Her Mile High Mates [The Hot Millionaires #4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (2 page)

Well, she would, given that she’s my sister.
“I just wondered what she was like, that’s all. What sort of act I have to follow. This place is a bit intimidating for a newbie.”

The cheeky sod patted her rear. “Don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about there, love.”

She moved out of range of his questing hands. What was it with short men? Why did every single one she met appear to have a point to prove? Simon was a couple of inches shorter than her five nine and no oil painting. But his monumental ego more than made up for his lack of inches, and he appeared to think he was the answer to every girl’s dream.
Money isn’t everything, pal.

“Do schedule your next lesson at the desk,” she said.

“How about dinner next week?” He sounded a bit desperate. Presumably, he didn’t usually have this trouble because his money made his targets overlook his shortcomings. “If we took it here at the club and talked about my tennis, it couldn’t be construed as fraternisation.”

“Don’t forget the gala dinner at the casino on Friday night,” Fabia said, ducking the invitation. “Have you signed up yet?”

“No, I wasn’t sure—”

“Oh, you must come. It’ll be
the
event of the summer, apparently. Don’t miss out. I think there’re still a few tickets left.”
More like a few hundred, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“Anton has reserved a table for tennis clients, and the local media will be all over the event.”

“Oh right, if you’ll be there.”

“I will be, and it’s black-tie.”

“Right, I’ll definitely sign up right now. But about that dinner—”

“Damn.” She extracted her cell phone from her pocket.
Talk about saved by the bell.
“I need to take this.”

“Anton, where are you?”

“Stuck on the motorway on my way back from Valencia. There’s been a crash and the traffic’s going nowhere.”

“Oh, dear.”

“You’ll have to attend the staff meeting for me.”

“Me, but I don’t know anything about—”

“There’s a file on my desk with all the figures in it. Just read them out when your turn comes. That’s all you have to do. Listen to everyone else and get to know them at the lunch afterward. It’ll be good for you.”

“Okay, I guess I can do that.”

Fabia checked her watch. Half an hour before the meeting started. She’d grab the file and then hit the shower. She couldn’t mix with the other managers in sweaty tennis gear.

She said good-bye to Simon and made a beeline for Anton’s office. The file was just where he’d said it would be. She took a quick peek as she retraced her steps, just to be sure she knew what she was supposed to say, and stopped in her tracks. This couldn’t be right. She sat behind Anton’s desk and took a closer look. He had her down for having given Simon twenty hours of coaching. He’d signed up for twenty but had only had three so far. And there were other errors, too. The computer must have cocked up and printed out hours booked rather than hours taken.

Time was getting on, but Fabia couldn’t possibly go to this high-level meeting with spurious information. She would look like a right idiot. She wasted precious time pulling the correct figures from the system and printed them out. The printer jammed, and she spent more time she didn’t have coaxing it back to life. By the time she’d gotten the information she needed, the meeting was due to start. She’d just have to go as she was.

“Great,” she muttered under her breath, “just great!”

She walked into the crowded room and winced. Everyone was already there, all of them tarted up to the nines. She felt underdressed and untidy by comparison. She hadn’t even thought to do anything about her hair. She lifted the heavy braid from her back, aware of her shirt still adhering to her with perspiration, and sighed. How to make a good impression!

Fabia slid into a seat next to Greg, the manager of the golf course.

“Hello, what brings you here?”

“Anton’s stuck in traffic.”

“Good, ’cos I’d rather look at you than him.” He grinned at her. “Especially since you look so hot.”

“I take it that wasn’t meant as a compliment, as in smoking hot.”

He chuckled. “Would you believe me if I said it was?”

“Not a chance. I’ve just spent the last hour avoiding wandering hands and feeding forehands to a moron. Then I got the call from Anton and there was no time to change.”

“Bet you’re glad you got this job,” he said, chuckling.

“What’s this meeting all about, then?”

“The usual. We take it in turns to stand up, quote fabricated figures—”

“Fabricated?”

“Well, that’s probably an exaggeration, but we all have targets to meet, and people have been known, shall we say, to do whatever it takes to make themselves look good.”

Fabia wondered if that was what Anton had done. “But surely the paperwork and takings have to back up those figures?”

Greg shrugged. “Don’t ask me, I only work here.”

“Yes, but you’ve been here a while. You must know—”

“The golf single-handedly keeps the development in the black, so I’m not into fiction.”

She shot him a look. “You’re not serious, about the others being so creative, I mean?”

“Well, it’s fiercely competitive. You know what they say. There’re lies, damned lies, and statistics. Take my advice and take everything you hear today with a huge pinch of salt.”

Greg nodded across the table to where the managers of the restaurant and bar were sitting together in close conversation. The guy who ran the stables sat alone, tapping a pen impatiently against a pad. The casino manager and marina captain appeared to have formed an unlikely alliance, given their different spheres of operation, and were deep in conversation, too. The hotel manager and the woman who ran the spa were huddled together, ignoring everyone else. Fabia began to understand what Greg meant. It was clearly a cliquey setup, causing her to wonder who Sonia had been close to. No one she’d asked so far seemed to know.

The head of security sat aloof, discouraging anyone from talking to him by looking straight ahead. His name was Evans. Just Evans. She’d never heard him called anything else and wasn’t sure if that was his first or last name. Since she’d shared no more than the occasional nod with him since she’d been here, she’d not had a chance to ask. Not that she really cared if he’d been named after an entire football team. She
did
need to talk to him, though, and would have to invent a reason that wouldn’t make him suspicious. He seemed to know everything that went on around this place, and if Sonia had gotten involved with something she couldn’t handle, he’d be able to enlighten her. Only problem was, he didn’t seem like an easy person to talk to and could probably detect bullshit at twenty paces with the wind in the wrong direction.

