The Man From her Wayward Past

‘That’s where I’m heading,’ she said brightly. Sloughing off Van’s insults, she glanced anxiously over her shoulder. Thankfully Luke was still in deep conversation with the blonde. Luke wasn’t just her brothers’ closest friend, he was a fully paid-up member of their over-protective, pain-in-the-ass, let’s-keep-Lucia-at-ten-years-old-for-ever gang. He certainly wasn’t someone she wanted to see her dressed in too-tight silver hot pants and an X-rated top.

‘Wait!’ Van Rickter barked in a way she was certain must draw Luke’s attention. ‘If you’re off the floor longer than five minutes, you’re fired. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Crystal,’ Lucia said, backing towards the stockroom.

‘Find the biggest uniform you can’ was Van’s parting shot.

‘Thank you. I will.’

She disappeared behind the door with a gust of relief. She couldn’t care less what Van Rickter thought about her. Ever since London she had wanted to be thought a sexless amoeba without cheekbones, breasts or a waist. Seeing Luke had only reinforced that desperate wish. Far from wanting to flirt with him, she would happily turn her back on all men with the greatest relief. And whatever sort of mess her life was in, she would sort it out. Not her brothers. And definitely not Luke.

Last year’s uniform wasn’t much better on her than this year’s, but at least it had a skirt. Well, almost. Wriggling into it, she plucked the matching satin shirt from its hanger and slipped it on, tying it beneath her ample breasts. She hesitated over the grubby plastic camellia blossom she was supposed to pin behind her ear. There were limits.

She walked out of the stockroom straight into Luke. Just her luck—he was at the bar buying drinks. Now she couldn’t breathe, let alone pull something out of the bag to defuse the shocked look in his eyes. ‘Luke!’ she said, feigning surprise as her heart threatened to explode. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I might ask you the same question.’ he said, taking a step back to eye her up and down.

Telling herself she was used to alpha males, having grown up with four of them, she lifted her chin. ‘This is where we always go,’ she said, gesturing around as if she was at the club with a huge gang of friends. This only succeeded in causing Luke’s eyes to narrow with disbelief.

With shock crackling between them as Luke scoffed disbelievingly, she drank him in. Luke was the essence of male. Bigger and more powerful than the other men in the club, he was infinitely better looking. Luke had always been able to melt her with a glance—though at the moment that glance was doing its best to incinerate her, which for once rested more comfortably with Lucia than the smouldering, sexy look Luke was so good at. He was even bigger than she remembered—harder, tougher—though, as always, immaculately groomed, with shoulders wide enough to hoist an ox and hard-muscled legs that went on and on to … to a point from which she quickly averted her eyes.

While she had not only let herself go, but was wearing last year’s shabby club uniform, with her hair scraped back and her face glowing red and shiny beneath the lights. Perfect.

‘Lucia?’ Luke rapped sternly, staring down at her with knife-sharp eyes. ‘Are you working here?’

Of course she should have said, What’s it to you? But a row might draw attention and she couldn’t afford to lose this job. ‘No, of course I’m not working here,’ she protested with a laugh, glancing around to make sure no one had heard Luke calling her by her real name. ‘I come here so often they let me hang my coat in the stockroom.’

‘Really?’ Luke drawled, with an even more contemptuous expression in his brooding amber gaze.

‘Okay, from time to time,’ she admitted, brushing it off as she continued to stare at a face that was mesmerising in its harsh masculine beauty. If you wanted hard there was no better hard to be had than Luke Forster—as her yearning and thoroughly confused body would now attest. But Van was prowling, Lucia noticed. ‘Gin and orange for your friend?’ she suggested as the blonde, having exited the restroom, made a beeline for them.

‘I have ordered our drinks, thank you,’ Luke said coolly. ‘Vanessa,’ he murmured, in what Lucia considered an unnecessarily indulgent tone, ‘I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine.’

‘Not so much of the old,’ Lucia joked weakly, feeling awkward and ridiculously exposed when she compared herself to Luke’s neatly styled friend. The blonde was even prettier close up, and was hanging on to Luke’s arm as if her life depended on it.

