The CEO Gets Her Man (7 page)

“Another language is a great asset, particularly in tourism. It could help you climb the ladder if you wanted a career in the industry.”

Debra listened with rising dismay. After Cathy’s championing of his methods, she guessed Jase was about to suggest training or courses or—her heart raced like a startled rabbit—maybe even private tutoring.

“Ah—umm.” Think, think, she demanded of her brain.

“Debra, table four needs clearing please.”

Never before had Debra been so relieved to hear another voice. She ignored Jase and hurried away to comply with George’s order. Catching his wink as she hurried past him with hands full of dirty dishes moments later she grinned in response. George had saved her from some awkward explanations.

****

Debra wasn’t due back on duty until four. While eating a leisurely lunch in the staff dining room, the object of her thoughts stopped beside her table.

“Mind if I join you?” Jase’s smile was filled with confidence. As if no woman had ever refused such a request.

More composed than she’d been earlier, she nodded. Time spent with Jase, particularly at his instigation, was the ideal way to determine his contribution to the hotel’s fiscal deterioration.

Debra studied him as he removed his meal from the tray and set the plate on the table. Her stomach squirmed as the breath caught in her throat. He was a striking man. So much more devastating close up than she could ever have imagined. Without the sporting prowess on the rugby field that had rocketed him to international stardom, he would still turn heads in any company.

When he caught her ogling him so intently she blurted out the first thing to come to mind. “When did you break your nose? Rugby’s such a violent pastime, I always thought.”

No need for him to know she often watched matches and had seen him play many times. “I suppose they stuffed your nostrils with cotton wool and you kept playing regardless?”

Jase threw back his head and laughed. “I wish.”

His smile turned her insides all gooey while her brain chastised them for being so soppy.

His fingers touched the bump. “I’d have coped better with the pain then. No, my sister belted me with a cricket bat when I was eight.”

With raised eyebrows Debra murmured unsympathetically, “I’m sure she had good reason.”

“She always maintained so,” Jase tucked into his meal. After a couple of mouthfuls he smiled again and confided. “I wouldn’t give her my ice-cream.”

“Oh.” When she detected a twinkle in his eye she caught on. “I’m sure she would give a different account.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, it makes a good story. So what did you do before you arrived here, Debbie,” Jase asked.

Glaring at his use of the hated version of her name, he continued before she could suggest he use her correct name. “It’s obvious you haven’t had much experience in the hospitality industry.”

Her face warmed. “I worked in an office.” After all, that was the truth.

Thank goodness he accepted that without questions.

“Why Riversleigh? Why Southland? It’s a bit of a change after Wellington.”

She’d rehearsed for these types of questions. “My mother suggested it. She was born in Southland and always goes on about the place. I thought I’d come and have a look around.”

“Fair enough. What do you think of the place so far?”

“I haven’t seen much yet. But it seems very nice.”

Jase feigned outrage. “Nice! I’ll have you know nice is much too insipid a word to use down here.”

Debra forgot her reason for welcoming his presence. Forgot she was supposed to be ferreting information from him. Forgot he might even be ripping off the company rather than merely mismanaging the hotel.

She responded to him like a hibiscus flower responds to sunshine. Talk of Riversleigh and Southland, the affect of the growing dairy business on the area, the job situation for school leavers. She participated in each topic he introduced with questions and honest views of her own.

Their discussion became even more animated as they launched into an argument about a recent report on government spending. Finally agreeing to disagree, Jase chuckled at her unwillingness to concede to his opposite point of view. “I bet you were in the debating team at school.”

Debra bit the inside of her cheeks and dipped her head, hoping to screen her embarrassment.

He reached across the table and touched her fingers before shooting his hand back beneath the table. The air was so filled with sudden tension Debra feared the buzz in her ears might be the static passing between them. “Don’t be embarrassed.”

His lopsided smile grabbed at her insides, warming them, then roasting them to fever pitch. “You’re a very stimulating conversationalist.”

Stimulating conversationalist! Her heart slowed its sprint as abruptly as a charging bull encountering a solid wooden fence and settled back to a boring thump-thump-thump. Not exactly the words a woman wanted an attractive man to whisper in her ear.

Settle down, she warned herself.
So I enjoyed the half hour we spent chatting. So what? He’s a stimulating conversationalist, too.
Regarding him now, she no longer saw him as the famous All Black but as a man—a man who was stealing into her thoughts a little too often.

“I did have a reason for joining you today.” Jase’s comment sent a further crack splintering through Debra’s earlier euphoria. So he hadn’t casually sought her out.
He’s probably been bored silly with my chatter.

She drew back and thrust out her chin as her face burned. Stupid woman! What had she been thinking? Her personality didn’t attract men, especially not attractive men like Jase McEwan.

“If I can clear your absence with George, would you like to come to Queenstown with me on Wednesday?”

Moments ago she would have leapt at the offer, but now her intellect was in charge. He had to have another reason, rather than a burning desire for her company. His next words confirmed this.

“Southland is encouraging tourists to take in the Southern Scenic route rather than just doing Queenstown, Milford Sound, and back to Dunedin. We’re having some success but its slow catching on, especially during the winter months.”

He slid his empty plate aside and leaned forward. She couldn’t doubt his enthusiasm. “Here at Riversleigh we’re trying something else. I’m meeting a small group of Japanese businessmen in Queenstown tomorrow, escorting them around the Southern route and then touting the resort as an ideal venue for meetings, conferences, etcetera, as well as showing them we know how to relax and pamper them. I know enough Japanese to get by, and I’m sure they’ll have an interpreter with them, but if I showed up with a fluent speaker from my staff...” He raised his eyebrows.

“It would make you look good,” Debra supplied dryly.

