Читать книгу The Heat of the Night - Amy Andrews - Страница 9

TWO

Avery, Jonah, Isis and Cyrus looked up from the reception desk that had been turned into a mini war room as the glass entrance door was yanked open and a red-eyed, tear-streaked Claudia stalked inside the cavernous lobby. Jonah looked at Avery with a question in his eyes as Claudia steamed straight past them.

‘Claude?’ Avery called after her, her American accent echoing around the large, deserted foyer. Claudia didn’t stop or reply.

‘Claudia.’

This time Claudia hesitated slightly before throwing an, ‘I’m fine,’ over her shoulder and, ‘I just need some time alone,’ before hitting the wide elegant staircase that would have been perfectly at home in some maharajah’s palace.

There was a worried silence as four sets of eyes watched her beat her hasty retreat to her first-floor suite.

‘What was that about?’ asked Cyrus, a young local guy employed at the Tropicana as a bellhop.

‘I don’t know,’ said Isis, his sister, who usually worked Reception.

The siblings, products of hippy parents, were uncannily similar with their striking red hair and freckles.

‘I think I do,’ Avery said, her eyes narrowing as Luke strode up the wide front steps.

Luke, his shoes and jacket in hand, glanced at the reception desk as he entered the lobby. None of the people behind it looked very receptive.

He made his way across the expanse of mosaic tiles swirling together to form a tapestry of rich sandy tones. He diverted around colossal rugs, cushy lounge chairs and potted palms. Huge beige columns rose to the two-storey ceiling and bordered the domed mural on high. It showcased a midnight sky twinkling with stars, the edges decorated with palm leaves.

As a kid it had fascinated him endlessly; now it seemed just another relic of yesteryear.

‘Luke Hargreaves,’ Avery said, her voice full of accusation as he approached the desk. ‘Did you make Claude cry?’

Luke glanced at Jonah, standing behind Avery, who was sending him run away now signals with his eyes. Jonah knew as well as Luke that Avery was Claudia’s fiercest champion.

‘I’m rather afraid I did.’ He grimaced as he approached the desk.

Much to Luke’s surprise Avery’s shoulder’s sagged and she said, ‘Oh, thank God for that. She needed a damned good cry.’

The group all nodded in agreement, even Jonah. ‘Oh, yes,’ Isis agreed. ‘She’s been saying she’s fine and dandy for days now.’

‘Fine and dandy,’ Cyrus repeated. ‘Like a cracked record.’

‘Well...’ Luke shrugged ‘...mission accomplished.’

Luke was glad that little group were more relaxed and looking less like they wanted to hang, draw and quarter him. Apparently an upset Claudia was a good thing. But it didn’t help his guilt...the things he’d said had been fairly unforgivable.

He felt about as low as a man could feel.

He remembered all too well how it’d felt to be idolised by her and he much preferred that feeling. Although he’d certainly developed feet of clay as far as she was concerned since declining the opportunity to give up his entire life in the UK—no matter how shambolic—and manage the resort with her.

He glanced up the stairs behind him, then back to the group. He had to go and apologise. ‘Think I’ll go and see how she is. Say sorry.’

Avery shook her head. ‘No. That would be bad.’

Jonah agreed. ‘You should give her some time to cool off, man.’

Cool off? As if anyone could cool off in this God-awful heat without the electricity that usually cooled the vast lobby into a blissful paradise. The frustration that had ridden him down at the beach returned for a second spin and a sudden rush of bone-wearying tiredness joined the mix.

He was jet-lagged to hell and sweating like a pig in his inappropriate clothes, but he had to fix this.

‘Why didn’t you tell me on the chopper ride she was this fragile?’ Luke demanded of Jonah.

‘She’s not fragile,’ Avery said, rising quickly to Claudia’s defence.

‘You could have fooled me,’ he snorted.

‘She’s been working day and night organising everything like a Trojan, getting things into place so when the official all-clear comes tomorrow we can start the clean-up, not to mention having to deal with the two hundred guests we were expecting over the next few weeks.’ Avery glared at him. ‘And she’s been helping out in the town and at the other resorts. She’s been strong, she’s been a leader. She is not fragile.’

‘Then why is she bursting into tears?’

Avery shook her head at him and Luke felt lower still.

‘Because she’s exhausted. Because she’s stressed and worried. She’s barely slept a wink in five days. Because her entire life just got blown all to hell and maybe, just maybe, she’d thought you might be the one man who really understood her devastation. None of us here can truly understand how this disaster in this place she loves so much has wounded her. Except you. Is that what you did, Luke? Did you go down to the beach and tell her you understood?’