‘Do you work here?’ Vanessa enquired, visibly relaxing once she had assessed Lucia and found her lacking in—well, practically everything.

‘I help out here occasionally,’ Lucia said carefully.

‘How nice to have such a … sociable job.’ The blonde looked at Luke for approval of her assessment, but Luke was too busy studying Lucia.

Van, having spotted money, was sniffing around. ‘Have you seen our new casino yet?’ he crowed.

Van clearly imagined he had found a high-roller in Luke, but Lucia knew Luke had never gambled in his life, and rarely drank. Having summoned another of his serfs—a far more attractive cocktail waitress than Lucia—Van ushered the small group away.

The only good thing about it, Lucia mused from the shelter of the bar, was that Van was so drunk on the scent of money he had chosen to walk backward in front of Luke—until he collided with a table and then had to turn and chase after his big-striding guest.

The crowd on the dance floor fell back at Luke’s advance like the Red Sea parting, and Luke paused at the entrance to the casino just long enough to shoot a stare at Lucia that assured her this wasn’t nearly over yet.

CHAPTER TWO

Get a flat

Admittedly, this is not quite the accommodation I had in mind. But, again, there are reasons. And holiday parks are all the rage, offering an unparalleled level of lifestyle, according to the ads I’ve read in magazines. Sadly, my des res is a leaking tin can on wheels, with no discernible braking system, parked in a ramshackle field on the edge of a crumbling cliff a good half-mile walk from the shelter of the guest house. Try that out for size in a sleet storm in winter.

SHE spent the rest of the shift swinging like a pendulum between kicking herself because Luke had caught her out and wondering how on earth to explain to her brothers’ clearly bemused friend what she was doing there—without actually telling him what had happened, that was. Why hadn’t she been frank with him and looked to Luke to keep her safe? He was the next best thing to a brother, wasn’t he? Why hadn’t she told him the truth?

Because it was none of Luke’s damn business!

And because she had never felt more ashamed or more soiled in her life. He would never look at her the same way again if he knew … She couldn’t be further from her dream of building her own life, independent of Luke and her brothers, Lucia realised as Van switched off the soft lights in the club after another long night, turning on the harsh glare of factory-style strip-lighting.

There was a song about a girl from South America who was tall and young and lovely. Lucia had used to hum it beneath her breath when she was a pre-teen, never dreaming she would turn into the other girl from Ipanema—the one who was short and a bit too fat, plain and olive-skinned. And stupid. She had to be stupid to have got herself into such a mess in London. How could she go home and tell them the truth now? It was all too humiliating, too shameful.

So she would ride this storm out like any other, Lucia told herself firmly. She just hadn’t fathomed out how yet.

She had been monumentally thrown at seeing Luke again, Lucia reasoned as she helped the barman clean the bar. She was making the climb back, though, however long it was taking, and she should cut herself some slack. Tonight the best thing she could do was to concentrate on cleaning up and earning a night’s pay.

His attention on the blonde hadn’t so much slipped as fallen down a ravine—a ravine with Lucia at the bottom of it. To say he was shocked at seeing her working here would be putting it mildly. It was a world away from the last time he’d seen her, dancing so hotly he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. How had she gone from that to working for a toad like Van Rickter? How was that supposed to further Lucia’s career? And where was she living? Who was she spending time with? What had happened to the girl who had blown him out of the water with her sass, her dancing, her brilliant smile, her world-class flirting, her breasts? Okay, so the breasts were still pretty amazing, but the rest …

What the hell had happened to Lucia?

The thought that Van Rickter might have something to do with it made the hackles rise on the back of his neck. His call to Nacho could wait. There were a few enquiries he wanted to make first.

He glanced round impatiently as Vanessa waved an empty glass in his face. ‘The club’s closed,’ he pointed out sharply, knowing he was the one to blame for hanging on to watch Lucia.

Making his excuses before the evening became even more uncomfortable than it had already been, he called a cab for the blonde and took Van Rickter into the back room to make a few things clear to him.

‘How long has that girl called Lucia worked here?’

‘Lucia?’ Van Rickter seemed genuinely confused. ‘There’s no one called Lucia working here,’ he protested, with a shifty, guilty look.

