Читать книгу Ruling Sheikh, Unruly Mistress - Susan Stephens, Susan Stephens - Страница 9

LUCY spent the next hour in her small attic room, pacing up and down. If only plain girls could be born with a lust bypass, she reflected, pausing by the mirror to view her unchanged reflection, it would make life and rejection so much easier for her. Of course, she knew her relationship with Mac was purely professional, and she’d only known him five minutes, but it would have been nice if, only for a few moments of that time, the frisson she felt could have been a two-way connection. The best thing now was to have a long soak and try to forget him. But she couldn’t, because she had somewhere to be and there were jobs to do first—beds to turn down, bathrooms to clean, towels to check, fires to bank up…

She was running late by the time she finished all her remaining tasks and she still had to get ready—number one on the list was a quick bath, and then she’d have to run all the way to the club where her friends would be waiting for her.

Interest laced with concern for Lucy had developed into hot, shameless lust. Razi had to have her. She was beautiful, unaffected and available—and as soon as he had given her a chance to clear up the chalet and set up for the morning he was going to have her.

His impatience was easy to explain—apart from the ache in his groin the clock was ticking. He had never felt the weight of duty more. He embraced the responsibilities coming his way with enthusiasm, but was under no illusion as to the effect they would have on his lifestyle. A traditional marriage—even if not to his cousin Leila—was on the cards. He owed it to his country. But before then…

‘Preoccupied, Razi?’ Tom asked him discreetly.

‘You know,’ he said offhandedly. They were sitting in a noisy bar and he was already itching to move on. The drinks weren’t cold enough and the nibbles tasted of cardboard after Lucy’s delicacies.

Next time she could serve them on her naked body and he’d lick the champagne she spilled off her belly.

‘We can move on if you like,’ Tom suggested.

‘Sorry, Tom. Didn’t mean to ignore you—things on my mind.’

‘Oh, no.’ Tom sighed theatrically and passed a hand across his eyes. ‘Let me guess.’

‘Don’t,’ he said sharply. For some reason he couldn’t stand the thought of anyone, even Tom, making sport of Lucy. ‘Don’t even go there, Tom. Let’s just move on.’

Muffled up in a super-sized ski jacket, a long scarf, a woolly hat with a bobble on top and a thick pair of gloves, Lucy hurried along the empty streets towards the club. The streets were deserted because everyone was already cosy and warm inside one of the many restaurants and bars by this time of night. It was a world of muffled music and the occasional blast of noise and laughter as a door opened briefly.

She was feeling guilty as she scudded along, knowing her brothers would have loved an event like the one she was due to take part in, while she felt shy at the prospect of entering a crowded club where everyone would know each other. She only hoped she could find her colleagues straight away when she arrived—and that Mac and co didn’t decide to go there too. She shivered at the thought of it and almost lost her nerve and turned around.

Her enthusiasm for the event shrank even more when a member of a rival chalet company barred her way at the entrance. ‘Here’s the runner up,’ he announced to his friends, who all started laughing. She hurried past, but her confidence had taken a dive. It got worse when she saw all her colleagues waiting for her and looking so hopeful.

‘Ready?’ they chorused.

‘As I’ll ever be,’ Lucy confirmed, wondering why she had agreed to sing in the first place. Being a good choir girl hardly qualified her for the annual karaoke competition between the rival chalet companies, and the moment she entered the makeshift dressing room, which doubled as the ladies’ restroom, she knew she’d made a big mistake. She didn’t have the personality for something like this.

‘Make-up?’ one of the girls prompted, waking her out of the terror stupor. They were stripping off her coat and scarf, and one of them plucked the hat from her head.

‘I don’t have any make-up.’

‘You don’t?’ The girls looked at each other in alarm.

‘I’ve never bought any.’

Alarm was replaced by incredulity.

‘I’m not very good with it.’

‘Not surprising if you never tried,’ one girl said with an encouraging smile, stepping forward. ‘No worries—we’ll do it for you.’

‘Oh, no, thank you—but if I wear make up, I’ll look awful.’ I look bad enough already, Lucy thought, gazing in despair at her reflection. Compared to the other girls she was a real plain Jane.