Luke avoided the doubt and reprimand in Avery’s gaze as guilt rode him again. ‘I asked you how she was doing,’ he said, turning to Jonah. ‘You said she was fine.’

Jonah nodded. ‘She is fine. And dandy. Considering everything she’s worked for this last year has been flattened to a pulp. She’s been keeping busy and putting up a good front for us all. But you’re family, man. Your opinion has always mattered more than anyone else’s.’

Luke scowled, hating that Jonah was right. He had lashed out and hurt her. ‘Right,’ he said after a moment. ‘So I’d better go and fix it, then.’

Avery made a tutting sound and it was Luke’s turn to glare. ‘What?’

‘I know you’re a man and all and it’s in your DNA to fix stuff but she doesn’t need that. She told us she needed some time alone and a smart man would just let her do it. And probably after that she needs you to shut your mouth and just hug her.’

Jonah nodded. ‘Give her some space, man. I wouldn’t add insult to injury if I were you.’

Luke knew it was good advice. But he couldn’t bear the fact that she was upstairs all alone crying because of the things he’d said. Claudia wasn’t a crier—never had been. She was bouncy and cheery and peppy.

She was a ray of freaking sunshine.

And he’d made her cry. He was responsible for her tears.

Luke shook his head. ‘Nope, sorry, can’t.’

And then he was gone and four sets of eyes watched him bound up the stairs following in Claudia’s footsteps.

Avery sighed. ‘And I thought he was smart.’

Jonah slid a hand onto Avery’s shoulder and squeezed as he pulled her gently back against his chest. ‘Even smart men can be stupid where women are concerned.’

She smiled and slid her hand over the top of his. ‘That’s true. You were pretty dumb.’

Jonah chuckled and dropped a kiss on her temple.

‘That’s not going to end well, is it?’ Cyrus asked his sister, agog that anyone would go against Claudia’s express wishes.

Isis shook her head. ‘His funeral.’

* * *

Luke’s feet took him without conscious thought to the door of the Copacabana Suite, the room where Claudia had lived with her parents since she was six years old. He and his parents had lived next door in the Mai Tai Suite. He hesitated before he knocked—maybe she didn’t reside here any more? Maybe she’d downgraded now her parents had moved on? It wasn’t as if a single woman needed a massive two-bedroom suite.

But the thought was only fleeting. Claudia Davis was as sentimental as they came. No way would she have passed up the nostalgia of her childhood home. Or the view from the balcony.

He knocked. No answer.

He knocked again. Louder. Still no answer.

‘Claude, I know you’re in there. Open up.’

No answer.

‘I can stand out here all day and knock,’ he warned, even if the thought made him weary to his bones. ‘Hell, I can just sit down here and wait for you to come out. You’re going to have to eventually. But I’m not going back to England. I’m not going anywhere for a week so you might as well get used to it.’

Still no answer. The door remained stubbornly closed. Luke sighed and slid down the door, propping his back against the dark grain wood. He was too bloody tired to stand upright. Despite the luxury of business class he hadn’t slept much on the plane—worry about the resort, about Claudia had unfortunately kept sleep at bay.

Luke rubbed his eyes and scrubbed at his face with his hands. He could hear the faint rasp of stubble already fighting back against the quick shave he’d managed in the restroom aboard the plane. He was used to keeping it ruthlessly smooth, and it bothered him—he really should do something about that.

After a shower. And a sleep.

In fact his whole appearance bothered him. His sleeves were rolled up haphazardly, his top three buttons were undone, his expensive business shirt felt sticky against his sweaty chest and his bare feet were still coated with traces of sand.

Luke prided himself on his appearance. He believed it had a lot to do with his success. If you looked professional clients were more likely to part with their money.

He rapped again on the door, his knuckles connecting with the wood just above his shoulder. ‘Claude.’

Still no answer.

Luke looked back at his feet and rubbed his toes together to displace the sand. A fine sprinkling of gritty powder dusted the thinning, aged carpet with its palm-tree print that had graced this hallway for as long as he could remember.

As a kid roaming around the resort he’d never been without sand between his toes. He’d rarely even noticed it, for ever being chided by his mother for tracking it into the suite. He’d loved it back then.

But like everything else today, it bugged him and he leaned down with his fingers to brush it all off. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he rubbed his hands together to remove the last trace of sand before quickly answering the text.