‘The dark-haired girl with the attitude and—’

‘Oh, you mean Anita,’ Van Rickter said on a wave of relief. ‘At least that’s what she calls herself here,’ he said, quickly covering himself in case Lucia had done something wrong. ‘Don’t tell me she’s an illegal?’ Van exclaimed, wiping his brow as if hiring vulnerable people for cash and far less than the minimum wage had never occurred to him.

‘I mean Anita,’ Luke agreed offhandedly. ‘I must have misheard her name,’ He might be all out of patience with Lucia, but this was private business. He wasn’t going to give Van Rickter anything that he could hurt Lucia with, or make money out of.

‘I could arrange a meeting, if you like,’ Van Rickter said, in a way that made Luke’s pupils shrink to arrowheads. ‘All the girls owe me …’

I bet they do, Luke thought with distaste.

‘She has a second job at the local guest house,’ Van Rickter revealed, toadying up to him. ‘The Sundowner? You might have heard of it. Maybe the owner there can tell you more.’

Luke hid his rush of triumph. Lucia wouldn’t be using the alias Anita at the guest house, where the owner knew her, so Margaret must be in on Lucia’s life plan—whatever that might be. But there was something else worrying him. If he hadn’t known better he would have said Lucia had flinched from him, almost as if she had some communicable disease. That wasn’t the girl he knew—the girl who would happily take any man down with her repartee. So what the hell was going on?

In spite of his distaste at being forced to discuss Lucia with a man like Van Rickter, he was amused at the thought of Lucia choosing the name of a Puerto Rican firecracker in a musical. It made him think back to her brothers, yelling at her to turn the caterwauling down when they had wanted heavy metal to rule the house. He could imagine Lucia had dreamed of being Anita, a woman free to express herself without four brothers drowning her out—though in his opinion Lucia had far more going for her than a fantasy figure.

Kill those thoughts. Lucia was trouble. Whatever mess she had got herself into this time, it wasn’t up to him to sort it out. He’d tell Nacho he’d found her and then his job was done.

Lucia had a second job? Luke mused, turning to stare at the entrance to the club. No wonder she looked exhausted. Two lousy jobs in the wilds of Cornwall didn’t come close to equalling one good job in the heart of London. So what had happened to the management position at the top London hotel Nacho had been telling him about? He consoled himself with the thought that whatever she was hiding he would find out. Lucia was living at the Sundowner, and Margaret, the owner, was a big part of his plan to revive the area.

‘Luke …’

She was thrashing about in bed in that half-world between sleeping and waking where anything was possible—even a man making love to her. But this wasn’t any man.

Shifting restlessly on what passed for her pillow, she pulled the scratchy blanket round her shoulders and slipped deeper into the world of dreams, where her body was still capable of quivering with awareness, with warmth and with arousal—where Luke’s brooding amber gaze needed no explanation and the care in his big, strong hands was all the reassurance she needed.

Seeing Luke again tonight had been bound to lead to this, Lucia’s drifting mind soothed. Her eyes were open and yet they were closed. She was sleeping, surely? The air was misty with a golden glow. Candles were flickering. Seductive scents tickled her nostrils. Luke was stripped to the waist and leaning over her. He was as magnificent as ever. His golden torso, so powerful and so shielding, made her feel small, made her feel safe, made her feel that anything was possible—even Luke looking at her with desire in his eyes …

Thrashing her head on the pillow, she knew this was wrong. Luke was taboo. She should not be lying here naked with him. Luke was older, established, confident, experienced. Luke was her brothers’ friend—upright and principled.

Her body didn’t care about any of that and responded urgently. Reaching out, she mapped the wealth of muscle from his shoulders to his iron-hard belly, glorying in his strength. And when Luke quivered beneath her touch she revelled in her power over him. But Luke refused to accept her dominance and, swinging her beneath him, brushed his fingertips across her breasts, watching without pity as she gasped for air and arced towards him, seeking more contact.

What was she doing? Luke was built on a heroic scale, and when he discovered the truth about her he would throw her off in disgust.

