Aloha Hideaway Inn Chapter 2
*beach read *billionaire romance *enemies to lovers *he falls first *summer reading
Fisher DuPont practically punched open the black plastic door that led into the kitchens.
Keep it together, he told himself again. He’d been reciting it the whole way down from the fifteenth floor. He’d donned these ill-fitting clothes and practically shaved his head in an attempt to keep his identity hidden from the staff. He wanted to operate on the ground floor of Sweet Breeze, find out how the systems worked—if they were even working—and what the staff thought needed to be improved.
“Do we really just go into rooms with the orders?” he asked the head concierge, Kepa, on room service, only a slight growl to his words.
Kepa, much shorter than Fisher’s six-foot-five frame, stared up at him. “Who told you that?”
Fisher pressed his lips together. He didn’t want to say, because Kepa likely had the power to fire anyone on his staff. “No one.”
“Did you do that? Enter a guest’s room without knocking and announcing yourself?”
Fisher considered the man, whose dark eyes felt like coal filled with fire. “Yes.”
Kepa’s nostrils flared and he held out his hand as if Fisher would put something in it.
“What?” he asked, not connecting the dots. And he’d made a living out of drawing his own dots and connecting them into pictures no one else had imagined before.
“Your apron. You’re fired.” Kepa wore sympathy in his eyes, but Fisher didn’t detect any leeway in his decision.
So he untied the apron he’d only been wearing for an hour and handed it to the room service supervisor.
“What room?” Kepa asked.
“Fifteen-twenty-one.” Fisher had an amazing memory with numbers, but he kept some facts about himself close to the vest. This was one such thing.
“I’ll send someone to apologize. You should go.” He flicked two fingers toward someone behind Fisher. “Please see this man off the premises.”
Fisher allowed himself to be led out of the hotel he owned, getting in the car he’d rented down the street and driving away as if he had an island home to go to. In reality, he’d gone to work in his hotel that morning from the penthouse that took up the entire twenty-eighth floor. It swayed when the wind coming off the bay was really bad, but after ten months of living there, Fisher had gotten used to it. Kind of.
He pulled over at a gas station and went inside. “Restroom?”
The guy behind the counter looked him up and down, apparently decided he wasn’t going to vandalize the bathroom, and handed Fisher a tiny brass key attached to a two-foot-long piece of piping that had been painted bright purple and had the state flower of Hawaii doodled in black marker all over it.
Fisher would never tire of the beautiful flowers in this island paradise. He’d needed a fresh start after a disastrous business venture with his father, and he’d taken it here in Getaway Bay. He no longer wanted to get away from his own life, so that was a definite improvement.
In the bathroom, he stripped out of the bad clothes and pulled his midnight-colored suit from his small satchel. Properly dressed, he could now return to the hotel, figure out who was staying in room fifteen-twenty-one, and make sure she understood that his staff did not barge into rooms just because they had a room service cart.
He handed the pipe-key back to the clerk. “Thanks.” He needed coffee, stat, but he wasn’t going to get it from a gas station. He’d had plenty of such brew in the past, and it was never quite up to his taste standard. No, there’d be much better coffee at the hotel, and he decided he could wait.
The man stared at him, and Fisher was sure his suit had cost as much as the clerk made in a year. He used to feel bad about his wealth, but he contributed to so many charities now, and he considered himself a pretty nice guy, so he didn’t let the guilt pin him down for long. Plus, he’d worked too hard for too long to have a bleeding heart because he could afford the suits, the leather shoes, the fancy cars, the jets.
After returning the nondescript sedan to the rental company and getting behind the wheel of his convertible, he returned to Sweet Breeze, taking full advantage of the valet.
“Good morning, Mister DuPont,” Sterling said as he opened the door. “Nice haircut.”
Fisher stood and smiled, the haircut courtesy of Marshall Robison. Marshall could wield a pair of clippers as well as he ran his generational pineapple plantations, but Fisher’s best friend and fellow founder of the Hawaii Nine-0 club had gone a little crazy with the blades.
He ran his hand along his nearly bald scalp, hoping his hair would grow back quickly. He’d have to slather sunscreen everywhere up top to make sure he didn’t get a nasty burn in spots usually covered by his hair.
“Thanks. Is Owen in?”
“Arrived an hour ago, sir. I believe he said he had business in the gardens this morning.” Sterling smiled and saluted before sliding behind the wheel of Fisher’s car.
He took an extra moment to pull his jacket closed and button it before he entered his hotel. He walked differently in the suit than he had in the servant clothes, and he made a note of it. Why did it matter what he wore? Was it because every eye swiveled to him when he wore suits like this? Every back straightened? Every employee brightened, smiled, and then got back to work?
Fisher wasn’t sure, but he did know he didn’t like the attention. He craved the anonymity the room service staff enjoyed, just like he’d basked in being able to walk around his hotel without scrutiny while he pushed a laundry cart in front of him.
That had been an interesting day, as he’d had no idea the enormity of linens, towels, cloth napkins from the four on-site restaurants, and other items the laundry staff took care of. He didn’t know his hotel received bonuses for being under a certain limit for water usage, and he’d really learned a lot from the small army of people he employed—and who’d embraced him as one of their fellow laundromatters—in only an eight-hour shift.
