Читать книгу The Man From her Wayward Past - Susan Stephens - Страница 8

Get a job

Not exactly the job I imagined, but I have my reasons. What are these reasons?

Actually, I landed the dream job: management trainee in a top London hotel. It was the icing on the cake after achieving a good degree in Hotel Management back home in Argentina, where a career in hospitality seemed the obvious choice to me after years honing my craft on four demanding brothers. But I would rather eat my own feet than keep that dream job by sleeping with a slime-ball concierge who tried to blackmail me by threatening to reveal who ‘Anita Costa’ really was.

People who knew me before this diary entry might ask, what has happened to wild child Lucia, the glamorous, glitzy, fun girl who was always the life and soul of the party, and who now seems to have sunk lower than a whore’s drawers? If you ‘re one of them you’d better read on.

You will note that the one thing I have retained is my sense of humour. Just as well, as right now things couldn’t be much bleaker.

NO ONE knew better than Lucia that a nightclub in daylight was a dismal, skanky place.

She should do. These past few days it had felt as if she spent most of her life on her hands and knees, scrubbing the sticky floor beneath a stark long-life bulb. Glittering and glamorous at night beneath the coloured lights, the club, located on the wild and rugged splendour of Cornwall’s most popular coastline, was high on society’s hot list—thanks to the many opportunities to see and be seen both in the club and on the fabulous beach, where the many sporting activities drew the best pecs around. Lucia’s own dangerously charismatic polo-playing brothers had flaunted themselves in this same area when they were younger, with their hot friend Luke.

Luke …

Was this a good time to be thinking about more muscles and intelligence than was good for a man, captured in one devastatingly desirable package?

A man who was out of Lucia’s reach?

And who just happened to be a polo player. Which meant contravening number ten on her to-do list before she had ticked off numbers two to nine.

‘Don’t you have enough to do?’

Lucia shot up as the club manager hove into view. Van Rickter had been a star on the club circuit in his youth, as he had been at pains to explain to Lucia when she had first begged him for a job—any job. Now he was a middle-aged charmer with a chip on his shoulder the size of a rock, who liked nothing better than to bully his staff. Lucia quickly returned to scrubbing as Grace, another of Van Rickter’s serfs, entered the club.

‘I hear there’s a big do on tonight,’ Grace announced, dropping her bag on a nearby table. ‘Wish I didn’t have these sniffles. A red nose and leaking eyes doesn’t do much for tips. I was hoping to meet someone fabulous tonight who would take me away from all this—’

As Grace gestured around Lucia reflected that not so long ago just the mention of a ‘big do’ would have been a call to arms. She had loved nothing better than to tease and flirt and dance. With four brothers ready to flatten any man who so much as looked at her the wrong way, she had grown up with no concept of danger when she turned it on, and had felt free to be as flirtatious as she liked. Her instant reaction to the merest suggestion of a party would have been on with the five-inch heels, the dress at least a size too small, followed swiftly by slap, glitter, lashes and nails, all topped off by the studiously perfected party pout. But that was then and this was now, and things were very different now.

Turning to Grace, Lucia thought her friend looked unusually pale tonight. ‘Let me take your shift if you’re not feeling well,’ she suggested.

‘Another shift straight after this one?’ Grace shook her head in firm refusal ‘You haven’t stopped working since you got here. You’ll make yourself ill if you go on like this. Put on your heels tonight, walk in like you own the place, see who’s around. Save one for me if there are any likely men.’

Inwardly Lucia shuddered, but as Grace laughed she wiped her hot face on her sleeve and joined in the merriment. Grace had no idea what had happened to Lucia in London, and Lucia wasn’t about to burden her new friend with details of that experience.

‘Uh-oh, here comes trouble,’ Grace warned as Van Rickter returned.

While Grace hurried into the back to get changed for work, Van Rickter picked on Lucia. ‘Hey, Anita from the block,’ he sneered. ‘Put some elbow grease into that scrubbing. I can always find someone to replace you.’ With an ugly laugh, he spun on his Cuban heels.

Everyone at the club knew her as Anita. It was the name of Lucia’s favourite Puerto Rican character from the musical West Side Story. Finding a surname had been easy. Sitting in a coffee bar, she’d thought, Just lose the ‘a’. So Lucia Acosta had become Anita Costa. Why the subterfuge?