Luke knew how much she wanted him. Holding her gaze, he caressed her, and she groaned as pleasure spiralled through her body. Reaching up, she laid her palm against his stubble-roughened cheek. Luke answered by teasing her lips apart and taking her mouth in a scorching reminder of what else he’d like to do to her.

‘I have no other duty but to please you,’ he said.

Quite right too, she thought, though the longing to pleasure Luke was overcoming her, and to be pleasured by him, to forget her fear. But just as she reached for him he slowed the pace. Turning away, he poured champagne, then reached for some fruit in the bowl by the bed. He dipped a ripe berry in melted chocolate before holding it to her lips. She sat forward. He took it away. He moved to kiss her. She moved away. Luke’s eyes held so much understanding, and when his lips claimed hers he tasted of strawberries and chocolate. Gaining in confidence, she rubbed her naked breasts against his chest and felt her nipples tighten. Drawing deeply on his warm male scent, she placed her hands flat against Luke’s hard, hot torso and drew him down.

‘Tell me what you want, Lucia.’

‘Kiss me,’ she begged, reaching up.

‘Is that all?’

‘It’s enough.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

As Luke cupped her with his hand, almost but not quite granting her the contact she craved, a wave of pleasure stole away her fear. But then he drove his thigh between her legs and demanded harshly, ‘What’s wrong, Anita?’

Anita?

She shrieked in terror as the fantasy collapsed and instead of Luke the fat, flabby, pale-skinned concierge loomed naked and aroused above her, red-faced and lecherous. His reptilian eyes glistened yellow in the light, while his fat red lips, wet with saliva, just as she remembered them, were drawn back in a snarl over rotting teeth. She fought him, fighting furiously for her honour, for her life—

Waking with a start, Lucia sucked in a sharp breath, staring round fearfully. It took her a moment to realise where she was. The caravan slowly took on a reassuring form. There was no concierge. There was no Luke. There was no satin bed-linen. There were just bobbly grey sheets, and she had been slithering about on top of one of her magazines. Luke hadn’t been feeding her chocolate sauce and fruit. And there certainly wasn’t any champagne. There were just some dregs of hot chocolate left in the flask on a shelf by the bed.

She was still shaking as the nightmare faded. Climbing out of bed, she realised the dream was the closest she’d come to sex with Luke—was ever likely to come to sex with Luke—and even in her dreams she couldn’t get it right.

Because the concierge had taken over.

Perhaps it would always be like that from now on. Perhaps her dream of becoming a strong, independent woman was just a pipe dream. Perhaps she would never be able to make love properly, because the concierge would always be waiting in the wings to spoil things for her.

And after a dream like that, how could she ever face Luke again?

It was eleven o’ clock on a Friday night and the club was heaving. A whole seven Luke-free days had passed. And that was good.

Was it?

Yes, of course it was. She could do without any more of those dreams seeing Luke seemed to provoke. He had probably returned to the States by now, after taking the same trip down memory lane in Cornwall that she had. She could only hope for Luke’s sake he had had a better result. She was currently putting in a second shift as another cocktail waitress had gone off sick, and she was so tired she was seriously considering nabbing a couple of cocktail sticks from the bar to prop her eyes open. There must be a convention on at the Grand, Lucia guessed, as more people poured in through the door.

‘Anita.’

Van was approaching. There had been a distinct improvement in Van’s mood since Luke’s visit. He couldn’t take the risk that Lucia had friends in high places, she supposed, though that had been wearing a bit thin this evening, as if Van suspected her influential friend might have deserted her finally.

The holiday had definitely ended, Lucia concluded, as Van snapped, ‘There’s been a spillage on the dance floor. Do something about it, will you?’ Van’s piggy eyes continued darting back and forth as he spoke, counting money as it walked through the door. ‘Now,’ he spelled out, turning to glare at her. ‘We have some important patrons stopping by tonight.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Lucia murmured, hurrying away to get her mop and bucket.

‘And, Anita?’

‘Yes?’ She stopped and turned around.

‘You need to lose weight.’

