He leaned his chin on his hands. “What’s happening?”
“You know I invested in that young lady’s company when it went public?” His dad sipped the coffee, watching him over the brim.
“Which one, Dad? You’re always investing in something.” His father spent most of his time playing the stock market and making money. Something he seemed to have a knack for.
“Mia Morgan. You know—Morgan’s Homewares.”
“Ah, right. Now I know who you’re talking about. What about it?” Half the items in his house came from that company. Matt blessed the mail order service that meant he could buy online and not leave the island.
“Well, a friend of mine—Ryan Morgan—is connected to the owner and now manages the whole shooting match. Not sure if you know anything about the company, but Mia is his niece, and she started the business from her folks’ basement years ago. Worked her butt off to make it successful and opened a brick and mortar store. Eventually she expanded and then took the company public, which is where I came in. It’s been one of my more profitable investments and not just because she has a brilliant line of products. That girl knows how to make money for her investors.” He sipped again, smiled and stroked his bushy gray moustache. “Good coffee, son. Anyway, Ryan reckons things have been going wrong lately. Said Mia has been making bad business decisions and the board stepped in before she made a really tragic blunder.”
“Don’t tell me they’re shutting down? I have heaps of her products in the house.” Matt hadn’t found another company that stocked so many items that were to his particular taste and the thought of their doors closing was dismal.
“Not that I know of. No, Ryan said the board has ordered her to take time off. Poor girl has been burning the candle at both ends since she started the business. It’s exacting its toll on her as far as the board is concerned, and they want her to take a decent break away from work before she ends up having a full scale meltdown. She’s a workaholic and doesn’t know how to relax. Guess it’s finally catching up with her.”
That would be a shame. Matt hated to see anyone struggle when a good holiday might be all it took to give them a new focus on life. It was one of the reasons he liked doing what he did. “And you want her to come and stay here?”
“Ryan asked if you’d have room. I told him I’d organize it for him.”
“But I could’ve been fully booked.”
His dad fiddled with the handle of his mug and cleared his throat before speaking. “I looked at your bookings online while I had him on the phone. Matt, he’s desperate for her to get a decent break, somewhere quiet and calming. Not to some swanky resort that’s all about cramming as much as possible into a short period of time.”
“Do you really think this is the best place for her?” Matt pulled a face. He might run a nice B&B but had doubts about being enough company for one over-stressed business mogul of her caliber. Surely she was used to flashier hotels with wait staff for every little thing, rather than his charming Victorian home. An island in the Bahamas with nobody around but staff sounded more like what she was after. “Hope Island is pretty laid back and it’s not like I’ll be hiding from her. It’s not how I run the business. You know that.”
His father nodded. “Son, you’re exactly what she needs. You like looking after people, making them comfortable.”
“You mean smothering, don’t you?” He knew his family’s opinion of him. Matt was the mother hen among his siblings and he didn’t care. He couldn’t help how he was. He enjoyed making people happy and nurturing them. From what he’d seen of Mia Morgan in interviews, she was the type to want impersonal service and everything on hand, day and night, whereas he was more interactive. He enjoyed sharing Hope Island with his visitors. But even Matt was smart enough to know that what was on the news wasn’t necessarily the truth.
His father looked at him with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes. He was used to this conversation between the siblings. “Nope. I don’t. You’re kind and caring, calm in a nice, protective way. She’s a businesswoman who’s used to doing things on her own. From what her uncle told me, she needs someone to look after her, whether she’ll admit it or not. I think you’re the perfect person to do that. What can possibly go wrong?”
Chapter 2
They had to be kidding! Even from the bow of the ferry she could see that the island was tiny. There was hardly anything there. As soon as she’d left the meeting, Mia had gone online and looked. It might be a quaint little tourist destination for the average mom and dad plus two kids but not for her.
How was she going to amuse herself for a whole month? Uncle Ryan surely had a mean streak sending her over here. Mia wasn’t the type to sit and read all day, nor the kind of person to laze in bed. If the sun was up, so was she. Despite the board’s warning to take it easy, she’d grabbed her laptop, determined to at least start sourcing the new spring product line for next season. If she had to leave behind everything normal about her day, she’d go nuts in a week.
Happy tourists chatted around her, their excitement about going to the island doing little to convince her she was going to enjoy her break. This was going to be harder than she first thought. Maybe she should turn around and go back to Seattle. She’d offer anything to the board if they’d change their minds – beg if she had to. She’d take one rest day a week on a permanent roster,
