Brian dashed out of the kitchen at his usual breakneck pace, just as Lani was hanging up the phone. "Sounds like you hired someone," Daniel commented.
Lani told him about Linda Wong's background, stressing that the girl seemed reliable and fond of children. "She wants to work for Prescott & Thomas when she graduates," she added. "She's determined to impress you into offering her a job."
"Dusting my desk?" Daniel asked dryly.
"She's a business major. You will consider it when the time comes, won't you, Daniel?" Lani knew she would feel horribly guilty if Linda put in three or four years as a housekeeper when there was no chance of eventual employment with Prescott & Thomas.
"I'll make her Vice President for Maintenance," he said solemnly. "When does the future executive start?"
Lani had to giggle at the joke. "A week from Monday. About dinner… I would have cooked something, but there's not much in the house and without a car…"
"Be patient, princess," Daniel replied in a teasing voice. "I'm a busy man. We'll pick out a car this weekend."
"I wasn't hinting!"
"You can't take corporate presidents on the bus, Miss Douglas. You'll need a comfortable car. Do you like the one I drive?"
"Such a big car?" Lani asked, feigning dismay. "Can't I have two? A neat little sportscar for me, and a big limousine for the VIP's?"
He didn't seem to realize that she was kidding. "I don't like the thought of you driving around in a sportscar. Big cars are safer."
"Besides, you can charge it off to the business, right, Mr. Reid?" She gave him a big grin.
"That's right, princess," he replied. "Just like tonight's dinner. We've had too many complaints about the food and service in one of the hotels we acquired last year. It's time I checked it out."
Lani's sense of humor was too well developed to suppress a gurgle of laughter. "Wonderful!" she giggled. "Our first night in Hawaii, and where do you take us to dinner? A dreadful restaurant with even worse service."
She was astonished to see his face redden under his dark tan. "I didn't think of that, Lani. I'm sorry. We'll do it another night."
"Oh, no!" Lani answered with a mocking shake of her head. "I wouldn't miss your third-rate restaurant for the world!" It was intensely gratifying to her that not every outpost of Daniel's empire was a sanctuary of gracious perfection.
"It's not third-rate," he said stiffly, "just not up to our usual standards."
Lani had never seen her stepbrother quite so put out, but mercifully Brian chose that moment to reappear. "We're going to one of your big brother's restaurants for dinner," Lani told him in a low, conspiratorial voice. "We're going to be spies. We test the food, and see if the waiter does a good job, and then make a secret report."
Brian was delighted with the idea, so much so that his behavior at the restaurant was a good deal more restrained then usual.
"I'm amazed that no one's recognized you," Lani commented to Daniel after they had ordered their meals. "I thought Daniel Prescott Reid was famous throughout the entire North Pacific region."
Daniel had long ago recovered from his previous chagrin, and now he lazed back in his chair and regarded Lani through half-lidded, amused gray eyes. "Naturally. The South Pacific too. But people recognize the name more readily than the face." He reached out a long arm to take a package of salted bread sticks from a wicker basket on the table, opened it, and popped one into his mouth. "Now if I had come in with Michi or Elizabeth, it might be different. People expect to see me with a beautiful woman in tow. But this," he gestured toward Brian, "is a very domestic scene."
Lani shot him a dirty look. "Gee Daniel, thanks for the compliment!" Michi, she told herself, must be Michiko Hansen, the general manager of the Maunalua Bay Hotel. But who was Elizabeth?
He only smiled and ate another bread stick. "You're in a class by yourself, princess," he informed her.
Then the waiter appeared with their salads, and Lani gratefully turned her attention to her meal. The plate, she noticed, was still warm, as if it had recently come out of the dishwasher, and the dressing had a slight off taste.
At first Daniel expressed his displeasure with his dinner with a series of acerbic judgments, but eventually he succumbed to Lani and Brian's lighthearted mood and began to joke about the restaurant's flaws. Although the quality of the ingredients was excellent, the preparation was mundane and the service just clumsy enough to be an annoyance. As Daniel relaxed, he became increasingly affable—almost human, Lani decided.
