The Rock Star's Wedding

by Demelza Carlton

  "They wouldn't believe it anyway," Jason insisted. "Their fearless rock star and unruffled hotel manager so freaked out by a storm that they slept in a boat on the pool table? Sounds like fiction no one would believe."

  Xan relaxed. No, they wouldn't. "Thanks, Jason."

  "I have one condition, though," he continued.

  "Mm?"

  "You still owe me that snorkelling tour in the lagoon."

  She did. "Once we fish out all the palm trees and coconuts, and check if there are any more big sharks hiding in there, sure," she said.

  "It's a date, then." He grinned.

  Xan laughed. "No, it's not. But we'll do it. The owner of a gorgeous resort like this should see all of it. Otherwise, you're missing out."

  "Can't have that. And I won't." Jason headed for land. "I better go deal with that boat. Disposing of the evidence and all that shit."

  Speaking of disposing of rubbish...if communications were back, she'd better call Jerome and tell him they were finished. The sooner the better, so she could enjoy her new year.

  THIRTY-TWO

  The call to Jerome was awkward and painful and all the things Xan hated. It wasn't until she told him she'd sold her engagement ring and given the money to a women's shelter that he finally agreed to go back to the UK. If only all her communication left her feeling so liberated, but of course it didn't.

  Xan spent most of the next week on the phone, organising repairs and reassuring staff that the resort was still standing. The maintenance team came back early, eager to clear the lagoon in the hope that they'd find another shark.

  When they found nothing bigger than the resident groper, Xan kept her counsel, not sure how to explain to the men that the monster shark they were hunting for had been driven away by the goddess Venus in a string bikini. She still wasn't sure she believed it, though the shark had definitely departed.

  The lagoon was the least of her worries, though. She couldn't get construction crews or building material until April, they all told her – citing everything from the weather to Christmas to a building boom in Perth. It was enough to make her scream.

  At this rate, repairs wouldn't be complete before the wedding. Xan waited in daily dread for a phone call from the bride, asking for an update.

  Xan buried her face in her hands. Sometimes this job was just too hard.

  Jason wandered into her office without knocking. "Sleeping on the job, Xanthe?"

  "I wish," she replied, smoothing her hair in the hope that it would calm some of the turmoil in the brain underneath.

  "Have you heard back from Phuong on the due diligence stuff for those hotels?" Jason asked.

  "I got a voicemail from her about it a couple of days ago, telling me to call her, but I haven't had time to follow up on it. I'm too busy getting quotes for repairs."

  "So when is the repair crew coming to sort the roof at Maxima and the main building? Jo keeps calling, wanting an update for Angel. I told them both not to bother you because you're busy enough dealing with the mess."

  Xan's dread drained away. "Thank you. I don't know, though. The earliest date I can get is April for any of it."

  Jason frowned. "Three months away, when another cyclone could come through? And Angel's wedding is in May. Fuck that. Give me the quotes and I'll see if I can do any better."

  It was a testament to her frustration that Xan handed over the file with no hesitation whatsoever. "Good luck."

  She busied herself with the million and one other things screaming for her attention. Morning passed into afternoon as she worked steadily. Five o'clock approached when Jason returned to her office and threw the file on the table. He collapsed into the client's chair, looking as exhausted as she felt. "No luck?" she asked with sympathy.

  "Depends what you call luck. The materials will all be delivered next week. Not sure if they're coming from Perth or Darwin, so I don't know what day. The roofing crew's coming in the week after that. I didn't manage to get a hold of the painter, though."

  Xan's jaw dropped. "How?"

  "I told them who I was, and how I've got a wedding coming up. Then I said I'd promised her everything would be perfect. Most of them started talking about March or February at that point. That's when I remembered what Angel does to get what she wants." Jason's eyes met Xan's worried ones and he quickly explained, "No, not the knife. She offers an incentive. The steel supplier is getting a couple of cartons of beer, and the construction team is getting a weekend at the resort once everything's complete. With a bar tab."

