Clean-shaven, dark and good-looking and dressed in his business suit, he was every inch a corporate leader, dead set on going places.
His blue eyes skirted over Alice as he looked directly at Mary-Ann and then Shana. ‘I know the photo in the Cairns Post has caused quite a stir and I’d like to set the record straight,’ he said. ‘I expect Alice has told you about our chance meeting in the bar last Friday evening.’
He waited, eyebrows raised expectantly. ‘Right,’ he continued, once he’d elicited nods of agreement from the girls. ‘I’m here to assure you that there are no grounds for gossip. That photo means nothing and I don’t expect to hear any more about it from anyone in this company.’
His cool, no-nonsense gaze flicked to Alice, causing considerable difficulty with her breathing. ‘What’s important from now on is this business,’ he said, still looking straight at her. ‘Your jobs.’ His hands dropped from his hips.
Alice couldn’t believe how awful this felt. Liam wasn’t putting a foot wrong. He was doing everything he’d said he would and it was sensible to clear the air, to nip rumours in the bud. He was distancing himself from her, as he’d promised, turning from her lover into her boss.
She should be pleased. She was pleased. In her head.
But her heart felt like a heavy stone, sinking…sinking…
‘OK,’ Liam said. ‘Let’s move on to more important matters. I’d like to schedule a full staff meeting for tomorrow.’
‘Alice, can you come through to my office?’
Liam held his breath. There was an unsettling pause before she replied.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Conway, I’m busy with clients at the moment. Can you give me—oh, say, fifteen minutes?’
‘Certainly.’ Liam swallowed. He’d seen little of her over the past week—just the occasional glimpse from a distance down the corridor. Now the sound of her voice triggered a constriction in his throat.
He knew he’d been avoiding her. Cowardly of him? No doubt. Untenable for an effective working environment? Most certainly.
‘Come as soon as you’re free,’ he said.
She wasn’t free for another forty-five minutes and he distracted himself by making phone calls, continuing to contact the various resorts and attractions the company dealt with. He was questioning the people who ran them to find out what his staff and consultants were doing well and what they were doing wrong.
When at last Alice knocked on his door, he jumped to his feet. ‘You’ve had a busy morning,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘No problems? Nothing I should know about?’
‘No, just some complicated transport arrangements for a Japanese group.’
Something about the way she said that made him wonder if her delay had been deliberate. Was she trying to avoid him as carefully as he’d been avoiding her? ‘Please, take a seat.’
She sat very primly, shoulders back, ankles crossed neatly. She was wearing a short grey skirt and now she made an attempt to camouflage its hemline by positioning a notebook and a pen just so.
But the skirt wasn’t the only problem. The pale, intensely feminine blouse beneath her businesslike jacket was damnably distracting. The blouse wasn’t transparent, but the way his imagination worked it might as well have been.
Liam wondered if he should insist that his staff wear an ultra-conservative uniform. Then again, that wouldn’t be much use. It was Alice who was distracting, not her choice of clothes.
She looked demure, almost prim, here in his office, but all he could think of was how uninhibited she’d been when she was alone with him, how passionately she’d made love.
He snatched his gaze away from her and took a moment to refocus on the business he had to discuss. ‘I’d like to talk to you about the outback tours. I know they’ve been your responsibility in the past.’
She looked surprised. ‘I haven’t been in charge of that area for a couple of years.’
‘Quite. Dennis Ericson took over from you.’
‘Yes.’
He pointed to the stack of hard-copy files on his desk and to the computer screen. ‘I’ve been going through the company’s history and I’ve noticed that the outback package tours used to be very popular but these days they aren’t doing nearly as well as the tours to the reef and the rainforest. I’d like to hear your thoughts on that.’
‘Oh…’ Alice looked down at her hands and he could sense her discomfort.
He suspected it wouldn’t be easy for her to give him an honest appraisal without implicating the staff member who’d taken control from her. Ericson.
‘Well, to start with, the reef and the rainforest have more obvious and well-established attractions,’ she said. ‘That’s where the big operators are and they’re very strong in marketing and promoting their product. It’s a lot easier to interest people in island cruises in glass-bottomed boats than in the hot and dusty outback.’
‘But from what I’ve seen we used to connect tourists to a huge range of outback activities in the past. Everything from wilderness canoeing with helicopter drops to visiting Aboriginal communities and outback picnic races.’
Alice nodded. ‘Actually, the farm stays and cattle musters were probably our most popular drawcards.’
‘What happened to them?’
She gave a half-hearted shrug but didn’t comment.
‘I’d like you to be honest with me, Alice. It’s important to get to the bottom of the problem. I expect growth in every area of my business.’
‘But I’m not sure that I can help you.’
‘Just tell me what you know.’
She sighed. ‘There have been a few problems,’ she admitted carefully. ‘I’d say it started after we switched to a different airline for the charter flights out to the remote areas.’
Liam nodded. This change of airline, he was sure, had been Dennis’s decision.
‘The new company was much cheaper,’ said Alice.
‘But that economy came at a price?’
‘Yes, they were too casual. Vague about timetables. Passengers were left stranded, luggage misplaced. And fair enough, we scored some bad word-of-mouth publicity.’
Liam nodded and made notes. ‘What else?’
She tapped her pen against the cover of her notebook, taking her time before she replied. ‘We used to have about fifty popular farm stays on our books and quite a few fishing spots up in the Gulf Country, but a lot of them pulled out.’
‘Why?’
She hesitated. ‘Haven’t you already discussed this with Dennis?’
Liam had.
‘I’ve taken note of Dennis’s observations,’ he said. ‘But I’d like to hear your opinion.’
She frowned. ‘Our outback contacts said it wasn’t worth it.’
‘Are you saying that they removed their properties from our books, or they dropped out of tourism altogether?’
It was clear she didn’t want to answer this question. She opened her notebook, stared at a blank page, and then shut it again with a snap.
‘Is that what happened?’ Liam prompted again. ‘These cattle stations stopped taking tourists?’
‘No.’
Liam