His apparent good mood vanished the moment he excused himself to approach the restaurant's manager. Lani knew that stern look—she had been on the receiving end far too often. She felt sorry for the man as he gave them a guided tour of the kitchen. His face was dewy with discomfort, and turned pink when Daniel began to poke through cabinets and drawers. The kitchen looked clean enough to Lani's untrained eye, but Daniel had pulled out a small notepad and was jotting down deficiencies as the staff silently looked on.
"What are you going to do?" Lani asked as they walked to the car.
"Call the hotel's general manager. Follow it up with a written report. Recommend the replacement of the restaurant manager and the head chef."
"No warning?" Such abrupt action seemed rather heartless to Lani.
"They've had complaints, and that's warning enough. No one likes to fire people, Lani, but if you run a business, sometimes it's necessary."
"I'm glad I don't have your job," she admitted. She was beginning to understand just what kinds of pressures Daniel lived with, and just how hard he worked.
Before returning home, they drove around the Waikiki area, and Lani was amazed at the number of tourists who strolled through the streets, dressed in everything from jeans to colorfully printed aloha fashions. Daniel pointed out the other two Prescott & Thomas hotels, both of which were over a decade old. Although she was pleased to learn that the company planned renovations and additional landscaping, she would have preferred that half the hotels on the strip be torn down and replaced by palm trees and bougainvillea. Noise, traffic, concrete, and crowds were not her idea of a tropical paradise.
Since Daniel was already much too familiar with her point of view, she refrained from restating it. Somehow, she told herself, the two of them had managed to spend an entire evening together without exchanging bitter words or angry looks. On the contrary, the last few hours had been all too pleasant. Maybe she was an utter fool, but at that moment, she had no desire to renew hostilities.
Chapter Five
Tommy Prescott called the next morning at nine o'clock.
"I've got my marching orders," he announced. "I'm supposed to pick you up at a quarter of ten and run you up to the hotel, then take the kid off your hands while Michi gives you the grand tour."
Lani had planned to take the bus, and ordinarily she would have welcomed Tommy's offer of a ride. Under the circumstances she rejected it, irritated with Daniel for making arrangements without consulting her. "Really?" she asked icily.
Laughter rang through the receiver. "He didn't tell you, huh? Don't be too hard on him. Giving orders comes naturally to Daniel."
Lani smoldered with anger. "He can give them to someone else, then! I'll get there on my own."
"No, you won't. You'll go with me!" Typical Prescott arrogance, Lani thought rebelliously. In ten years, Tommy would be every bit as overbearing as Daniel.
Nonetheless, at the moment he was only twenty-two, and when she maintained a stony silence, his self-confidence seemed to desert him. "C'mon, Lani. Let me take you. I'm liable to wind up washing dishes in Kona if you don't."
"He wouldn't take it out on you. I thought he was so tolerant of his family," she said in a saccharine tone.
"Ouch!" Lani could imagine the accompanying wince. "Have a heart, Lani. He will take it out on me." There was an awkward pause. "Uh, look. I guess… that is, I was supposed to ask if you wanted to go to the beach, and when you told me you'd be at the hotel, I was supposed to offer
to take you up there. How about it?"
Recalling Tommy's devious baiting of his cousin during the drive home from the airport, Lani began to suspect that his ingenuous explanation was more than a little self-serving. "You did it on purpose, didn't you? You told me that Daniel had given you orders because you wanted me to be angry with him."
"Okay, I admit it. I'm still smarting over his dictum about not taking you out. Typical Prescott highhandedness. If I weren't one of us," Tommy added good-naturedly, "I'd resent it like mad."
His light-hearted confession was so irresistible that Lani found it impossible to remain annoyed with him. After all, she could hardly blame him for taking a few swipes at his cousin when she herself had done so on many occasions during the last seven years. She told him to come by in forty-five minutes, and added that she would pack a flight bag with Brian's suit and towel in case they decided to go to the beach again.