  Xan pressed her lips together. "Why didn't I think to offer blokes beer and a rock star to hang out with?"

  Jason shrugged. "Because you're not a bloke? I dunno."

  Maybe he was right. Sexism was rife in the world, and probably always would be. At least she'd used the right man for the job.

  "Thanks," Xan said. "That's a weight off my mind, for sure. I'll call Phuong first thing tomorrow and set up a meeting."

  Jason rose. "Thanks. And any time you need help, just ask. Especially with Angel's wedding stuff. It all has to be perfect for her, and if it's not, it'll be my fault."

  "But she knows you're not responsible for the resort or the wedding, right?"

  "Doesn't matter. If anything goes wrong, it'll be my fault," he repeated. "It always is. You'll see. Anyway, if you need me do to anything for the wedding, say so. Not like I have anything else to do."

  "What about your recording contracts?"

  "Negotiations take time, my agent says. Mostly, the record companies take a while to come back to me when I turn down their offers. They want the whole band, and I told her they can't have that. But if they want me...I don't know what they'll pay."

  Xan nodded. "So while they deliberate, you're stirring up trouble by dropping hints to random contractors that you're getting married soon? Guys gossip just as much as girls. I know that much. The press are going to come sniffing after you and the name of your bride. What do you want me to tell the media if they call?"

  Jason grinned. "Give 'em the hotel's standard line about guest privacy, and how you can't say. They'll make shit up, I'm sure of it."

  "While the recording companies' bids increase in line with the media coverage?" Xan guessed.

  "Hey, I'm a good investment. What's it matter how much more they offer? I'm worth it!" He tried and failed to flip his hair – it was much too short – and strode out of Xan's office.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Once again, Xan found herself sitting in the prison visiting room, her table an island amid a sea of families. But this time, Phuong wore a smile.

  "You look pleased with yourself," Xan said as Phuong sat down.

  "I've had a particularly good week," Phuong said.

  Xan nodded at the file Phuong had placed on the table between them. "Are you going to tell me this is the best investment money can buy?"

  Phuong's smile faded slightly. "I'm afraid not, though the price is good."

  Xan smothered a sigh. "What, then? Have they finally set your trial date?" She'd have gone mad waiting. Phuong must have the patience of a saint to put up with the delays.

  "No. In fact, there won't be a trial at all. They've finally located my ex-husband, so the committal hearing was yesterday. The magistrate decided to dismiss the charges. All of them."

  Xan managed a smile. "No wonder you're pleased. But...doesn't that mean you're free to go? Why are you still here?"

  Phuong laughed. "You've watched too many American legal dramas, I think. It doesn't work like that here. There's paperwork to be filled out before the prison releases me from remand, and that takes a few days. Seeing as it's Friday now, it looks like I'll be in for the weekend. If I'm lucky, I'll be free on Monday."

  Free to pursue Jason again. Suddenly, Xan didn't think that was such a good idea. He might still want a wife, but this girl wasn't right for him. Too risky.

  "So what will you do next?" Xan asked.

  "My degree arrived in this week's post, so I'm a qualified accou
ntant now. My Australian citizenship application was held up because of the charges, but now I have no criminal record, it's been approved. I had planned to look for a job, but this," Phuong patted the file, "changes things. I may have to visit Singapore to take care of some family business."

  Now Xan was definitely lost.

  "You do know this is my father's hotel chain, don't you?" Phuong asked.

  Xan shook her head.

  Phuong flipped open the file. "It all looks fine, except that the company isn't making anywhere near as much money as it should. In fact, if you believe this, it's been running at a loss for the last four years. Unlike Meier, though, the drain's hard to identify, because it looks legitimate." She tapped a highlighted line in a table. "See this name?"

  Xan peered at the string of Chinese characters. "Yes, but I can't read it."