‘You couldn’t possibly look awful,’ one of the other girls said kindly.

‘I only took off my apron five minutes ago.’

‘So imagine the transformation.’

They were all so eager to help. How could she let them down? She dragged her confidence cloak tightly round her. ‘Okay, I suppose we’d better get on with it.’

Hasty words, Lucy realised as one of them produced a costume for her to wear with a flourish, carolling, ‘Ta da!’

‘No,’ she said firmly. Singing was one thing, but she was going to wear her sensible off-duty clothes, which comprised jeans and a pale blue fleece.

The girls looked at each other and then, recognising the straw that might well break the camel’s back, they gave in.

‘Just tell me when I have to sing and I’ll be fine.’ Or she might be, if her upper lip didn’t feel as if it were superglued to her teeth.

‘Here, have a drink of water,’ one of her colleagues said as Lucy licked to no effect with a bone-dry tongue.

Then they all went silent as the contestant from the opposing chalet company began to sing.

‘He’s got a great voice,’ Lucy commented, swallowing hard.

‘And he’s hot,’ one of the girls added.

Better to know she didn’t stand a chance before she headed for the makeshift stage, Lucy reasoned. ‘I’m going to give it everything I’ve got.’ She smiled bravely as a pile of make-up bags hit the counter.

Then the girls took over, transforming her while she could only watch helplessly. One of them brushed out her hair and curled it with a heated wand, while another made up her face.

‘Relax—I do this as a living when I’m not doing the ski season,’ one girl assured Lucy as she applied a brown stripe beneath Lucy’s cheekbones, a white one above and a blob of red on the apple of her cheek.

Now she looked like a painted doll with exaggerated colouring. She should never have let this happen.

Lucy closed her eyes, resigned to her fate, so it was a surprise when she opened them to find that once the stripes had been blended in she didn’t look half bad. Her skin looked even, radiant, and her face sculpted. The make-up was like a mask, Lucy realised with relief—a mask to hide behind. Careful work on her eyes and lips had turned her into someone she hardly recognised and Mac would certainly never recognise her if he decided to come in for a drink. ‘I had no idea,’ she murmured, leaning forward.

‘No time for that,’ the girls insisted as she continued to stare into the mirror, amazed at her reflection. Taking hold of her on either side, they ushered her outside.

One last glance confirmed the surprising fact that, left loose, her hair didn’t look half bad either. Thanks to the styling wand it hung in thick waves almost to her waist. She had never worn her hair like this before, because her mother said long hair was untidy, and, of course, in a professional kitchen her hair was always covered. Make-up? She pressed her rouged lips together anxiously—she’d never get used to it, but at least the girls looked pleased.

‘You look amazing,’ one of them assured her and they all agreed.

‘Amazingly silly?’

‘No!’

‘Have some confidence,’ one girl insisted. ‘You won our award when you least expected it, and now you’re going to win this.’

‘If I could sing better.’

‘It’s karaoke, Lucy.’ They all laughed. ‘You’re not supposed to sing—just get into the spirit of it and you’ll be fine.’

‘And if you’re not, we’ll hide and pretend not to know you,’ another girl teased her.

They had left the bar and headed back to the chalet for their skis to satisfy Razi’s whim to expend a small part of his energy skiing down the black slope with just the ultra-lights on their helmets to show them the way. With precipices on either side and at the speeds they travelled it was like playing Russian roulette with a loaded gun that had no bullets missing. It was both exhilarating and dangerous. Irresponsible, maybe, but it had left him on a high. The five of them had been doing this since school when they had first climbed out of a chalet window at midnight, leaving the school masters on the trip snoring. These days Razi pleased himself. He owned the chalet and could leave by the front door, but the thrill had not diminished.

They were all down safely, but with adrenalin surging through his veins he still had energy to burn.

‘Champagne?’ Theo suggested.

‘Lead me to it,’ Razi agreed, snapping off his skis in anticipation of a short stroll to his favourite bar.

‘Do you think we could drop by the chalet? Let Lucy know what we’re up to? Invite her along?’ Tom questioned with a knowing wink.