A pair of work boots filled his vision as he hit send and he glanced up to find Jonah looking down at him dangling a key—yes, they still had real bona fide keys at the Tropicana, of course—from his fingers.

‘This might help,’ Jonah said. ‘And if you tell Avery I gave it to you I will deny everything.’

Luke put the phone away and took Jonah’s offering. It was the keys to the Mai Tai. He smiled. ‘Thank you.’

Jonah and Luke had been friends a long time so when he reached out a hand Luke grabbed hold gratefully and let Jonah haul him to his feet. ‘Don’t screw it up,’ Jonah warned before retreating.

Luke made his way next door and slid the key into the lock. For twenty years the Davis family and the Hargreaves family had not only run the resort but lived right next door to each other. Somehow, miraculously, they’d made it through twenty years in business together and still come out as friends. Even choosing to take their trip of a lifetime together.

Luke stepped inside the suite, which looked more worn and shabby around the edges than ever. A familiar smell of old carpet, starched linen and the hibiscus air freshener that was synonymous with his childhood embraced him. He’d grown to hate that smell as his desperation to see the big wide world had grown more intense, but today it was soothing to ragged nerve endings.

He must be tired.

He glanced at the big king-sized bed covered in its colourful Hawaiian-style bedspread and was surprised by the overwhelming desire to leave Claudia alone as she’d requested and get some much-needed sleep. Tackle her when he could count on more than two functioning brain cells. But that solitary tear played in slow motion through his head and he placed temptation firmly behind him as he stalked to the connecting door.

A long-forgotten memory made Luke hesitate before sliding the key into the lock. When their parents had run the resort, the door was never locked. In fact it was usually left chocked open. On a hunch, he just reached for the handle.

The knob turned and the door opened.

And there, dead ahead, on a matching king-sized bed, lay Claudia, all curled up and very definitely bawling her eyes out. She was crying so hard and so loud, he didn’t think she’d even heard the door swing open.

Hell, it sounded as if she were crying for Australia and going for gold.

Another spike of guilt drove a stake right between his eyes. Crap. He hesitated before he crossed the threshold into her room but what the hell? He’d come this far.

The curtains that matched the bedspread were pulled back and the balcony doors were thrown wide, admitting the magnificent tropical view. A cool ocean breeze tickled at the open neck of his shirt as he tentatively edged inside, and felt heavenly against his sweaty skin.

‘Claude?’

Claudia almost leapt out of her skin as Luke’s deep, rich voice reached straight into the middle of her misery and yanked her out by the roots of her hair. She sat abruptly, her tears temporarily forgotten.

‘Jeez,’ she said, her hand clutched to her rocketing heart, ‘are you trying to scare me half to death?’

Luke stalled where he was, holding up his hands at the frightening sight of a puffy-eyed, wild-looking Claudia. Her hair was half in, half out of her ponytail, the loose bits clumped together into some kind of bird-nest-like creation, her nose and cheeks were red and she was surrounded by piles of well-used tissues.

‘Sorry...I didn’t mean to startle you.’

‘Who gave you a damn key?’ Claudia demanded, ignoring his apology. ‘No, don’t worry, it was Jonah, wasn’t it? Bloody traitor.’

Luke took a tentative step closer. ‘I just wanted to see if you were okay,’ he said, avoiding selling out Jonah.

‘Do I look okay?’ she snapped.

Luke shook his head. She looked as if she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. She looked angry and sad and tired.

She looked defeated.

And that probably kicked him the hardest. Claudia was a glass-half-full kind of girl.

‘Oh, just go away,’ Claudia groaned as the fright wore off and the surge of adrenaline mixed with her already precarious emotional state to make her feel even more edgy and vulnerable. Emotion clogged her throat and the hot scald of tears pricked at her eyes again.

She fell back against the mattress, resuming her former foetal-ball position. ‘Just let me cry in peace,’ she said, dragging another tissue out of the box.

Luke was torn between leaving and not having to listen to her cry and staying put, being some kind of emotional support for Claudia. Or trying at least.

Neither prospect thrilled him.

But the part of him that had run barefoot through the resort with her and swum with her in the ocean just across the pathway and played hide-and-seek with her amidst the resort gardens won out.

He shut his eyes, sending up a brief plea to the universe that she wouldn’t jab him in the ribs or knee him somewhere a little lower as he moved around the other side of the enormous bed and climbed on.

Claudia frowned as she felt the bed give behind her. She looked over her shoulder as Luke approached on his hands and knees. ‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.

