The Scent of Waikiki (Trouble in Paradise Book 9)

by Terry Ambrose

  She sidled around to stand next to me. “Gluten-free is not a problem, sir. We have items on the menu that are designated gluten-free.”

  “Can you make sure the kitchen staff knows it’s a food allergy? I can’t afford anyone getting careless back there.”

  “Our chefs never get careless.” She smiled and winked.

  Right. Been there. Heard that—right before someone poisoned me. I’d let it go for now, but would be quizzing her again. “Sounds good to me.” I pointed across the table at Chance. “He gets the bill and we’re all starting with alcohol.”

  We ordered three glasses of wine and a beer, Chance being the lone holdout on the vino front. The next few minutes were spent focusing on the menu and placing orders. Mandy kept her cool when I again did the little gluten-dance as I placed my order. She reassured me of their commitment to customer health and safety. Yeah, yeah. Like I said, heard it before. I’d never had a Celiac incident at Duke’s. Hopefully, today would be equally uneventful.

  With my dietary restrictions and our orders out of the way, the conversation turned to the wedding. Lexie was Benni’s maid of honor, which lead to a discussion of dresses. At one point, Benni leaned over and gave me a playful swat on the arm.

  “Can you believe it, Lexie? I’ve been after McKenna to help me make some decisions for the wedding and he finally volunteered to go help me with the dress.”

  Lexie rolled her eyes and glared at me. “McKenna? Seriously? It’s bad luck for you to see the dress ahead of time.”

  “I was just trying to be helpful.”

  My weaseling fell flat and earned me stares from around the table. Apparently, even Chance knew more about this wedding planning stuff than I did. Maybe next time I’d use him as my phone-a-friend option when it came time for a wedding decision.

  Thankfully, my moment in the spotlight faded and we were soon back on more mundane topics. Ceremony would be on the beach. Bridesmaids, locked in. Men’s attire, ordered. Reception, check. The list went on and on. The longer we waited to break the news, the more anxious I grew.

  At one point during the discussion of all things wedding, I stood and excused myself. “I need to visit the little boy’s room.” I shot a glance at Chance, who must have gotten the hint.

  “I’ll go with McKenna. Just to make sure he finds his way okay.”

  When we were a few feet from the table, I snapped, “Really? Finds his way? You couldn’t do better than that?”

  “There’s a lot of pressure at that table, McKenna. All that wedding talk. How are we going to broach the subject of the investigation?”

  “Good question. You’d better think fast, kid. This is your show.”

  Chance groaned and followed me to the restroom. Behind me, I heard him grumble, “Gee. Thanks.”

  Okay. I should have been more supportive, but the truth was I had no clue what to tell Benni, either. I might not have to worry about becoming a boy toy for Skye Pilkington-Winchester, but I didn’t want to be responsible for Chance’s downfall either. We returned to the table, still no plan in sight.

  As the last of the plates were taken away, Chance and I exchanged another look. I signaled him with an upward tilt of my chin. I was not about to let him put this on me. Skye was his problem, not mine. I looked at Benni and smiled. “There’s been a development in Grace’s case.”

  Benni’s eyebrows shot up and her lips parted in anticipation. She fingered one of her earrings, a sparkly, dangly thing we’d found at a shop during our trip to Maui. “Well?” She turned her attention to Chance. “Did you find something?”

  “You have a case?” Lexie asked, her eyes wide. “Come on, babe, you didn’t tell me. Don’t hold back. Inquiring minds want to know.”

  Chance glared at me, and I quickly added my own encouragement. “Yeah, buddy, don’t hold back.”

  “He didn’t tell you?” Benni looked at Lexie, and when she got a shrug in return, she glared at Chance.

  Under normal circumstances, Chance was not your shy kind of guy. He’s got reddish hair, blue eyes, and a Hollywood smile that makes women swoon and men jealous. Combine that with a black belt in a couple of martial arts I can’t even pronounce, and you have a cool, confident, rich kid who had the world at his fingertips. But, right now, the rich kid was all squirmy—probably because he didn’t want Lexie to know about Skye.

