Aloha Hideaway Inn Chapter 3
*beach read *billionaire romance *enemies to lovers *he falls first *summer reading
Stacey arrived at Aloha Hideaway, a sense of peace descending on her that she’d missed during her overnight stay just down the beach. There were several smaller hotels along the main drag that ran the length of Getaway Bay, as well as three bed and breakfasts dotting the area. Hers was tucked away between palm trees and a few acres of wild forest, with so much greenery, flowers, and four water features, the online pictures almost didn’t look real.
But they were real, and Stacey had people to maintain all the amenities of her business. She needed to, because there was no way she could refurnish the rooms with luxury beds like the one she’d slept in last night. She didn’t have funds for bigger flatscreen TVs. She almost had enough for new carpet, and she could refresh the rooms with paint once the summer season died off.
Breakfast had ended an hour ago, and Stacey’s all-female staff was in full swing as the hour of check-out approached. Then they’d have a few hours of seemingly calm, where they all worked feverishly before check-in began.
Stacey’s busiest days were Thursdays and Sundays with people coming to the Bay for the weekend. Sometimes Monday could be hairy too, if she had families staying with her, as they tended to tack on an extra day just to go to the beach.
The beach called to Stacey now, and she knew only the warm sand, bright sunshine, and rhythmic lapping of the waves would truly erase that tall, delicious man from her mind. He needled her thoughts, and not only because he was as handsome and polished as the day was long. There was something…not quite right about him.
If she’d had the opportunity, she’d put the classy, sophisticated Davenport who’d come to apologize in a police line-up—right next to the room service attendant. Perhaps they were brothers, though none of her online digging had produced evidence of more than one Davenport heir.
“How’d breakfast go?” she asked Betty as she stepped into the kitchen. Though Betty came in a short, petite package, she had a whip-like personality with a loud voice to match. Everyone listened to her, Stacey included, because Betty had more experience in the bed and breakfast industry than anyone else on the Aloha Hideaway staff.
She’d attended culinary school on the mainland and opened four restaurants back in Hawaii by the age of thirty. Now fifty-five, her hair had turned completely gray, but her steel-colored eyes had not lost a single ounce of their edge.
“Excellent,” she said as she scrubbed steel wool across the flattop. “All five rooms came to eat. There was plenty. We’re set for Kalua pork for dinner tonight.”
The scent of sugar and smoke hung in the air as Stacey nodded. Betty arrived at the B&B at five o’clock every morning, hit the ground running, and had breakfast on the table at eight, as promised, seven days a week.
Aloha Hideaway never served lunch, though they would make picnic lunches upon special request. Dinner was served seven nights a week as well, and Betty usually did most of the prep and then left the rest for the night cook, Dillan.
“Mm, I love Thursdays.” Stacey flashed Betty a smile as she walked through the kitchen toward the door on the other side. The kitchen was the hub of the sprawling house, with the main living room in front of it. Stacey had converted that into an airy, natural-light lobby by widening the front doors of what used to be a house and introducing more wild plants and a fountain.
Her bed and breakfast might not have all the bells and whistles that Sweet Breeze did, but it offered a lot more. More Hawaiian culture. More attention to detail. More charm. Feeling confident now that she’d stayed in the imposing building down the beach, she reached the door that led to the east wing of the house. Her private wing. Her employee’s quarters.
“I’ve never heard you say you like Thursdays before.” Betty shook her head with a smile, her arms still pumping, pumping, pumping to get the flattop clean. The woman worked hard, and the kitchen ran without a speed bump, exactly how Stacey needed it to.
“Well, there’s a first time for everything,” Stacey said, pulling open the door and stepping through it. A long, cobbled hallway ran down the middle of this wing, the same way it did on the west side. There were five bedrooms over here, and five in the west wing. Stacey had chosen the largest bedroom, which was also the farthest from the center of the house, as her own.