‘I’m doing what I should, according to Avery, have done down on the beach. I’m going to hug you.’

Claudia blinked and swallowed against another threatening tide of tears. She gave an inelegant sniffle. ‘If you hug me I’m just going to cry harder.’

Luke chuckled at her husky threat as he settled in behind her, slipping his arm around her waist. ‘I guess that’s probably kind of the point.’

Claudia’s breath caught at the light tease in his voice and she looked away from him, turned to face the doorway over the other side of the room. Her back was all smooshed against his front—his big, broad, hard front—his breath was a warm caress at her neck, the slight scrape of stubble skating delicious shivers to dangerous places.

She shut her eyes, her heart racing now for an entirely different reason. How many hot, fevered dreams had she had as a teenager about exactly this? Lying with him like this?

Minus their clothes, and her inhibitions?

Luke shut his eyes as his exhausted body revelled in being horizontal. Claudia felt stiff as a board but it was bliss to lie down and he could already feel the tug of sleep pulling at the hazy hold he had on consciousness.

How many times had they lain in her parents’ bed as kids, watching reruns of Claudia’s favourite television show, The Love Boat, while their parents finished up for the night? She’d always offered to let him watch something he wanted to but he hadn’t minded—as long as whatever they were watching had ads, he was happy.

How many times had Tony, the head chef, who had been at the Tropicana for all its forty years, personally brought them up his speciality Hawaiian pizza? And how many times had he woken to his dad picking him up and carrying him to his bed next door?

But so much had happened in the intervening years to put distance between them. He’d gone away—far away. He’d rarely been back as he’d fought to establish himself in a dog-eat-dog industry. He’d got married. And divorced. He’d refused to come back and play when the resort was handed to him. He’d disagreed with her vision.

In short, he’d changed.

But Claudia? Claudia was still the same girl she’d always been. He’d thought less of her for that this last decade but, lying here with her now, he was immensely pleased that she was still the same old Claude.

Except she was so quiet and rigid. Taut as a bow. He wished he knew the right words to comfort her. The time when they’d been close and their conversations had been easy seemed a million years ago now.

He’d spent a decade in the cut-throat advertising game where men and women alike fought tooth and nail for an account. There wasn’t a lot of softness, of emotion, in the advertising business. Nobody comforted you when you lost an account—if anything there was a certain degree of triumph at someone else’s misfortune, the scent of an opportunity in the offing.

God knew he’d witnessed the pointy end of it three years ago after being the golden-haired boy for so long.

None of that helped him with right here, right now. None of that equipped him to deal with a grieving Claudia.

‘Was it awful?’ he whispered.

Claudia tensed as the whisper seemed to punctuate the silence like a blaring trumpet. She’d been trying not to think about that night. Trying to keep busy and organise. Trying to look ahead, not back. Not think about the howling wind and the sounds of destruction that not even a large underground cellar had insulated them from.

Her face scrunched up in a most unpleasant fashion as the fear rolled over her again and she was pleased he was behind her. A tear rolled down her cheek as she relaxed back into him.

‘I was so scared,’ she said, choking on a lump high and hard in her throat, trying to hold it all back but failing because Luke was here. ‘I knew we were all safe down in the cellar but...it was so loud. And it destroyed everything.’

Claudia paused as the next thought formed. It was too awful to speak aloud. ‘What if I can’t do it?’ she whispered. ‘What if I fail? What if I let everybody down?’

She started to cry again and Luke finally understood the true root of her anxiety. Claudia had spent her whole life keeping everyone happy—their parents, the locals who relied on the resorts for their economy, the tourist industry. She’d spent her entire adult working life at the resort juggling all these responsibilities.

And, if she wasn’t careful, she was going to crack up under the pressure.

‘Shh,’ Luke said, his arm tightening around her waist as he absently kissed her neck. ‘Shh.’

Claudia cried harder then. It felt so good to have him here. To lean against him for a while. To feel his lips brushing against her neck as he assured her over and over he was here. Right here. She felt as if she’d been juggling so many things alone for so long, trying to make the place a viable concern. Trying to be true to their parents’ vision and prove to him it could be done.

And it was nice that he didn’t say anything else, didn’t try and fix things so she’d stop crying. Throw out some trite words about her being strong and how she could do it. Because deep down she knew she was strong; she knew she could do it. She was just having an extraordinarily weak moment, and his being here, putting his arms around her and letting her cry was exactly what she needed.

So she cried. She cried until there were no more tears left and she drifted off to sleep.