“We all have our turf to defend,” Greg explained, chuckling.

“Anton might have warned me.” She wondered if he really had been held up or just wanted to avoid this bun fight. “Why is it so territorial? Is the development in trouble?”

“Darling, the whole world’s in trouble. The economy’s down the toilet, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I thought all the rich dudes who hung out here were safe from the world recession. Along with people like me, of course, who live within their means and don’t have savings or borrowings to fret over.”

Greg conceded the point with a chuckle. “Yep, the development’s okay, but something tells me that our lord and master thinks otherwise.” He nodded toward David Field, the Englishman who managed the development and answered to the consortium who owned it. “Not sure what’s going on, but he seems pretty stressed.”

David called for hush, and the babble of voices gradually subsided. As they did so, the door opened and two latecomers sauntered in. Fabia did a double-take, as did the other two women in the room, she noticed. She’d not seen either guy before. She would definitely have remembered if she had. One was at least six two, with thick dark hair, and aviator shades covering his eyes. His buddy couldn’t have been more than an inch shorter. He had an unruly mop of red hair and was also wearing dark glasses. Why they felt the need for the disguise, Fabia couldn’t imagine. What she did know was they there were no strangers to the gym—not with the toned torsos and bulging biceps they sported. After an hour of Simon’s dumpy body directly in her line of vision, it was no hardship to gape at these two, and she was slow to avert her gaze.

“Who are they?” she asked Greg.

“The dark-haired guy is Peyton Ascot. He’s a Yank, but we don’t hold it against him.” Fabia could think of a few things she wouldn’t mind holding against him. Her body, for starters. “And the other one is—”

“Clyde Wilson,” Fabia finished for him. “He’s a Scot, and they own and run the flying school.”

“Right. How did you know?”

Fabia expelled a long sigh. “Well, let me see. The aviator glasses, the kick-ass attitude, and, just perhaps, the polo shirts with the flying-school logo on them gave me a clue.” She grinned at Greg. “Could that be it?”

“Not much gets past you, does it?”

Fabia’s pulse quickened. She might well have fooled Greg, but that’s not really why she recognized them immediately. She knew who they were because Sonia’s e-mails had been full of them. They were the last two names she’d mentioned before she disappeared off the face of the earth.

“Morning, all.”

Peyton nodded to the people he knew—which was everyone except the chick in the tennis gear—as he and Clyde took the remaining two seats at the foot of the table. David didn’t look happy to see them, and Peyton knew that wasn’t just because he’d lost his audience the moment the two of them walked in. It was because they were there at all. Technically, they didn’t need to be, since they’d owned the flying school before Tosca Brava
sprang up around it and didn’t answer to the owners of the resort. They certainly didn’t need to report to anyone about the state of their business, but Peyton was always interested to hear what was going on elsewhere—or rather the fictional version of events in certain parts of the establishment—upon which he put his own interpretation.

Regardless of his independence, whatever happened at the resort affected his livelihood. Peyton didn’t like or trust David Field. Something about him was definitely off, and he knew his feelings were reciprocated. Peyton had a pesky habit of asking awkward questions in public forums such as this, partly to annoy David but also because he could. He wasn’t reliant upon the vertically challenged manager for his job and needed to let him know that not everyone here felt the need to suck up.

This meeting had been called in a hurry, ahead of its usual monthly date, and Peyton was curious to know why. He and Clyde had been in Seville for over two weeks giving corporate types lifts wherever they needed to go, just so long as there was somewhere to land a light aircraft or a chopper. They weren’t due back until next week, but when his PA told him about this hastily convened meeting, curiosity got the better of him, and he wangled it so they could get away early.

“Who’s the babe?” Clyde asked, leaning back in his chair to make himself as comfortable as he could on the uncomfortable plastic. He spread his legs in front of him as he appraised her.

“Now let me take a wild guess.” Peyton grinned at his partner. “I could be way off here, but I’d say something to do with tennis.”

Clyde affected surprise. “You astound me, Holmes.”

“Sometimes I surprise myself.”

“Good legs,” Clyde remarked, giving Fabia a thorough once-over and clearly liking what he saw.

“The rest of her ain’t too shabby, either. I’ll bet she’s a sensation when she’s scrubbed up and ready to play.”

Clyde perked up. “You think she’s into the life?”

Peyton sighed. “No law against dreaming. Yet.”

“What happened to Sonia?”

“No idea.” Peyton shrugged. “You know how people come and go here all the time.”

“Yeah, shame about her, though. She was kinda cute.”

“She looked a bit like her replacement.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Clyde took another long, considering look at the woman in question. “Oh look, David’s done an agenda for this meeting.”

Peyton quirked a brow. “How thorough of him.”

Clyde consulted the single sheet of paper on the table in front of him. “Anton Barber’s name’s been crossed out and Fabia Brook’s written in by hand.”

“Anton up to his old tricks again, dumping on his subordinates.” Peyton frowned. “Hiding behind a woman’s skirts. Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Not much skirt there for him to hide behind,” Clyde pointed out, studying Fabia’s very short tennis outfit.

Peyton looked, too, watching as Fabia lifted her thick brunette braid away from her back and fanned her face with her agenda. David was too much of a tightwad to have the air-conditioning on just for a staff meeting. Shame. Peyton could see the outline of Fabia’s lacy bra through the thin fabric of her top. He wouldn’t mind seeing what a blast of cold air did for her nipples.

He shook his head. When had be become such an out-and-out voyeur? He sure as hell needed to get laid.