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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.

So she didn’t need him. Good. He shouldn’t get involved. He would call Nacho—let him take over. Lucia was wild and had set herself on a very different path from him. He was all about polo and business, and had no intention of being distracted or pulled down by anyone. Lucia was clearly on a downward trajectory. With every advantage in the world, she had chosen to work in a club.

Really? Did he believe that?

All he knew for certain at this point was that in his family no one went against expectation, and feelings were curbed as stringently as any horse in a dressage arena. Lucia was composed entirely of emotion. She was an untameable Acosta. He should put her out of his mind for good

Which was easier said than done. He was becoming increasingly worried about her, and in spite of the cold facts he owed Nacho.

Was that all?

So she was attractive. He would soon tire of all the drama.

Wasn’t it entertaining to be around someone with so much character for a change?

Didn’t he love to hunt?

He liked the chase best of all.

What the hell was he thinking?

Lucia was the kid sister of his closest friend. She was out of bounds. And, in the unlikely event that he found himself in the mood for a walk on the wild side, he’d choose someone as worldly as he was—not some pampered Argentinian princess.

Who wasn’t too proud to get down on her hands and knees and scrub a filthy club if that was what it took.

And who was one hell of a good-looking woman, Luke conceded, even in the extraordinary outfit Lucia was forced to wear at work.

All the more reason for him to keep his distance. With his blood boiling in his veins she was safer away from him.

Three o’clock in the morning came and went. The last patron had left the club. They had swept up and tidied and Luke had gone. She’d been too busy to notice when he left. He had left with the blonde, she presumed, feeling sick inside. He definitely hadn’t remembered what day it was today.

So what? Why should she care if Luke had forgotten it was her birthday? She didn’t need him. Luke Forster could go to hell in a bucket for all she cared.

‘Didn’t your birthday start at midnight?’ Grace asked, giving Lucia’s arm a squeeze as they left the club together.

‘How did you know?’ Lucia asked as they took shelter for a moment before braving the rain.

‘I know everything about you,’ Grace teased fondly.

Including Lucia’s real name. Grace was too good a friend for Lucia to want to deceive her. ‘So you’ve heard the party-girl rumours too?’

Grace laughed. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word. You’re not a party girl any more than I am, Lucia. But some of our friends at the club seem to think we should lighten up a bit.’

‘I hope you’re not referring to Van Rickter?’

Grace frowned. ‘I wouldn’t call him a friend, exactly, but there are other nice people working at the club.’

‘What are you hiding under your jacket?’ Lucia enquired as they crossed the road.

‘We had a whip-round for your birthday,’ Grace explained, starting to smile.

‘What is it?’ Lucia asked, her curiosity well and truly roused.

‘I’m not saying. I don’t want to spoil the surprise. But I will tell you this much—everyone seems determined to tempt at least one of us off the straight and narrow this year.’

‘It might take a bit longer than that for me,’ Lucia admitted, shivering as the cold wind whipped around her.

‘Don’t be such a defeatist,’ Grace teased. ‘A lot can happen quickly if you’re lucky.’

Lucia huffed as Grace squeezed her arm again, and then both girls screamed as they sploshed through an icy puddle in the middle of the road.

‘I stuck a couple of mags in the bag as well,’ Grace called out as they parted company at the entrance to the Sundowner Holiday Park. ‘You might recognise one of the centrefolds. You were talking to him in the club.’

Lucia’s heart went crazy with excitement. The centrefold was hardly going to be Van Rickter—unless the magazine in question was Amphibian World.

She ran all the way to the caravan and, throwing her shoulder against the buckled door, launched herself inside. Dropping her things on the floor, she snatched the magazines out of the gift bag and flung herself onto the lumpy bunk. Leafing through as fast as she could, she stalled at the centre page of the second magazine.

Luke Forster was ROCK!’s Torso of the Year.

Dropping the magazine, she threw herself back against the cold tin wall. ‘You blue-blooded hypocrite!’ Her main gripe was not how Luke looked—which was pretty spectacular by any standards—but the way he behaved when he was around her, as if he were a paragon of all the virtues. ‘So you’re incorruptible, are you?’

Now, this was worrying. Not only was she talking to herself, but she was involving a magazine in the conversation. With an angry huff, she plucked the gum from her mouth and stuck Luke’s centrefold to the wall. ‘Take that!’ A thump from her fist secured it. Standing back, she had to concede Luke’s centrefold did brighten things up a bit.

So where was he? Lucia wondered, going through her nightly routine of getting ready for bed in the freezing caravan by piling on more clothes. If Luke was still in Cornwall he was probably tucked up in a nice warm room at the Grand by now—with the blonde. Ack! And if he thought about Lucia at all it would only be to wonder if she was ready to go home yet.

‘No, I’m not ready,’ she snarled, glaring at Luke’s poster. ‘And I’m not giving up. I can’t give up. I can’t go home. Not like this….’