  “Wow. I’m feeling left out,” Lexie pouted. She leaned forward on her elbows and looked straight at Chance.

  Lexie is in many ways Chance’s opposite. At times, they seem an unlikely pairing. I suppose it’s one of those cases of opposites attracting—call it local girl meets mainland heartthrob. No matter what you called it, the two of them had fallen for each other when they first met. I could understand why Chance wouldn’t want Lexie to get jealous over a meeting with a woman who’d once tried to bed her boyfriend.

  “McKenna asked me to look into something for one of his tenants,” Chance grumbled. He reached out and took Lexie’s hand in his. “I’m sorry. I should have said something, but you were busy with work and the wedding and…”

  “It’s fine, babe. Really.” Lexie’s pout disappeared as she leaned forward and smiled eagerly. “So? What is it?”

  “You haven’t ever met Grace, I don’t think. She fell for one of those work-at-home scams and they wiped her out.”

  Benni shook her head and rolled her eyes, huffed, and said, “Grace couldn’t pay the rent so she came to McKenna, and he volunteered Chance to see if he could get her money back.” She filled in the rest of the background for Lexie. When she got to the name of the perfume, Lexie blinked a couple of times and straightened up in her chair.

  “Primal? You have got to be kidding me. That’s Island Passion! You want to go talk to Skye.” Lexie glared at Chance, her back as rigid as the line of her jaw. “That’s what this lunch is all about. Isn’t it?”

  “McKenna?” Benni looked at me, open-mouthed.

  I pointed at Chance. “He’s the one who found out.”

  Chance gulped, shot a very nasty look my way, then turned back to Lexie. “Babe, I think she’s a victim, too. How did this guy select her company? At a minimum, this is brand infringement. It could go as far as industrial espionage.” We went through the same discussion about real versus fake, but when we were done, we arrived at the same conclusion Chance and I had come to earlier. Only Skye would know for sure.

  “That’s why I have to talk to her,” Chance said. “She needs to know if there’s a leak or a spy in her company.”

  “That would really stink.” I looked around the table, pleased as could be with the play on words. The others didn’t seem impressed.

  “McKenna, this is serious,” Chance snapped, then returned his attention to Lexie. “Look, I won’t talk to her if you don’t want me to.”

  “I’m not that insecure,” Lexie shot back. She quickly added, “Sorry. No, I don’t want to interfere. You need to investigate what’s going on to help McKenna’s tenant.”

  Chance breathed a sigh of relief, but his respite was short-lived. Lexie’s face lit up and she said, “Wait! I could go to work for the company. You know, like an undercover assignment. They probably have a temp job open.”

  “Not a good idea,” I said, shaking my head. “If there’s a problem, it’s going to be in either the production department or the lab. Even if you could get hired right away, it would probably be too late to help.”

  Lexie slumped back in her seat and stuck out her lower lip in a most adorable pout.

  “I want McKenna to be with me when I talk to Skye.”

  I had to give Chance credit, he hadn’t fallen for Lexie’s pout maneuver. No sooner had I mentally high-fived him than I got a disapproving look from Benni.

  “When did you find this out?”

  I groaned, then muttered, “He told me earlier.”

  She nodded, then looked at Lexie. “We’ve been set up, Lex. These two knew what they wanted all along. I can’t believe you, McKenna. We agreed on b
eing honest with each other and now you try and manipulate us like this. I don’t believe it.”

  Ouch. Busted. Lying was not an option. However, according to Sun Tzu, diversion might be.

  “Who wants dessert?” I chirped and glanced around the table.

  CHAPTER 8

  It took the better part of dessert to apologize, re-apologize, and beg forgiveness. By the time we dropped off the girls at my apartment, Benni had gone from full boil to slow simmer. Chance and I headed out to Island Passion with the begrudging blessing of Benni and Lexie. On the way, he looked like he might be hyperventilating. When I asked if he was going to be okay, he didn’t answer right away, which led me to suspect he was worried about the upcoming meeting with Skye.

  “Look, Chance, I’ll protect you from the barracuda.”