The rooms on this side of the home didn’t have their own bathrooms, but she’d renovated the west wing to include that. Guests didn’t like sharing a bathroom or coordinating shower schedules with strangers.
Stacey had her own bathroom, and there were two more in this wing. Marge, her architectural landscaper that kept the grounds interesting and beautiful, lived in the bed and breakfast with Stacey. She had her own room and bathroom.
The other two rooms were furnished like guest rooms, but Stacey didn’t rent them out. Her staff used them as break rooms, as places of refuge from the service industry that could get tiresome and heavy at times. The third room was used for storage, for little bars of soap, and fresh towels, and the rows and rows of shelves in that room actually soothed Stacey.
Her evening manager slept in the first bedroom for a few hours each night. Her maids took siestas while they waited for guests to check-out and leave rooms to be cleaned.
She heard chatter up ahead and stopped in the doorway to poke her head into the last bedroom on the left. Her four youngest employees, all in their late twenties or early thirties sat around a table, mugs of hot liquid in front of them.
Stacey knew Ashley only drank tea. She worked exclusively in the hibiscus gardens with the girl on her right, Bailey. Lizzie and Tayla were dressed in their maid uniforms, one sipping hot chocolate if the marshmallows were any indication, and the other nursing what looked like black coffee.
“Morning, ladies,” Stacey said. Her staff didn’t jump to attention the way she’d seen the employees at Sweet Breeze.
“Morning,” they all chorused back. Stacey enjoyed the more casual relationship she had with her employees, and she wondered if dark, dangerous Davenport even knew how to be casual. What would that look like on him? Jeans? A T-shirt? Swim trunks? She couldn’t imagine the imposing man who’d shown up at her door wearing that expensive suit in anything but crisp, white shirts and pressed designer slacks.
“Anything to report?” Stacey asked.
“Nope,” Ashley said while the other girls shook their heads.
“All right. Complete the checklists and let me know our needs.” Stacey gave them a smile and continued toward her suite. She put in an order for supplies and food on Thursdays, which also added to the general busyness. But she’d found it to be the best day to do an order, because then she was never short-supplied for her busiest times.
She depended on her support staff to turn in their checklists, so she could order the right items at the right time. But it would be another couple of hours before they’d be slid under her door and her gardeners went outside and her maids moved into the laundry facilities.
A couple of hours.
Stacey could really use a couple of hours on the beach to decompress and talk through her stay at Sweet Breeze. She sighed as she reached into her oversized purse for her phone. It sang out a snappy notification—literally three, sharp snaps as if someone was trying to get her attention—before she could touch it. The screen brightened, which helped her find the device, and she checked to see who’d texted.
Esther: Beach in ten?
“Already on my way,” Stacey dictated as she thumbed out the message. She pulled off her maxi dress and changed into her bathing suit, covering it with the white, flowy shift she’d pulled on in desperation at the hotel.
She traded out the pajamas and toiletries she’d taken for her overnight stay and replaced them with sunscreen, her sunglasses, a huge, wide-brimmed hat, and her e-reader. Not that she was planning on reading. Oh, no. She had a very busy conversation ahead of her with her best friend, and the center of all the talk would be Mister Fisher Davenport himself.
* * *
Esther didn’t arrive at their spot on the beach for twenty minutes. Usually right on time, Esther dropped her bag in a great, flustered show. “Have you seen the traffic in and out of that place?”
She didn’t have to name Sweet Breeze for Stacey to know to what she was referencing. She adjusted the purple hibiscus behind her left ear and said, “It’s bad right now?”
“Apparently lunchtime around here has turned into a bloodbath for parking. I couldn’t find a space to save my life. I’m all the way down by the blasted Spam Hut.” She unfolded her beach chair and sank into it, righting her bag at her side and pulling out a bottle of guava lemonade. She took a long drink, as if it would somehow calm her.
“I hear you. We’ve filed the complaint about the traffic with the city. There’s a hearing next week.”