Their nice, warm kitchen in Argentina, where the roof never leaked and the floor was never cold, and she had never once had to pick ice off the insides of the windows …

Unscrewing the top of the flask of hot chocolate that Margaret left on the table each night, she scowled at Luke’s centrefold as she gulped the warm liquid down. She tried not to think about the list of goals she had intended to achieve by now—goals Lucia had been so confident were achievable when she was fourteen.

Reaching beneath the bed, she drew out the precious tote full of memories and extracted the battered notebook in which, as a dreamy-eyed teen, she had written down her innermost hopes and dreams. She didn’t often do this. She saved it for when things were really bad. The bag of dreams, as she called the old canvas tote, was her comforter. It contained her journal from when she was fourteen, and her rather more neglected journal from now. She pulled the old one out and started to read.

It is imperative to follow this list to the letter if I’m ever going to break free from Conan the Barbarian and his gang of galloping gauchos—otherwise known as my brothers …

Lucia smiled as she read the messy list, with all its scribbles and crossings-out. It was hard to believe she had ever been so naïve. Most of her ideas had been based on articles she’d read in teen magazines, which of course were essential reading for fourteen-year-olds with everything to learn. She would have to completely re-jig the list. Get a wax after she’d got a man? Well, that was wrong to start with. And, the way she felt right now, getting a wax could be number two-hundred and thirty-six on next year’s list. Yes, Luke was gorgeous, but …

No. She couldn’t.

She just couldn’t, that’s all.

But just out of curiosity, and because trips down memory lane seemed to be in vogue right now, she straightened out the much-thumbed pages and began to read.

1. Get a job!—preferably promoting a bar, which is a great way to meet new people, according to ROCK! magazine

2. Get a flat!—something gorgeous and stylish in the best part of town. N.B. V. close to the bar!

3. Get a wax!

She remembered that last entry being based more on dreading what her rapidly changing body might do next rather than any horrific hirsute happenings. And how many times had that entry been deferred? And why did she still shift position nervously when she read it?

She pulled a face as she got up to check her top lip in the mirror. Flopping back down again, she remembered her mother’s pale face when a visit to the beautician loomed. Perhaps that was the answer to her waxing phobia. She could still hear her young self asking, ‘Are you all right, Mama?’ And her mother’s response: ‘You’ll understand one day what it means to be a woman, Lucia, and what we have to go through for our men …’ Hefty sigh at that point.

All sorts of images had flashed into Lucia’s young brain—nostril-hair-plucking, blackhead-excising, even earwax-removal with one of those long, pointy things—but never had she imagined that her mother was referring to that most delicate of regions, let alone that some stranger was going to view her private bits close up prior to coating them in molten wax like some medieval torturer. And it didn’t finish there—as Lucia had discovered in that invaluable teenage self-help tome known to one and all as ROCK! Magazine. Then this female Torquemada was going to rip away at those nether regions without so much as a by-your-leave.

Youch!

No way, José!

Back to the list. The next entry after wax, was

4. Get a tan

Lucia remembered a columnist in ROCK! insisting that this must be subtle—a mere sun-kissed whisper that would fool any man into thinking it was natural.

5. Get a cool new wardrobe!

One that did not include a bobbly polyester uniform in a shade that might once have been white, presumably.

6. Get a hairdo

This prompted another visit to the mirror, where she lifted up her haystack hair. Most people complained that their hair was too thin or too straight. She was currently experiencing the opposite problem, known as The Inexplicable Explosion of Frizz. Without her styling products and gadgets, and without money to get it done in a salon, she was on her own.

7. Get a gym membership

First off, gym memberships cost money. And there was a more important consideration: without the hairdo, the tan, the wax and the cool new wardrobe, she was never going to make it through the door of a decent gym.

8. Get a good dance teacher—for the Samba, preferably. Someone like the old gaucho Ignacio, on Nero Caracas’s ranch. Judging by the way Ignacio vaulted the fence when I decided to ride Nero’s fire-breathing monster stallion bareback, Ignacio has still got some moves in him!

9. Get a gag for her polo-playing brothers—so they can’t share any embarrassing secrets with any men I might attract once I’ve completed all of the above.

10. Get a (non-polo-playing) man

And there the list ended. Lucia smiled as she remembered Ignacio teaching her to dance the Samba, and quite a few other dances as well, bringing his ancient ghetto blaster, as Ignacio had called his battered radio, to the hay barn, where she’d been able to blunder about undisturbed. Okay. Looking on the bright side. She was still podgy and in need of a suntan with a frizz ball on her head, but this babe could dance.

‘Cheers, Margaret,’ Lucia murmured, wrapping her frozen hands around the warm flask of chocolate. This small, kind act of someone who had so little made Lucia more determined than ever to help her elderly friend.

‘And hello, Luke,’ she added, addressing Luke’s smouldering poster just inches from her bed.

Hopping out again, she took a closer look. Wow hardly covered it. Lucia’s brothers frequently featured on billboards, but always in full polo rig and usually mounted on a horse. They were certainly never caught half-naked, sluicing themselves down, in a shot Lucia couldn’t imagine strait-laced Luke agreeing to in a million years.