  “Who’s worried about her, McKenna? Didn’t you see the way Lexie looked at me? She’s freaked out I’ll do something. That I’ve started lying to her. It’s like my dad did with my mom. He always had a loose version of the truth.”

  “You’re not your dad, Chance. I’m sorry I put you in that kind of situation. Actually, I’m going to blame Sun Tzu. I never should have listened to a two-thousand-year-old Chinese guy.”

  Chance shot a sideways glance at me, but kept driving. I spent the next few minutes talking him down off the ledge. His red Ferrari might be lightning fast, but the reality was we both wanted the same thing in our lives—stability. And in the end, we both agreed the lunch idea had been a bad one.

  As Chance pulled into the parking lot, I said, “We should’ve just told the girls what we needed to do.”

  “Live and learn, McKenna. Live and learn.”

  Our destination was the penthouse suite of the Ala Moana Building. The moment we climbed out of the car, the power dynamics changed. This was Swank City, a part of town I’d been to only a few times since I’d moved to Hawai’i. Chance had adapted long ago to this environment. While he might be perfectly comfortable in a world of thousand-dollar suits and skyscrapers, I was petrified.

  On the 20th floor, we switched to Skye’s private penthouse elevator. As the doors closed, a shiver ran through my spine. “Holy crap, I feel like I’m being led to my death.”

  Chance chuckled, then put a hand on my shoulder. “Relax, McKenna, I’ve got your back.”

  “It’s not my back I’m worried about,” I said as the elevator bell dinged and the doors slid open. “It’s my neck if this woman—well, you know.”

  He grimaced. “I do.”

  “You’d better not.”

  The conversation ended with us standing in front of a pair of glass doors with the name Island Passion stenciled in gold script.

  “Holy crap.”

  “You already said that, McKenna.”

  “So I did. She has the entire floor?”

  “Chill, McKenna. This is a classic example of extravagance for its own sake.”

  “You’re not even a little bit intimidated?”

  Chance shrugged and winked at me. “Reminds me of my dad’s office. Lots of pretense, low on substance. Doesn’t your Sun Tzu book cover this kind of situation? Never show fear or something like that?”

  “He only had to deal with the Great Wall. I didn’t realize this was the penthouse penthouse.”

  Chance screwed up his face and peered at me. “What?”

  “This is the top floor. It’s got a three-hundred-sixty-degree view. Mauka on one side, makai on the other.”

  “I’m still getting used to the way you guys throw around those Hawaiian words.”

  “Mauka is ocean, makai is mountains.”

  “I know, but that many vowels don’t just fall out of my mouth like they do yours.”

  “I’ve been here longer than you have, kid. You’ll adjust. Especially if you and Lexie get married and raise a passel of kids who learn to speak Pidgin. Oh yeah, you’ll get used to the lingo.” I pulled back a bit and narrowed my gaze at him. “Of course, that whole future depends on me keeping you from doing anything stupid up here in the spider’s lair.”

  “There are no spiders up here, only Skye. Hey, what do you make of that?”

  Chance nodded in the direction of a young woman seated at a desk in the reception lobby. On the other side of the desk stood a scruffy-looking man wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt and blue pants. They were chatting like a couple of old friends. It seemed an odd place for a blue-collar-worker meets fashionista small-talk session, but neither appeared self-conscious despite the lavish surroundings, which included island watercolors on the interior walls and lots of glass on the perimeter. Beyond the glass, Honolulu stretched out to the mountains and the horizon.

  “Name on the back of his shirt says he’s the elevator repair guy. So what?”

  “Not him, McKenna. The girl. Look how friendly she is.”

  “So?”

  “I’ve got a good feeling about this. She’s going to be easy to work with.”

  Thirty seconds later, we were standing in the reception area waiting for the two of them to finish their conversation. Elevator guy glanced at us as we entered. He hadn’t shaved in about three days and smelled of sweat and grease.

  “Looks like you got visitors, Angela. I gotta get going to my next appointment. You take care. Yah?”

  “You too, Eric. And congratulations on the new baby.”