It wasn’t possible to have people treat you normally, let alone strike out for independence, when your four polo-playing brothers featured on every billboard in town.

Resting her hands on the small of her aching back, Lucia dreamed of Argentina and the endless freedom of the pampas. Her warm, safe home in South America had never seemed further away, especially when it turned out that she had a real talent for jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Her life, since that rogue concierge in London had made staying on at her job there impossible, had been one long slide down. It made no difference that she came from a wealthy family, and anyway, she was determined to go it alone.

‘Okay?’ Grace trilled as she hurried past with a crate of drinks.

‘Never more so.’

Brushing her hair back, Lucia returned to scrubbing. After London she was glad to have a job at a club where no one knew her. Before she died, her mother had used to say to Lucia, ‘Keep your wits about you.’ Well, she’d certainly failed at that in London, believing the concierge was her friend.

It was hard to believe her mother had been killed almost ten years ago in a tragic flood. Demelza Acosta had been Cornish, which was why the family had always holidayed in St Oswalds. And why Lucia had fled here, she supposed, seeking refuge in the one corner of England where she remembered being truly happy.

Lucia’s head dipped over her scrubbing brush as Van Rickter came into view.

‘It’s your lucky day, Anita,’ he observed sarcastically. ‘I’ve sent Grace home. No one wants to be served cocktails by a waitress with a runny nose, so you’re on bar duty tonight. And don’t even think of complaining that your cleaning shift doesn’t end until seven,’ he warned. ‘You’ll have plenty of time to get ready.’

Half an hour to race over to the caravan, hose herself down in cold water and get back to the club. If she didn’t stop to eat it should be possible. ‘That’s fine with me.’ She needed the money.

Van Rickter’s piggy eyes almost disappeared into folds of unnaturally pale flesh as he eyed her suspiciously. ‘Make sure you clean yourself up. And put some hand cream on. Those wrinkled mitts are enough to put anyone off their champagne.’

‘I will,’ she said, flashing a smile she knew would rattle Van Rickter far more than an exhausted look. She got tips on the bar.

Being nice and clean was more important for work than a full stomach. No one wanted a stinky server leaning over them, and she sure as hell wouldn’t get any tips, Lucia reasoned, teeth chattering as she tied her wild black hair back neatly. She had just showered in shriekingly cold water in the beat-up caravan that came with her other job, and with ice on the insides of the windows it would take some considerable time before she warmed up.

Yes, she’d landed not one but two jobs—though the one that came with the caravan thrown in was rather more complicated than her work at the club, as she didn’t get paid. Not yet. She was trying to help Margaret, the old lady who owned the Sundowner Guest House and Holiday Park, where Lucia had stayed as a child, to get back on her feet.

Teeth chattering, she rubbed herself down on a rough towel whilst shooting anxious glances at Grace’s uniform. The tiny cocktail waitress ensemble looked far too small. She had put on a bit of weight since coming to Cornwall, having been plied with more Cornish cream teas than was good for her by Margaret. Not that she hadn’t been what you might call voluptuous to start with.

Thanks to her handsome Argentinian father and her Cornish mother Lucia had been built to withstand not just the terrifying winds of the pampas but the frigid cold of a Cornish winter—genes that had made her infamous polo-playing brothers giants amongst men, but which had left her with the short straw. Now she was more a dumpy style of windbreak. Not that being curvy had seemed to put men off in the past. In fact at one time she’d used to have men—for men read her brothers’ approved friends—eating out of her hand. Safe to say in London that hand had been well and truly bitten off.

Her brothers had definitely snaffled all the best growing genes, Lucia reflected as she heaved and tugged on Grace’s minuscule boob-tube. Lucia was five foot three, while each of her brothers was at least a foot taller. Their width was breathtaking, whilst hers was merely distance across.

And that distance had never seemed greater, Lucia concluded, as she attempted to stuff one breast inside the elasticated boob-tube only to have the other spring out. And she had yet to tackle Grace’s hot pants. Malevolently gleaming silver beneath the flickering light, they taunted her in silent reproach for a diet high on cheap and comforting junk food.

Having finally managed to subdue both breasts, she approached the hot pants warily, like an enemy that had to be put in its place.

Ouch!

The hot pants were definitely in place.

