The Man From her Wayward Past

by Susan Stephens

  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.

  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 …