“Exactly.” Jase nodded, showing no embarrassment at his subterfuge.

“So what happens when they get here next year expecting fluency on staff?”

“And you won’t be here,” Jase’s comment was a statement, not a question. “We can cater with basic French, German and Japanese for guests already. The local high school is helping but I wouldn’t call any of us fluent yet. We’re all studying to get better.”

Thrusting aside the hurt she refused to acknowledge, Debra once again became the consummate businesswoman. Jase had included himself in this endeavour to extend the hotel’s service.

Debra’s fingers rubbed an imaginary mark on the table while her mind digested this. Points for his personality had waned, but professionally they were increasing in his favour.

“So would you like to come? It’s not a requirement of the job or anything. You can refuse.” As she remained silent, he dipped his head and muttered, “You’d have a chance to see some of the area.”

A day in his company, even with Japanese businessmen, would give her a deeper insight into his character—only to ascertain his involvement with any wrong-doing at the hotel, of course.

“Will Ms. Murphy be going too?”

For a second, before he managed to hide it, derision flashed across his face. “No, she’s tied up with other meetings. It’ll just be me and you.”

Ahh. So this was Jase’s idea. It might be an attempt to up the room rate, which Madeline Murphy either disapproved of, or rejected out of hand. Interesting...

“Okay, I’ll come. I’d never get that far on my days off. It would be good to have a look around.”

“And put you in your mother’s good books?”

“Oh, yes. It will definitely do that.” Debra grimaced at the thought of Karin’s reaction.

Not only was she going to see some of her mother’s beloved Southland countryside, she’d be spending the day with an attractive man. The same attractive man Karin knew she’d had a teenage crush on. Sadly he didn’t know Debra existed, except as a useful language tool.

Chapter Four

Hidden away in her room, dictating work to her personal assistant via her cell phone, Debra leapt off the bed when her door burst open after a very perfunctory knock.

“Come on.” Meg was dressed in jeans and a denim jacket, their tightness showing her body thin almost to the point of anorexia. “We’re going to Cathy’s for the afternoon.”

She opened the tiny wardrobe, yanked a jacket from a hanger and threw it across at Debra. “Hurry up. They’re waiting for us.”

Still reeling at the audacity of the woman, Debra made no move to comply.

“Do you want them to leave without us?”

“Who? What?” Debra shook her head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Meg took an exaggerated breath and planted hands on her hips. “Watch my lips,” she instructed. “We—you and I—are getting out of here for a couple of hours. Cathy and some of the others are waiting for us in a car so we don’t have to walk in the rain.” She grasped Debra’s arm and tugged her toward the door. “You won’t need that.” She plucked the phone from Debra’s fingers and threw it onto the bed.

Not given any chance to protest, Debra was soon squashed into a car of unidentifiable make and model with half a dozen other staff members. Her search for a seatbelt drew hoots from the others.

“We’re only going a few hundred metres,” one girl informed her.

“Anyway, there’s only four belts, so unless you want to try and fit one around all three of us...” said the girl who’d followed them and jumped in onto Debra’s lap.

Debra held herself inflexible amongst the giggling passengers as the car bunny-hopped along.

“Why don’t you learn to drive, Cathy?” someone yelled as the car stalled in the middle of the road.

“I can drive,” came a muffled reply. “It’s Toby’s car. I’m just not used to driving a manual.”

Raucous laughter drowned out any further comment.

Apprehension clawed at Debra, forcing moisture from every pore of her body. Breaths came in little pants as she repositioned herself but with Meg squashed against her side and an unknown girl, much bigger than herself, sitting on her lap, Debra was confined.

Fears of kidnapping sent an unpalatable lump high in her throat and set her pulse galloping, but common sense reasserted itself. This invasion into her personal space had no ominous overtones. In fact the noise and giggling inside the car was almost contagious—almost.

Soon they were piling out of the car and scurrying through the rain into a modest wooden home.

“Time you learnt how to relax,” Meg whispered in her ear as she shoved Debra into a chair and perched on its armrest. In a louder voice she continued, “Cathy’s mum works at the museum twice a week. She doesn’t mind us using their house as somewhere we can relax and let our hair down a bit. It’s good to get away from the resort sometimes.”

She leaned closer, dropping her voice. “Relax and you might even enjoy yourself. A novel experience, so to speak.” A wink may have lightened her implied criticism, but Debra still froze at her effrontery.

Perhaps realising she had encroached beyond the acceptable, Meg sprang up and headed to what Debra assumed was the kitchen. At least her taking note of all the yelled responses to the call for refreshments suggested she was about to provide snacks.

Awkward and uncomfortable, Debra squirmed as she looked around the cluttered room. Not only crowded with her companions but with a mismatched selection of dated furniture, this lounge was unlike any Debra had ever seen. The floral carpet, threadbare in places, looked as old as the house itself.

Her face burned as Debra blocked her arrogant thoughts. Transferring her gaze, the polished woodwork, the spotless Manchester, the gleaming windows all impacted. This home might be older, but a very house-proud woman had filled it with cosiness Debra had initially missed.

Every available surface was jammed with framed photographs. An image of Debra’s stark apartment sprang into her mind. She frowned. There was a photo of her and Paul taken at some business conference. And one of her parents on the sideboard in her dining room. Her frown deepened.

Here, photos of children, groups, families, even animals, she assumed family pets, all warmed the room. She had no difficulty picking Cathy from the selection of toddler photos on the wall, her infectious grin was apparent even at that age.

Debra’s gaze turned to her companions, blocking any more comparisons between this house and her own bare, empty home. With some steadying breaths she sought to follow Meg’s advice and relax. While her fingers wanted to clench at the other woman’s inference she didn’t know how, she forced them open to lie tensely in her lap.