantra on the importance of returning to real life.
Besides, he could remember thinking, it wasn’t as if she had kicked up a fuss that what they had shared was coming to an end. She had shrugged and smiled and been philosophical, and had behaved in exactly the way he should have been cheering about. Instead, he had been inexplicably disgruntled by her nonchalance.
But that too he had swept under the carpet, consigned, he’d thought, to oblivion, with his comfort zone back in London already within striking distance.
Of course, he would miss her. She had occupied a unique place in his life. For the first time, he had dared to stop being the man the rest of the world feared. He had dropped the shutters safe in the knowledge that it was a temporary situation, no harm done.
But now, here he was, staring through the windows of his multi-million-pound penthouse. Finally, he had to admit in the still of the night what he had known all along.
He missed her.
He thought about her all the time. He could barely focus on his work.
He remembered everything about her, from her smile and her laughter to the way she could prise information out of him so that it had always felt good to confide.
He remembered the way she felt and moved and curved against him, and the feeling that they had somehow belonged together.
But for all that, when the crunch had come, the barriers had been raised and he had pushed her away. Why? Because he had been scared. He had remembered his parents and the way their love had been so all-consuming that everything and everyone had been filtered out. Poor decisions had been made, responsibilities abandoned.
The second he had felt the shift of quicksand underneath his feet, he had responded with knee-jerk speed. No way had he been going to let someone get under his skin. That could only spell disaster.
