Mia didn’t say anything. He’d made very clear that she worked for him and she was going to have to curb the desire to snap back at everything he said.
‘I spoke to Nat last night,’ Max continued briskly. ‘He brought me up to date with the supply shortages with the timber. What I’m getting is that Izzy may have been quite out of her depth. I thought I was doing her a favour in handing over more or less complete responsibility for guiding this project through from visual to completion. It seems I was mistaken.’
‘She’s only twenty-two!’ Mia protested.
‘You’d be surprised how capable a twenty-two-year-old can be when thrown into a situation,’ Max replied coolly, his navy eyes guarded. ‘We communicated by email, with the occasional phone call. I was under the impression that this was to be a top-of-the-range, no-expense-spared-when-it-came-to-luxury kind of hotel. From what Nat has said, that was far from what my sister envisaged.’
‘I couldn’t really comment on that,’ Mia muttered.
‘I’d planned on going through some of the financial figures with you here,’ Max said crisply, shutting his laptop and standing, ‘but I think I’d be better served if we leave immediately for the hotel so that I can see for myself exactly what the footprint on the ground looks like.’
He waited for her to get to her feet and then, heading towards the door, continued, ‘We’re going to be outside. We’re going to be tramping through the foundations of the hotel. I don’t suppose there will be any convenient air-conditioning so my suggestion would be for you to get out of those stiflingly hot clothes and wear what you would normally wear if you were working outside.’
Every word he said riled Mia. Not only had he managed to hijack her normal life but now, she having made a special effort to turn herself into someone resembling an assistant rather than the gardener she was, he saw nothing wrong in sending her off to get changed.
‘Of course.’ She stalked towards the door but before she could fling it open his hand was on her arm and she froze.
‘I’ll come with you to your house and wait for you.’
‘Why?’ Heart speeding up, she looked at him, banking down a flare of alarm.
‘Because it makes sense. I have a driver. You can fill me in on the general design of the hotel on the way to your house and then he can deliver us to the hotel so that you can show me round.’
She nodded curtly and her lips were compressed as they headed down to the lobby and out into the blistering sun.
He was right. If she did anything outside in this weather, wearing these clothes, she would pass out.
But she still felt awkward as she slid into the back seat of the car and told his driver where she lived.
They were travelling in style. The driver was uniformed, with the stony expression of someone highly trained to conceal all emotion and only to speak when addressed. The car was a shiny, black top-of-the-range Mercedes with blacked-out windows and a level of air-conditioning that made her want to sigh with pleasure.
She stroked the soft leather with one finger and, when she glanced across to Max, it was to find that he was looking at her, a smile tugging the corners of his mouth.
‘I can’t help it,’ Mia muttered defensively.
‘Can’t help what?’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been in a car like this before,’ she admitted. ‘It’s beyond luxurious.’
Max smiled, genuinely amused. He’d started the morning at precisely five a.m. He’d powered through a number of emails and spoken to whoever had been available at that hour, time differences taken into account. He had devoted a considerable amount of time to the situation with his sister, replaying in his head what Mia had told him—that Izzy had specifically requested he not contact her. Specifically. He had shrewdly noted Mia’s discomfort when she had told him this and knew that Izzy’s insistence on not wanting him to find her was probably even more urgent.
Mia would have tried to soften the harsh reality. That had hurt. He had been assiduous when it came to looking out for his sister and he couldn’t deny that it hurt to realise that he had been found wanting.
It was something he had chosen to put out of his mind, however, because the main thing was the business of apprising himself of what had been happening in his absence. He had handed over too much responsibility to his sister, trusting that she would follow through.
At the back of his mind, he knew that he had made inaccurate assumptions and even more badly judged comparisons. Whilst he had taken on board the weight of premature responsibilities when his parents had died, when he himself had been the same age as his sister now, they were different people with different life experiences and different goals. Izzy wasn’t him.
He had given her what he saw as a golden opportunity, and maybe it had been, but in all events it had been too soon for her.
She’d wanted to live her life on her terms. She hadn’t wanted his interference then and she didn’t want it now.
But introspection wasn’t something he liked to indulge, and it had kick-started his day on a bad footing.
He’d hit the boardroom an hour and a half before Mia was due to show up, ample time to discover that conversations he had had with Izzy about the hotel and suggestions he had put her way because this was his third foray into the hotel business, albeit on a much, much smaller scale, had been largely ignored.
He’d taken his eye off the ball for the very first time when it came to work and he could have kicked himself.
Yet, when he had turned to see Mia framed in the doorway, all those feelings of edgy frustration had vanished.
