Page 15 of Strictly Business

‘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 be.

Liam wondered if he should insist that his staff wear an ultra-conservative uniform. A nun’s habit perhaps? 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 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 First Nations 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.’

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