Still, when the time was right, he wore the suits and played the part. Mostly because it was better than any of the alternatives he’d tried, and the show gave him something to fill his day with.
He bypassed the front desk and the guest elevators. Holding his thumb against a pad, he opened the lock to his private hallway and let the door snick closed behind him. His elevator would take him to any floor, and he pressed the fifteen, hoping a personal visit from the hotel owner would be enough to convince the curvy woman in room fifteen-twenty-one not to write a damaging review about his wait staff. About him.
The elevator spit him out with a ding, and he plucked a pair of thick, black-framed glasses from his breast pocket, sliding them into place on his face. Women claimed that they would’ve known Superman was Clark Kent, that Lois Lane was so stupid, but he found the glasses disguised him as well as a ball cap and the wrong clothes. It was almost like the glasses simply threw people off, and they spent so much time trying to make the three-thousand-dollar suit line up with the cheap, plastic frames that he was gone before they put the pieces together.
Plus, they covered up that slight scar in his eyebrow.
Fisher strode toward the door where he’d delivered breakfast only thirty minutes ago. He knocked this time, when every instinct had told him to last time. He’d have to have a talk with Peni about telling new-hires to enter rooms without knocking. Of course that wasn’t how they did things at Sweet Breeze, and Fisher should’ve known better.
The same woman pulled open the door, her striking green eyes somehow penetrating right past his expensive defenses. Her hair tumbled and curled, falling below her shoulders in the most delicious shade of red he’d ever seen. He had a thing for redheads, though he’d never dated one.
And you’re not here to ask for her number.
“Good morning,” he said, his voice perfectly professional and crisp. “I understand there was a slight mishap here this morning.”
“I already got an apology,” she said, her eyes narrowing.
Fisher could practically see the wheels turning in her head. She looked vaguely familiar, though he couldn’t place where he would’ve seen her before. He rarely interacted with the guests, and he’d only just begun making the rounds through his undercover operations to work in all the departments of his hotel. He went around town, but usually to reserved private rooms where he was ushered in and out without making a fuss. Heaven knew the presence of his hotel on this island alone had made enough turbulence for a while.
“Yes, my room service supervisor is fantastic.” He put his CEO smile on his face. It had guided him successfully through many board meetings and swayed construction foremen—tough, stubborn men—toward his side of certain issues in critical moments.
“I wanted to come personally assure you that our room service attendants always knock and announce themselves before entering.”
“Clearly, not always.” She leaned her hip into the doorjamb and kept one handful of fingers curled around the door, barely letting him see inside. The smile on her face could only be described as…satisfied.
“Yes, well, from now on. Can I gift you a free night here at Sweet Breeze for the misunderstanding?” Heck, she could ask for a week and Fisher would give it to her. Something itched along his collar, but he kept his hands pleasantly at his sides. The urge to smooth down the eyebrow that seemed to constantly want to go the wrong direction tugged, pulled, yanked at his resolve. He couldn’t do it; he’d done it in front of her as the attendant. Such a gesture was too identifying.
“Yeah,” the woman said, a smile that felt flirty stealing across her face and making her twice as beautiful. “I’ll take a free night.”
Fisher’s heart was doing something weird in his chest, but he managed to nod and say, “I’ll have my guest concierge have the certificate ready for you when you check out.” He extended his hand for her to shake.
The moment she touched him, an earthquake that could’ve registered on the Richter scale shook his body. Her smile stayed hitched in place, and Fisher added his to the conversation.
“Thank you, Miss….”
“Sta—Moore. Jaida Moore.” Her smile turned false, and Fisher hadn’t built himself into a billionaire real estate mogul by not being able to detect a lie. He’d worked with enough carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and brick masons to know when corners were being cut. He’d seen everything from upright, honest men doing good work and making a good living to sleazy, sloppy work that tried to get passed off as adequate.
He certainly knew when he was being lied to, and Miss Jaida Moore wasn’t very good at it.
“Very well, Miss Moore,” he said, keeping his voice smooth, non-emotional. “Stop by the concierge desk before you go to get your certificate.”
“Most people call them coupons,” she said, her left eyebrow quirking in a way that felt challenging to Fisher. Slightly condescending too.
“Yes, well, Sweet Breeze doesn’t offer coupons.” He buttoned his jacket and gave an authoritative nod. “Have a great day, Miss Moore.”
“You too, Mister Davenport.”
Fisher froze as he turned, his muscles turning hard at the name. How had she known it? And why would she use it? His stare lasted long enough for her to bring back the grin, a little cockier and more sure of herself than before.
She lifted one shoulder into a sexy shrug that made Fisher wish he’d met this woman after a morning spent in the surf instead of while he was “Mister Davenport.”
“I can Google, you know.”
“Ah.” He ducked his head, something inside him telling him to get out of there before the conversation turned too dangerous. “Until next time.”
He walked away, glad for the first time that he’d registered the hotel under his father’s conglomerate. She didn’t need to know that Fisher had given up his slime ball father’s name twenty-five years ago, when the man had walked out on him and his mother. She didn’t need to know he’d gotten the scar in his eyebrow on one of his father’s job sites, because the man cut corners as easily as he breathed. Hardly anyone knew those things, and Fisher was going to keep it that way, even if Jaida-whose-name-wasn’t-Jaida stirred something in him he’d thought long dormant.