As Razi might have anticipated, this drew comment from the other men. They were experienced men of the world, but they had all seen something in Lucy—just as he had. His hackles rose. ‘Lay off her, boys,’ he warned, lifting off his helmet. ‘You could all see Lucy was overwhelmed when we rocked up.’

This drew a second chorus of knowing smirks, which he ignored. ‘The least we can do is give her a chance to get used to us.’

‘To you, don’t you mean?’

He refused to dignify Theo’s comment with a reply.

Tom drew alongside him to observe discreetly, ‘That’s extremely thoughtful of you…’

‘It’s nothing.’ Razi dismissed the comment with an impatient gesture. ‘Lucy was fine when we left and she’s probably asleep by now. She also left food on the table at the chalet, so if we need anything to eat later we can rustle up something for ourselves.’

‘Just like the old days,’ Theo agreed, coming up on his other side.

Not at all like the old days, Razi’s exchange of glances with Tom confirmed. This trip was not the same as the trips they had enjoyed in their carefree teenage years, but the briefest of stops before the weight of responsibility tied each one of them in their different ways. But for all their machismo they were up to the task, Razi concluded, taking a look around his friends. ‘Last one to the bar buys the drinks.’

Impossible to imagine their fortunes could be counted in billions as the four friends jostled and wrestled their way across the piste.

Okay, so this was it. But she needed an urgent trip to the ladies’ room first…

‘No looking back,’ the girls warned Lucy as they accompanied her to the stage.

‘I feel sick.’

‘There’s a fire bucket in the wings,’ one of the girls pointed out helpfully.

‘I can’t remember the words.’

‘You don’t have to remember the words,’ the girls reminded her in chorus. ‘This is karaoke, Luce.’

‘What if I can’t see the screen?’

‘We’ll sing along with you.’

‘What if I can’t hear you?’

‘You’ll hear us,’ they promised.

The compére was already on stage, waiting for the crowd to quieten so he could introduce Lucy. Would they ever quieten enough to hear her? It seemed unlikely, thank goodness. Freeing herself from her supporters, Lucy stepped reluctantly up to the red curtain someone had hastily drawn across the makeshift stage and peered through. She couldn’t see anything; the light was so bright—much better backstage in the dark where no one could see her. ‘Couldn’t I sing from back here?’

‘That’s a no, then,’ Lucy muttered as her friends exclaimed in protest.

She wished the spotlights weren’t quite so bright, or so well aimed. She felt nervous, hot and scared—and desperate not to let the side down.

‘There is one positive.’

‘A positive?’ the girls encouraged as she fought for breath.

‘Yes, I can’t make out any faces in the crowd—I took out my contact lenses,’ she managed on a gasp, breathing deeply into lungs that seemed suddenly on fire.

All she could hear now were whistles, shouts and catcalls. The compére had succeeded in whipping the crowd up to fever pitch just in time for her appearance. Great. The position of the fire bucket had never held such colossal significance.

‘You’ll be all right once you get on stage,’ the girls assured her, hands poised on Lucy’s shoulders in readiness to push her on.

She didn’t have time to think about it. Blundering through the curtain, she was instantly deafened by the booming bass on the backing track and blinded by the lights. She put up her arm to shield her eyes and in doing so missed the introduction. The crowd was silent like a fierce beast preparing to pounce and rip her into shreds, while she stood curled in a protective huddle in the middle of the stage, spotlights illuminating her humiliation, while her backing track moved inexorably on.

Somewhere in the distance she heard the girls shouting her name…

It was no good. She couldn’t do it—not even for them. Blinking like a mole, she realised with horror that she couldn’t see or hear anything, let alone sing…

Clenching her fists with determination, she forced herself to make a tremulous start, and no one was more surprised than Lucy when her voice gradually gained in confidence and strengthened as the beauty of the melody overpowered her fears. She had insisted on singing a love song when everyone had begged her to sing an upbeat number, and, what with the poignancy of the words and the beauty of the music, she only had to imagine Mac and she was away.

She would never have believed she could enjoy herself so much on stage—even the crowd had silenced in appreciation. They’d gathered round her and many of them were arm in arm as they stared up at her, listening. Discovering she could lose herself in music was a magical experience…Thinking about Mac made it perfect.