As for Daniel's behavior, she supposed she should bristle, but after last night she couldn't bring herself to object. In fact, it would provide a convenient excuse to tease him about his habit of failing to consult her about plans made on her behalf. And Lani had discovered that she enjoyed teasing Daniel. She liked the warm look that came into his eyes, and the way he smiled at her.
The Maunalua Bay Hotel was located "kokohead"— toward Koko Head Crater, to the east of the Kahala District. The access road from the highway cut through a manicured golf course situated adjacent to the hotel itself. The main building was designed in a gentle arc which mimicked the curve of the shoreline, while a two-story extension curved away from the fifteen-story tower to make an S-shaped complex. Trees and flowering shrubs softened the modern facade of the hotel.
Tommy pulled the car up to the front entrance to drop Lani off. Like many hotels in Hawaii, the Maunalua Bay had no front doors, a feature designed to take advantage of the natural air conditioning provided by the ocean breeze. Lani gave Brian a hug and kiss good-bye and walked through a high archway into the lobby. It was an enormous, high-ceilinged room with a central crystal chandelier, a dark tiled floor and an oval carpet on which groups of chairs and sofas were placed. Numerous plants blended with an earth-tone color scheme to give the lobby a natural, restful feeling.
Lani stopped at the registration desk to ask directions to the manager's office, then proceeded past a bank of elevators and into a hall where a discreet sign and arrow indicated the location of the administrative offices. She knocked lightly at the door labeled "General Manager."
A musical female voice replied, "Come in!"
Lani had no preconceived mental image of Michi Hansen, but if she had, it would never have measured up to the exquisite creature who confronted her. She appeared to be in her mid-30s, at the height of her beauty. Even in her spiked heels she was several inches smaller than Lani's own 5'4". Her dark hair was a shimmering, silky cap; her dark, almond-shaped eyes were warm with welcome. Her perfectly proportioned, curvaceous body was clad in an elegant beige silk skirtsuit, the jacket belted with black leather. Lani wished that she had worn something more formal than her blue and white dotted swiss sundress. With its blouson top and slender straps it was quite charming, but definitely not in the same sophisticated league as the older woman's attire.
Michi Hansen crossed the room with businesslike strides that seemed wholly out of place given her delicate appearance. As she extended her right hand, Lani noticed the filigreed gold band on her left ring finger. "I'm very happy to meet you at last," the manager said with a smile. "Or perhaps I should say, Hagime-mashite do-zo yoroshi-ku." She had repeated her welcome in Japanese.
Lani answered in the same language, complimenting her on the beauty of the hotel.
"I can't take the credit, I'm afraid," Michi said, switching back to English. "It was designed by a brilliant young architect, a local boy Daniel discovered. As you can see, the result justifies Daniel's confidence in him."
Lani nodded, expecting that the manager's comment was a prelude to the upcoming tour, but instead of leading Lani back to the lobby, Michi Hansen invited her to sit down on the sofa and offered her some coffee.
"No, thank you." Lani watched as Michi poured some coffee from the coffee maker on her credenza into a bone china cup, then seated herself in an armchair next to the sofa.
"Your Japanese is excellent. Where did you learn to speak it so well?" the manager asked.
"When I was growing up in Hawaii, my best friend was Japanese," Lani explained. "I spent as much time at her house as at my own, and I gradually picked it up. Even though we moved to California when I was ten, it stayed with me, because when I started taking the language in college, it all came back. Foreign languages are easy for me—I speak French and Spanish too, plus some Hawaiian, of course."
"I can see you'll be a great asset to us, Lani." Michi Hansen's smile was beguiling. "I confess I've been dying to meet you. Daniel has spoken of you so often."
"Probably all of it bad," Lani blurted out, then blushed furiously. "What I mean," she added awkwardly, "is that we don't always get along very well. I guess it's mostly my fault."
"Not at all," was the smooth reply. "Daniel is well aware that he shares in the blame. He has difficulty in controlling his temper where you're concerned. I think you'll notice a great improvement now that you're here in Hawaii."