In tank top and jeans, ripped, tanned and pumped after exercise, Luke Forster was reclining with his cowboy boots crossed on an ornate coffee table at his hotel suite at the Grand Hotel in St Oswalds when he took a call from Argentina.

‘Do me a favour and look Lucia up while you’re there in Cornwall?’ Luke’s closest friend, Nacho Acosta asked him after they had finished discussing their latest polo match.

‘Lucia’s in Cornwall?’

‘That’s what she told me,’ Nacho confirmed.

Luke stalled. Must I? Was his first thought. Lucia was Nacho’s sister, and more trouble than any man needed. As Nacho recited Lucia’s number he processed some swift mental imagery that seemed to centre mainly on Lucia’s breasts.

That was so wrong. Nacho was his best friend and Lucia was the nearest thing Luke had to a sister. Breasts were definitely off the menu.

Lucia’s breasts were pretty spectacular.

‘She’s gone off radar again, Luke.’

He shook himself round to take in what Nacho was saying.

‘Though this time my sister has been good enough to leave a voicemail with the news that she’s revisiting old haunts.’

Luke groaned inwardly. He was doing the same thing, so bang went his excuse not to look for her. Raking tense fingers through his thick brown hair, he added a couple of days to an already crammed schedule. Juggling wide-ranging business interests with his family’s huge charitable foundation, as well as playing polo at the international level, demanded enough of his time without going on some wild goose chase looking for Nacho’s wayward sister. It wasn’t as if Lucia going off radar was anything new. The only female in a family with four forceful brothers, Lucia had broken away as soon as she could, quickly gaining the reputation of being a party girl extraordinaire.

‘I know she’s all grown up now, but I still feel responsible for her,’ Nacho was explaining. ‘You will do this for me, won’t you, Luke?’

How could he refuse? Nacho had assumed responsibility for his siblings when their parents were killed in a flood, which had worked out great for Lucia’s brothers, who were all older than Lucia, and had been okay for Lucia to begin with. But when she’d hit her teens …

‘I’ll find her,’ he confirmed. ‘If she’s revisiting old haunts, what about school?’

‘Which school?’ Nacho demanded.

They both laughed.

Super-bright and super-bad, Lucia had run several headmistresses ragged. ‘If she’s in Cornwall,’ he murmured, thinking out loud, ‘it shouldn’t be hard to find her. The village is dead, apart from the club. Let me follow a hunch,’ he said, remembering Lucia dancing at the wedding. That chick could move.

‘I can’t ask for more than that,’ Nacho agreed.

They started talking polo again, but Lucia had taken up residence in Luke’s head. Both their mothers were Cornish, which was how the two families had met each year, holidaying together at the same quaint guest house on the rugged Cornish coast. The Sundowner had excellent stables and immediate access to the beach, which had given it the edge over the rest of the local accommodation where Luke’s parents were concerned. The Sundowner Guest House was intimate and private, plus the owner’s quirky take on hospitality, treating every family as her own, meant it offered something money couldn’t buy.

Luke loved Cornwall. He was glad to be back here doing business. It was the one place he felt free. Maybe he hadn’t realised it as a boy, but when he’d galloped across the beach with Lucia’s brothers he’d been true to himself. Now he was successful in his own right he wanted to recapture those feelings of elation and freedom.

‘Let me know as soon as you hear something, Luke,’ Nacho pressed him, adding, ‘I envy you being back in St Oswalds. Do you remember tearing up the beach on those wild ponies?’

‘How could I forget?’ He liked that Nacho felt the same. ‘Would you come back if I reinstated polo on the beach?’

‘You bet I would,’ Nacho assured him.

With one of the top polo players in the world on board, his plan was already starting to take shape, but as Nacho applied more pressure for him to bring polo back to Cornwall Luke was still thinking about Lucia.

He and Lucia were so different. Luke was an only child, brought up preppy and obedient, and when he was a boy the Acostas had seemed an exotic bunch to him, with their dark flashing eyes and outstanding horsemanship. He had made a point of riding on the beach at the same time as the brothers, wanting them to see his own skill on a horse. Nacho had taught him how to stand on a horse’s back while it galloped, nearly killing him in the process, while Lucia had merely tossed her glorious black hair in his face and turned a dismissive back.

Remember those eyes when Lucia flashed a challenge? Those dark, mischievous eyes …

Damn those eyes! Lucia was more trouble than she was worth. ‘I’ll be in touch when I’ve got something to tell you, Nacho.’

