One wayward sister who had to be located and brought back to that little thing called reality—namely the job she had abandoned without prior warning. One friend who would spill the beans because she would find out fast enough that she had no choice. Quick debrief with Nat, probably with Izzy in tow so that she could be reminded in no uncertain terms of the very cushy number she was fortunate enough to have. And then he would be able to return to his high-powered life in the fast lane.
That was his comfort zone.
Max Stowe led a life that would have driven many to a nervous breakdown. He never stopped. Everything took second place to the demands of work. He knew that, accepted it and was indifferent when it came to changing his priorities. Why would he? He enjoyed control and he had ultimate control over every aspect of his life.
He worked hard. He liked the pressure. He had enough money to enjoy an expensive life a million times over, but that didn’t mean he had any intention of ever slowing down. He worked long hours and, when he rested, he rested with women who knew the score, who knew that he was never going to be in it for the long term. He was a red-blooded male with a libido to match. He enjoyed the women he dated but he was intensely disciplined when it came to knowing just where they featured in his life. He’d never, not once, allowed his head to take second place to any other part of his body.
Buried deep in his formative years were lessons learnt about the havoc emotion caused and the disastrous roads it took people down. As the eldest in the family, he had registered, in ways neither James nor certainly Izzy ever had, the self-indulgence of his parents, who had been so absorbed in one another that parental responsibility was just a game they played at now and again.
He had been conveniently sent to boarding school at the age of seven. By the age of ten, he had given up on his parents showing any real interest in his achievements. By the time he’d hit adolescence, he’d stopped caring.
Bit by bit, he’d sealed the emotional side of himself off. He was naturally gifted academically, and could take his pick when it came to sport, so studying and sport became the two things he’d relied upon. You knew where you stood on a rugby pitch or in a physics exam. Once those values had been cemented, they had hardened over the years, and so here he was now. Pleased to be the controlling hand at the rudder, knowing exactly where his life was going and knowing that it was never going to deviate from the path he had carved out for himself.
Except…things at the moment weren’t going quite according to plan, and that got on his nerves. He’d had no hesitation in rousing his PA at six that morning to brief her about various meetings that would have to be put on the back burner or delegated to a couple of his trusted CEOs. He had told her that James would be available should the need arise, but he was stretched dealing with his own arm of the family empire.
Now, sitting in the boardroom he had requisitioned from the hotel, waiting for Mia to show up, he tried to timetable his week going forward. Even dividing it into sound bites did little to paper over the fact that he really had no idea when he would be able to head back to London. The maximum amount of time he would spend here was a fortnight, but it was intensely frustrating not to be able to have a more precise idea of when within that two-week period his departure would take place.
He was sprawled back in the leather chair, computer in front of him on the glossy marble conference table, staring out of the window at another dazzlingly sunny day, when the door opened quietly.
From behind it, Mia paused, heart hammering. He wasn’t aware that she had pushed open the heavy boardroom door. He was absorbed in whatever he was thinking, which was probably work-related, given a laptop was open on the massive table in front of him.
She took a few seconds to look at his averted profile and the lazy sprawl of his muscular body as he gazed through the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out at a stunning vista of buildings and blue sky and, in the distance, the radiant blue-green ocean.
He was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a grey polo shirt and loafers. She wondered whether this was the most casual outfit ever to grace this fabulous space with its long walnut sideboard, on which someone had kindly placed plates filled with various breakfast pastries, its marble twenty-seater table and its elegant drapes.
Mostly, she wondered whether she should have knocked, but then she wasn’t his secretary, although she did indeed work for him. She was filling in for Izzy. Bringing him up to date with stuff to do with the hotel. He probably would have this one meeting with her and that would be the end of their communications. He could pick Nat’s brain for any additional information.
Couldn’t he?
She had spent a restless night, head too full of the day’s unexpected events to allow her much sleep.
Surprisingly, top of the agenda for things bothering her hadn’t been the fact that he had shown up out of nowhere and tried to demand answers out of her, or the fact that she had released information about Izzy that had been said in confidence—even though at the time Izzy had said nothing about Mia keeping any of the information to herself.
No, what had bothered her, what had kept her awake, had been her own incomprehensible physical reaction to him. In her mind’s eye, she had been able to envisage all too clearly for her liking the strong, chiselled lines of his lean, handsome face…the muscularity of his body…the sweep of those long, dark lashes…the brooding intensity of his eyes.
His appearance had impacted her in ways that were vaguely unsettling because they had come from nowhere and caught her unprepared.
She cleared her throat and he turned around. Thankfully, her legs did what she wanted them to do, and she walked towards him, not quite knowing where to sit at the enormous table. If she took the opposite end, she would need a megaphone to be heard.
He spared her the decision by almost imperceptibly nodding at the chair directly adjoining his and sitting up, waiting until she had shuffled into the seat.
He was casually dressed. She, on the other hand, had fished out the most formal outfit she could get her hands on. Her work uniform rarely strayed beyond the parameters of jeans or shorts and tee shirts, with the occasional sarong thrown in for when she was teaching surf to the kids at the weekend. She lived in flip flops, sandals or trainers.
Today she had opted for a sensible knee-length skirt and a blouse, neatly tucked into the waistband. And some proper shoes.
Was it her imagination or did she glimpse a flash of amusement in his eyes when he looked at her?
She pursed her lips and perched on the chair.
‘Relax.’
‘I’ve downloaded some facts and figures I thought you might want to have a look at.’ Straight down to business. She reached into her backpack and extracted a plastic folder, which she held out to him. He ignored her outstretched hand, so she awkwardly dropped it onto the table.
‘No need. I expect there’s nothing there I haven’t found out for myself.’ He sat back, relaxed, and looked at her for a few moments. ‘First of all,’ he drawled, compounding the image of a male utterly at ease by folding his hands behind his head, ‘There’s no need for you to change the way you dress because your role has slightly altered.’
Two hot patches of colour appeared on her cheeks. ‘I don’t think that a sarong, a baggy tee shirt and some flip-flops would be the right dress code for this sort of situation,’ she said stiffly.
‘Nor do you have to feel obliged to wear clothes you find uncomfortable,’ Max returned gently.