Michi's gaze was so direct and intent that Lani felt pressured to make a revealing reply, something she had no intention of doing. The manager might look as ethereal and delicate as a white ginger blossom, but inside, Lani suspected, she was as tough as the fibrous leaves of that same plant. Since bluntness seemed to be the order of the day, she asked Michi, "How long have you known my stepbrother?"
"Six years. My husband Keith was the assistant manager of a hotel on the Big Island when Daniel recruited him for a similar position at one of Prescott & Thomas's Waikiki hotels. The three of us became good friends almost immediately. As our daughter Sarah grew up, I found myself spending more and more time helping Keith. We became a team, and were promoted to co-managers two years later. Last year, when the company approved plans for the Maunalua Bay, Daniel told us he wanted us to manage it." Michi's voice and eyes softened. "Keith was killed in an automobile accident ten months ago. Daniel persuaded me that I would be capable of managing the hotel without my husband. He's been wonderful since Keith died. I couldn't ask for a finer employer or a better friend."
"I'm sorry," Lani murmured huskily. "I know what it's like…" Unshed tears forced her to stop, as a kaleidoscope of mental images swirled in her mind: Anne, pale with the effort of childbirth; Jonathan, in the hospital after his second heart attack; herself, at two funerals. She had lost so very much. At the same time, she felt a stab of pain that puzzled her until she realized that it had nothing to do with her parents' deaths. It stemmed from the fact that Daniel had taken care of Michi Hansen when she needed someone to lean on. Lani had been his stepsister for fourteen years, yet never had he treated her with such kindness and gentleness. Could she possibly be jealous of Michi?
She wondered if Daniel was in love with the beautiful hotel manager. Michi Hansen seemed to have everything he could require in a woman: warmth, charm, intelligence, independence, and an ability to share in his work. And she was beautiful beyond words. It was obvious that she had not yet recovered from her husband's death, but when she did, would Daniel ask her to marry him?
"I've upset you." The soft, contrite words broke into Lani's speculations. "It was thoughtless of me to mention Keith when your loss is so much more recent. Can I get you a glass of water or show you to the ladies' room?"
Lani shook her head and reached into her purse for a tissue. Although her eyes were dry, the pretense of dabbing at them gave her a few moments to regain her composure. She managed a brief smile. "I'm fine, really. I'd love to see the hotel."
Michi glanced at the diamond and gold watch on her wrist. "Good. Daniel should be here any minute. Let's wait for him in the lobby."
"Daniel?" The word came
out in a squeak. Daniel hadn't said anything about coming today. In fact, he had given her quite the opposite impression.
"Of course," was the amused reply. "You could hardly expect your stepbrother to permit anyone else to show you around the hotel. He's as proud as a brand-new father, but in this case," Michi joked, "the baby was a rather large one."
They entered the lobby to find Daniel talking to a uniformed security guard, his long strides bringing him to their side a moment later. Michi held out both hands to him as he approached and he took them in his own, bending his head to brush her mouth.
"How are you and Lani getting along?" he murmured.
Michi gently took her hands from his and backed away several steps. "Very well. We've been talking about you."
The statement seemed to remind Daniel of Lani's presence. "Telling Michi all your complaints about me, no doubt," he said with a teasing smile.
"That would take more than fifteen minutes," Lani retorted with a laugh, "starting with your call to Tommy this morning."
Daniel looked rather sheepish as he draped an arm over her shoulder. "Later, princess. Right now I want to show you around."
Lani allowed him to escort her across the lobby to the hotel shops. In addition to the usual sundries shop there were several clothing stores, a florist, a fine jewelry store, an art gallery, and a gift shop featuring exquisite collectors' items made of a variety of precious materials. Lani's automatic estimate of the prices in these stores told her a good deal about the affluence of the clientele.
They proceeded to the top floor, which housed one of the hotel's two restaurants as well as a large nightclub/bar. The floor-to-ceiling picture windows in both provided a dazzling view of the Koolau mountain range to one side and the Pacific Ocean to the other. Daniel explained that the restaurant was open to the public only for dinner; the nightclub was used for the hotel's twice-nightly shows.
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