“Hearing, schmearing.” Esther shook her blonde head. “I’m telling you, no one on the City Council is going to do anything about that place.” It was almost like Esther thought if she said Sweet Breeze, a pack of murderous wizards would appear, summoned by the very name of “that place.”
“Probably not.” Stacey reclined in her beach chair, extending her bare legs out in front of her to soak up the maximum amount of vitamin D and sunshine. She watched Esther from behind her shiny sunglasses, one of her favorite activities. There was nothing more entertaining than people-watching on the beach, and Stacey had mastered it a decade ago. She could tell which couples were happy, and who had come to Getaway Bay to well, get away. From each other or from their problems at home, Stacey didn’t know.
She could detect wealth from a mile away, and find those who wanted everyone to look at them, and search out those who normally blended in. They were the most interesting, and Stacey loved watching people interact with others when they thought no one was looking.
Esther smeared sunscreen over her shoulders and down her arms. Petite and powerful, she owned a private car service in the Bay area, and she really despised the traffic Sweet Breeze had brought to their quaint corner of paradise.
“Your business isn’t suffering, is it?” Stacey asked. She’d thought Esther was doing quite well with the new addition to their island. After all, a swanky hotel brought high rollers with loads of cash. And people like that never drove themselves around, not even to see the sights.
“Of course not,” Esther snapped, lifting her eyes to meet Stacey’s behind the mirrored shades. “But everything takes twice as long.” She softened, her bad mood at having to park so far away and tromp through the hot sand melting into pure curiosity. “You stayed there last night. How was it?”
Her cerulean eyes took on a hungry glow, and Stacey laughed. “Honestly, Esther, you should go.” She sat up straight. “I got a free night. You should use it.”
“You got a free night? At Sweet Breeze? How?”
Stacey waved her hand like it was no big deal, though she’d be spilling the whole story in seconds. “Oh, there was a mishap with the room service, and I was offered a free room. I took it.”
Esther positioned her own shades over her eyes. “We should have the Beach Club there next time we meet.”
The thought of having their Women’s Beach Club—a secret society of women on the island who’d been burned by men, had their husbands leave them for younger, prettier women, or who had simply decided not to pursue romance—inside Sweet Breeze made Stacey burst into laughter.
“That’s perfect,” she said, thinking of the perfectly romantic atmosphere Sweet Breeze worked so hard to create. “Ironic, but perfect.”
“We can totally order room service. Maybe we’ll get more free rooms.”
Somehow, Stacey didn’t think so. Men like Fisher fixed problems like the one she’d had that morning. She switched her gaze to the undulating teal water of the bay, a measure of relaxation finally sighing through her. “It was a nice hotel.”
“Of course it’s nice,” Esther said. “It cost two billion dollars to build.”
“I met him, you know.”
“Who?”
“The owner.”
“You did?” Esther kicked sand onto Stacey’s feet as she launched herself forward. “How? What was he like?”
Before Stacey could answer, another bag got dropped on the sand beside Esther. “Watch out,” Tawny Loveless, the third part of their little boyfriend-less triangle, said. “There’s a god walking this way.”
She was part of the Women’s Beach Club and claimed she didn’t want or need a man in her life. But she seemed to know who all the available men on the island were, and her radar for a good-looking man was unmatched.
Stacey didn’t want to look, but she found her head swiveling back the way Tawny had come. There was indeed a god walking their way, and she’d seen that gait before. Seen him before, only a couple of hours ago.
A hiss leaked from her body as it went cold. Though it was the height of summer, and the sun was practically burning everything and everyone on the beach, Stacey shivered. The tall, nearly bald man wore a dark gray rash guard that rippled with the lines of his muscles, and a bright orange pair of swim trunks.
“That’s him,” she said in a voice she simply meant to be hushed but which came out with a sort of reverence she didn’t understand.
“Who?” Even Esther’s normally boisterous tone had softened.
“The owner of Sweet Breeze. Fisher Davenport.” And he was headed directly toward Stacey herself.