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‘I’ve got a bike that belongs to one of your employees I need to drop off.’
‘What employee?’
‘Madeleine Westmore.’
‘How do you know Maddy?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Rye stated flatly, not appreciating the third degree—or the tiny tinge of guilt.
Phil swore on the other end of the line. ‘Please tell me you’re not treating Maddy to the Ryan King Do ‘em and Dump ‘em routine.’
Rye’s temper sparked. He’d coined that insulting phrase fifteen years ago, when he’d been sixteen, had turbo-charged hormones and thought boasting about all the women he got into the sack made him a man. ‘We’re not in secondary school any more, Phil.’
‘Too right we’re not,’ Phil interrupted forcefully. ‘Leave her alone, Rye; she doesn’t play those kind of games.’
‘What games?’ Rye demanded, something sour settling in his gut. Since when had free-wheeling Phil become the protective sort? Had Maddy lied to him about the two of them?
‘You know what games,’ Phil said, then sighed. ‘Look, mate, she’s a good friend and a great waitress. She works really hard and she got dumped on big time last year by some creep called Steve. The last thing she needs is a smooth-talking, over-sexed big shot from London using her for sport.’
Rye would have laughed at Phil’s insulting assessment of him—the over-sexed reference being particularly ironic—if the sour something in his gut hadn’t been rising up his throat like bile. ‘What is this? Are you trying to stake your own claim?’
‘No. It’s nothing like that.’ Phil sounded genuinely shocked at the accusation. ‘She’s not interested in me. And, even if she were, she doesn’t do sex with the boss. Ever. She has a rule about it.’
‘How the hell do you know that?’ Rye shouted, the bile threatening to choke him.
‘Because she told me,’ Phil shot right back. ‘She was a little drunk and we were—’ He paused. ‘Anyway, that’s not the point. What did she say when you told her you own this place? I can’t believe she would …’
‘I’m not sleeping with her.’ Not right this minute, anyway.
Rye ignored the tug of guilt. Maybe he should have mentioned that he owned the café, but it hadn’t seemed all that relevant.
He’d inherited all the property along the Bay after the death of his grandfather ten years ago, when he’d still been travelling round the world as a surf bum living off the prize money from competitions and any instructor work he could hustle. After the funeral, he’d spent two months refurbishing the café, opening a surf hire shop next door and blowing the rest of his inheritance rehabbing the old Victorian guest house on the point and reopening it as a boutique hotel to cater to North Cornwall’s young, rich and sporty summer crowd. Then he’d hired Phil to manage the café and surf shop and Tony, another of his old friends from secondary school, to manage Surf Central, and got the hell out of Cornwall for the second time in his life.
That small taste of empire-building had planted a seed, though, that had blossomed into dissatisfaction as he’d back-packed his way to Hawaii. He’d got as far as California before he’d admitted that his nomadic, shoestring existence didn’t have the cachet at twenty-one that it had when he’d first run away from his grandfather’s oppressive rules and regulations at seventeen. So he’d made his way back to London, remortgaged Trewan Manor, arranged a loan on the Wildwater Bay businesses and started making careful investments in similar extreme sports enterprises around the globe.
The adrenalin kick of riding the perfect wave had gradually been replaced by the more intense and sustained high of managing his fledgling business empire and watching it grow and expand.
He’d worked hard to build King Xtreme into a thriving multinational concern. And, yeah, maybe he’d played hard as well, bedding a string of beautiful women the world over and turning his Kensington penthouse into the party capital of London society during the winter months. But his sexual conquests had never been indiscriminate, or nearly as prolific as the press liked to maintain—and, while he’d had a well-earned reputation as an adrenalin junkie, he’d never used drugs or alcohol to feed the high. Maintaining his health and his fitness had been an important part of his brand. Until the accident.
So he didn’t deserve Phil’s scorn. Or this guilt trip.
‘Maddy will find out that I own the café tomorrow.’ He could sort out any hang-ups she might have about sleeping with the boss then. He didn’t anticipate it being a big hurdle, though, not after the way she had responded to his touch today. And, anyhow, strictly speaking, he wasn’t her boss. Phil was.
‘Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ Phil said. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. The breakfast rush is over around eleven. Come by then and I can take time out to show you the books.’
‘I’ll be there at nine-thirty,’ he said and disconnected the call.
He wasn’t waiting till eleven to see Maddy again. Plus he had no desire to see the books. He had accountants to do that sort of thing. And he trusted Phil. Implicitly.
Just not with Maddy.
CHAPTER NINE
‘THIS morning’s breakfast special is sweet waffles with crispy bacon and maple syrup.’
Maddy waited patiently for the elderly couple to make up their minds, then jotted down their order. Pasting on what she hoped was a perky smile, she refilled their coffee cups. ‘That’ll be a few minutes. Feel free to help yourself to newspapers and magazines while you wait.’
Tucking her pad away, she slipped through the swinging doors into the kitchen and pinned the only order of the morning on the board.