‘That’s good enough for me, Luke.’

He exchanged the usual pleasantries and ended the call with Lucia firmly fixed in his mind.

He was still thinking about her later that day, remembering the last time he’d seen her at an Acosta family wedding. Expecting a temperamental teen, he had found a woman who was all grown up. And hot. The way she had sashayed up to him, only to veer away at the very last moment on the pretext of seeking out one of her brothers, had left him with an ache in his groin and sweet revenge on his mind.

Forget Lucia, Luke told himself sternly as he waged the endless razor war on stubble that refused to surrender. Tonight he was meeting an attractive blonde who ran an events company, which dovetailed nicely with his plan to start investigating the possibility of reinstating the annual Polo on the Beach event, which had been started way back by Lucia’s father. His conversation with Nacho had crystallised his plans, and though it was a setback to find St Oswalds so run down, construction was one of the main planks of his business, so it made perfect sense for him to regenerate the village and bring the world back to its door.

And Lucia? What part would she play?

So much for forgetting about Lucia, Luke concluded, studying his freshly shaved face in the mirror. Shaving was a necessary habit rather than a purposeful exercise. Stubble was already shading his face, making him look more piratical than ever. His East Coast American father liked to protest that he could never understand where Luke’s looks came from. ‘All that thick, dark hair and the swarthy complexion … and those muscles! So vulgar.’ That was his father’s verdict. At which point he would cast an accusing glance at Luke’s mother and tell her that it must be her side of the family to blame.

That was the link between him and Lucia. They were both outsiders. Lucia was the girl yearning for independence in a household dominated by four alpha males, while he was the musclebound son of Princeton. Quite how that would help him combine a business dinner with a blonde with a hunt for a wild child on the loose remained to be seen.

Lucia’s body had just gone into meltdown. Luke Forster was in the club. It wasn’t possible …

Unless there were two formidable warrior-type men who stood head and shoulders above every other man in the place, with the looks to make any pretty-boy film star pack up his bags and go home, it was a rock-hard certainty. No two men on earth looked as good as that.

So what was Luke Forster doing here?

Rooted to the spot, with a tray of drinks balanced precariously in her shaking hands, Lucia was hiding in the shadows by the bar, oblivious to the barman yelling, ‘Get a move on, Anita. There’s another order waiting. You know we’re shorthanded tonight, babe.’

‘Move it, Anita!’

She leapt into action at the sound of Van Rickter’s voice. Why couldn’t the manager keep his voice down? Her name-change wouldn’t fool Luke for a second. To make matters worse, Luke had a woman on his arm—a very glamorous woman. Lucia could just imagine them both laughing when Luke explained in his husky, mocking tone that Lucia was running away again, and this time with a name that reflected her interest in music and coffee.

‘Thanks, darling,’ the barman said as he passed another loaded tray across the bar. ‘You’re the best.’

She zipped away, taking the long route round to her table of customers to avoid Luke. She didn’t want him to see her like this … Not just working here at the club. She would defend her right to work to the bitter end. But Luke knew her too well. He would sense how she’d changed. Dirty … Defiled … Ashamed and afraid …

But she was fighting back in her own time, and on her own terms.

Stamping down on the recent past, Lucia returned her thoughts to Luke. She had tried everything to eject Luke from her head, but nothing worked. The more she tried the more she wanted him, and everything had changed since the last time they had met when she had flirted so outrageously with him. She had invited trouble by living up to her wild-child image and now she had to pay the price. The woman on his arm was more Luke’s type. Smart, sharp, businesslike and neatly packaged. Lucia doubted Luke’s girlfriend would get herself into any awkward position outside a yoga class. Her only consolation was that the girl’s improbably whitened teeth attracted the club’s ultraviolet light in a way no one would want unless they suffered chronic delusions of being a torch.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

Lucia froze at the sound of Van Rickter’s voice. She had dumped the tray of empty glasses and had been hoping to make it to the stockroom before Luke spotted her. Rubbing her arms energetically, she said, ‘Don’t you think it’s cold in here? I thought I’d turn the heating up.’

‘Put some more clothes on while you’re at it,’ Van sneered. ‘The new uniform was designed with slimmer girls than you in mind. There should be some of the old shapeless ones in the back.’

‘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.