  "It comes up a lot, along with two other consultants. One of them is my brother's wife's brother, who I know audited my father's accounts. His fees have increased significantly over time, particularly after my father's death, but that might just be because my brother never had a head for business, so he called his brother in law to do his job for him. The second one is my sister in law – my brother's wife. Now, I know for a fact that the only consulting she does is to check her manicure for chips. The woman hasn't worked a day in her life. Yet she's getting paid a lot of money to do nothing. The third one...well, that's my Chinese name."

  Xan digested this slowly. "So, you're saying that you bankrupted your father's company?"

  Phuong shrugged. "That's what the numbers say. It's what my brother believes, too. It looks like my father took money out of the company every month to pay for my university expenses. But...he didn't. He paid every semester in a single payment – and it definitely didn't cost as much as these monthly withdrawals. Someone's been salting money away in my name for three years, and then it stops. The money drain didn't stop, though – right about the time my father died, the company started buying back its privately held shares. Starting with mine." She looked pained. "I don't have any shares in the company, or I didn't before my father died. If he gave me any in his will, I never heard about it. And I never would have agreed to sell them without even looking at the company's financial statements. That's just plain stupid, like something my brother would do." Phuong bit her lip. "I worked out how much I estimate the company is worth, as well as how much money has been stolen from it over time. Factoring in a reasonable interest rate over the last four years, I think someone's set aside just enough money to buy the company, knowing no one else will want something so unprofitable, and once they do...all the accounts will mysteriously vanish, so no one knows where all that money went."

  Phuong looked Xan in the eye. "Tell him thank you, but if he buys this business, he'll be buying stolen goods, and he'll lose his investment when I speak to the right people in Singapore. My report cites losses and mismanagement as the reasons, but I'm telling you that he needs to back out of this deal."

  "Why don't you tell him yourself?" Xan asked.

  Phuong dropped her gaze to her clasped hands. "Because that was the deal, and I'll honour the contracts I signed. Maybe one day I'll be able to repay him for what he did. He's the reason I left Norman, and if it weren't for his lawyers, I'd be facing the rest of my life in prison. He's an amazing man, who deserves...love at its most passionate, with someone who deserves him and loves him like...something in a fairy tale. I'm not sure I'm capable of that sort of thing, and as for marriage...I'm swearing off that for life. I won't steal his chance at happiness. Besides, I have my own quest. I'm going to catch the thief who stole my father's company from me instead."

  Xan believed her. She rose, clutching the file to her chest, and thanked Phuong for her time. They said their goodbyes and Xan soon found herself walking out to her car in the afternoon sun.

  The last bride standing had turned him down. Xan would have to attend Angel's wedding with him for sure, now. Funny how she didn't mind as much as she thought she would. Perhaps Jason was growing on her.

  Like the fungus on the couch in Villa Maxima. She had to find a replacement for that before she left Perth tomorrow.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Roofs repaired – check. Windows fixed – check. Damaged storm shutters replaced – check. Lagoon no longer looked like a Palm Sunday parade – check. Villa Maxima completely refurbished – check. Everything that could be cleaned or repaired had been, so why did Xan feel so nervous, waiting for Angel to arrive? She'd spent so much time with Jason lately, checking everything twice, that she automatically used his name for the girl.

  When the helicopter landed, Xan was pleased to find that the hulking security specialist hadn't come along this time, but Angel wasn't alone. She introduced her companion as Liv, her photographer, who had come along to advise on possible spots for the ceremony, the reception and photographs throughout the day.

  "But aren't you doing it all in the function rooms?" Xan blurted out.

  "Only if it rains, which you've already told me it doesn't during the dry season," Angel said. "I want to do things outside as much as possible. I don't like being confined. I want a beach ceremony, and the reception somewhere by the water, too. I want to be able to see the stars when we dance our bridal waltz, so we must have an outdoor dance floor."

  "We don't have anywhere like that. This is the Kimberley, where it gets hot, so all our public areas are shaded. You can't put a dance floor out in the blazing sun – you'll roast your guests."