She nodded agreement. Van was always right. That was the mindset you had to have if you wanted a quiet life at the club. But in this instance Van was right. She felt humiliated in the too-tight boob tube and hot pants ensemble, over which she overflowed with all the glorious abundance of a chocolate fountain. But since Van had made her revert back to the original cocktail waitress uniform so she ‘blended in’, as he put it, she would just have to suck it up.

Emerging from the stockroom with her cleaning tackle, she grabbed a clean apron from a hook by the door. She would have preferred a tent, but that might have looked a bit obvious, and at least the apron partially concealed her body.

She had to put out cones to keep the area clear so no one would slip on the dance floor while she was working. She’d done plenty of clean-ups at the club, but this one was particularly revolting. Suffice it to say unmentionable substances, still with the distinct tang of brandy and cola about them, had spread widely across the black glass tiles. She was making good progress while customers gyrated around her unconcerned. She was invisible. Wasn’t that great?

Not so great when she got stomped on a couple of times. But she was nearly finished.

Lucia’s heart bounced once and then stopped. There was only one man who would have the balls to wear cowboy boots with a sharp Italian suit. She stiffened as a pair of very large feet halted within inches of her nose.

Important patron? Van had got that right. Conscious that her XXL silver-clad backside was poking up in the air, she quickly drew it down and remained quite still, as if she might somehow become invisible again.

But sadly no.

‘Lucia?’

How could her life get any worse?

Luke Forster, Lucia’s childhood crush, and more recently her erotic dream buddy, was back.

CHAPTER THREE

Where in my list does it say that one of the bad boys of polo can crack his whip over my head while I’m on my hands and knees in front of him?

Blech! That does not sound good.

Did that possibility even cross my mind when I was a fourteen-year-old dreamer with only gallant knights in shining armour ahead of me?

No. It did not.

‘Up.’

People turned to stare. Luke’s voice sounded like a pistol crack, blotting out the music as well as the overheated chatter in the club.

‘Hello, Luke,’ Lucia said mildly, determined there wouldn’t be a scene. Van would sack her on the spot. And wouldn’t Luke relish ammunition like that when he made his report to her brothers? ‘How nice to see you again.’ With clothes on, she amended silently, trying hard not to blink.

‘Imagine my surprise to see you here working,’ Luke countered with bite. He returned her upturned gaze with an expressionless stare.

Attack was the only form of defence in this situation. Why was she still down on her knees? Standing, she said coolly, ‘You didn’t think to say goodbye last time you were in the club. Oh, no—I forgot,’ she added. ‘You had better things to do.’ A spear of inconvenient jealousy hit her as she looked in vain for the blonde.

‘She’s not here,’ Luke said, reading her with ease. ‘And you’re leaving.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Now she was upset. One of the upsides of seeing Luke again was that it had restored some of her old fire. She hadn’t broken free of her brothers only to be ordered about by Luke!

‘You heard me,’ Luke said stonily.

Breaking eye contact, she reached for her bucket.

‘You’re leaving that where it is,’ he rapped.

‘No!’ Luke’s big tanned hand seized hold of her arm, and it was bad enough seeing those sensitive fingers sinking into pale, plump flesh without remembering the magic those hands had wrought in her dream …

This was reality, Lucia reminded herself sharply.

But wasn’t this what she had waited for all her life? Luke riding to her rescue. Luke holding her. Luke …

‘Get off me,’ she fired out furiously, shaking herself free. ‘I’m not a horse you can grab hold of and lead where you like. I make my own plans, Luke. And I’m working. Do you want me to lose my job?’

Luke’s arrogant head dipped so he could glare straight into her eyes. ‘I would love you to lose your job,’ he assured her grimly.

‘I come off shift at three a.m. I can talk to you then, but not before,’ she said, aware that Van the Terrible was lurking in the shadows, watching them.

Picking up her mop and bucket, she stalked off the dance floor before Luke had the chance to say a word.

There was only one small consolation in all of this. Her body might be trembling like a leaf, but she was earning a living, and however small that living might be when compared to Luke’s vast income she was living independently. Two small consolations, Lucia conceded with surprise. Confronting Luke hadn’t frightened her. She hadn’t backed down and slithered away to do his bidding. She had felt as if she’d been in a perpetual state of fear since London—finally she was beginning to feel alive again.