  She finger-waved, then flashed him a friendly smile as she brushed back a few stray locks of sun-streaked hair. ‘Angela’ had full dark eyelashes, and red lips. She wore a classic, sleeveless black dress, which was tight in places I didn’t know she had places. With Eric gone, her smile was confident, welcoming, and directed at Chance. As far as I could tell, this was another of those cases where McKenna was not even in the room.

  “Welcome to Island Passion. How may I help you?”

  “Chance Logan. This is my friend, McKenna. We’ve been asked to investigate…” Chance paused, looked at me, then back to Angela. “An issue involving Primal. I wonder if we might talk to Skye for a few minutes.”

  Angela sighed and stuck out her lower lip. It seemed Chance had said the magic word to deflate her ego—Skye. A moment later, her smile returned. “She’s busy right now. I’m her assistant. What kind of issue? Perhaps I can help you.”

  “You’re familiar with Primal?” I asked.

  Angela gaped at me like I was an idiot. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  There was a note of irritation in her voice, something I’ll bet the elevator guy had never heard. In my experience, the person at the front desk knew everything. Most liked to talk, but this girl seemed different. The question was, how did we bring out Good Angela in the next thirty seconds? Maybe we couldn’t. From the highlights in her hair to the fashion-magazine makeup to that little black dress, Angela was obviously used to compliments. Scratch that approach. It was time to go right to the top.

  I stared back at Angela. “I think we need to talk to Skye. You’re only the receptionist.”

  There was a moment of silence during which I realized all I’d done was unlock the box containing Bad Angela. I could see it in her eyes. At my side, Chance tensed up.

  We both waited as she stared out the wall of windows in the waiting area. Honolulu skyline dominated the view, but beyond that were the verdant mountains and blue-sky horizon. Her red lips tightened into a hard line. She raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow and peered at me. For a moment, I feared she might choose to lay waste to the landscape with her comeback.

  “I’m Skye’s personal assistant, not a receptionist,” she declared.

  I tried to sound appropriately humble as I replied. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  Apparently, Angela had decided I was unworthy of her wrath and instead was willing to show her benevolence. I could live with that. “Personal assistant is an important job. I’ll bet you know everything that goes on here.”

  Her brow wrinkled and she bit her lower lip, causing me to wonder if I’d hit a nerve. Despite
her reaction, she kept her tone businesslike as she stared at me.

  “We have very tight controls.”

  I held her stare. “Meaning?”

  “You would have to ask Skye about that.”

  “How many people work for the company?” Chance asked.

  “I can’t tell you that, either.” She took in a breath and batted her eyelids, then bit her lower lip and gave Chance a small smile.

  I had to admit it was a brilliantly coquettish move, the kind that could make lesser men weak in the knees. But Chance countered with a smile of his own, equally brilliant and reminiscent of the best leading man. It was like watching a war of titans—I can flirt better than you. And then, the hard line in Angela’s jaw melted as she sucked in a small breath. I’d seen the look in other women and was delighted the kid hadn’t lost his touch.

  Chance planted both hands on the edge of the desk and leaned forward. He wrinkled his nose and spoke softly. “What about industrial espionage? Could someone have gotten hold of the formula?”

  Angela’s gaze flicked nervously toward the door on her left. Her jaw tightened again, but this time there was a difference. Her breathing had deepened as though she were trying to keep some deep-seated fear under control. It occurred to me she might be afraid to talk. Did she think she might lose her job? She might be Skye’s personal assistant, she might know all the company details, but if she was too afraid to open up, we were screwed.

  She picked up a pen and twirled it between her fingers, then glanced over her shoulder and said, “Look, there are things happening here. Skye has enemies. And there are things she doesn’t want discussed. I can’t…” Her voice trailed off to a whisper and the hard exterior we’d seen initially was long gone now, replaced instead by someone sounding weak and vulnerable.

  “I’ve heard your new perfume is going to be big,” I said. “But we have reason to believe someone has pirated some bottles or is making a knockoff and selling it as Primal.”

  “We need to talk to Skye and let her know what’s going on,” Chance added.