  Angel smiled thinly. "Dancing is for after dark, of course, just like the rest of the wedding reception. Perhaps you could remove the roof from one of your existing public areas?"

  She'd just spent the last month putting roofs back on buildings! Didn't the girl understand?

  Angel continued as if she hadn't expected a response, "I'm still not certain that would be enough. Nothing you have is close enough to the water. What I really need is a large expanse of decking, extended across the lagoon."

  Build in the lagoon? The wildlife on the reef had barely recovered from the cyclone and its hungry shark visitor. Sinking concrete pylons into the water would cause immeasurable damage to what was a unique and quite delicate ecosystem. "You can't," Xan said firmly. "The island is a nature reserve, and building a structure like that in our protected lagoon would never get approval. Even if it would, you'd never get a response from the Shire planning office in time."

  Thunder clouds lurked in Angel's eyes. "Call Jason. We'll see what he says."

  Xan used her wristband to send an urgent page for Jason, who appeared promptly less than five minutes later. Probably lurking, listening in on their conversation, Xan thought.

  Angel repeated her proposal for Jason' benefit, then folded her arms across her chest, waiting for his response.

  "I...I guess we could," he said, looking from Angel to Xan and back again. "Do you think we could get one of the construction crews back in time to build it before the wedding?"

  Jason probably could, but Xan might have to wait until April. Still, constructing decking couldn't take much longer than removing and replacing a cyclone-warped roof, and that hadn't taken more than a week.

  "It's not about the construction, it's about the lagoon life," Xan explained. "There are fish species in our lagoon found nowhere else in the world except here. The resort has a responsibility to protect them, not build a bloody great big platform over the top of them."

  "It wouldn't be across the whole lagoon, right? Just a small bit of it, in the shallows. If we picked a spot where there aren't any fish, we wouldn't hurt any of them. Maybe..." Jason babbled on, looking increasingly desperate.

  He couldn't refuse Angel, Xan realised. The longer she held out, the more miserable he became. And if it came down to it, Jo would probably weigh in on Angel's side, too. None of them knew how amazing the lagoon was. None of them had ever been under the surface, to see the life teeming in the reefs, the natural aquarium just begging to steal your attention for hours at
a time. There was just so much to see.

  "You need to see it," Xan blurted out, interrupting Jason. "You need to dive in the lagoon to understand what I mean when I say it's unique."

  "Absolutely not," Angel said.

  "I've never been scuba diving before, and I don't have the gear," Jason said.

  Xan didn't let up. "Snorkelling, then. We have plenty of masks and snorkels here for the tours we run in the dry season. I'll personally take you on a snorkelling tour of the lagoon, so you see what you'll put at risk by disturbing the seafloor."

  Angel waved dismissively at Jason. "Take him. I didn't bring any swimwear. And while you're in the water, find a spot where I can have my deck. The whole lagoon can't be precious coral reef. I know for a fact that part of it gets dredged out to keep it from silting up entirely. If that isn't disturbing the seafloor, I don't know what is." She headed in the direction of the pub. "I'll be sitting somewhere cool. With a drink."

  Xan waited for the girl to disappear from sight before she grinned at Jason. "Ready for that snorkelling tour I promised you?"

  "If it keeps me away from her for a couple of hours, then fuck yes," Jason breathed. "You know we're going to have to do what she says anyway, right?"

  "It'll cost a fortune," Xan replied.

  Jason shrugged. "Tell her that. I don't think she'll care. It's her wedding, and she can afford it. Fuck, she could buy my share in the resort if she wanted, and still have money to burn on her precious deck."

  "I'm not sure I'd want to stay on as manager if she took over as the owner," Xan said.

  "You mean you like me better?" Jason asked eagerly.

  Xan snorted. "I wouldn't go that far." She sighed. "You better go get changed into your swim gear. I'm only taking you on this tour for as long as you keep your pants on. I'll meet you back here in fifteen minutes."

  "Yes, ma'am." Jason sketched a salute, then strode off down the path to his villa, whistling.