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The Heat of the Night
Amy Andrews
It’s supposed to be all hands on deck… not on each other!To Claudia Davis, her Australian beach hotel is paradise. To her business partner Luke Hargreaves it’s a burden he’s desperate to shake off! Then a cyclone hits, and it’s down to them both to rebuild the resort. But keeping their minds on the job proves impossible with all those scorching hot nights alone together…Agreeing to a fling seems risk-free – Luke’s leaving for London soon, and surely their chemistry will have self-combusted by then? Except with time running out it’s just getting hotter… like a fireball burning out of control…


How many times had she fantasised about kissing that mouth? Too many to count.
And there it was, right in front of her.
Her pulse kicked up another notch as the devil whispered, Kiss him, and she contemplated doing just that.
That would definitely wake him up.
But what if he rejected her advances? It would be embarrassing and awkward. For a very long time. It would probably even kill her. She’d probably die of mortification on the spot.
It would certainly be hard to come back from.
Another sinful whisper. But what if he doesn’t?
In a few short months Luke would be heading back to London, and the thought that she might never get another opportunity to show him how she felt suddenly scared her a hell of a lot more.
Screw it.
And the devil smiled.
The Heat of
the Night
Amy Andrews


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader (#ulink_b95a0f3e-3c3d-58a4-abef-c1e1ebceaaf2)
When my editor approached me with the idea of doing a duet with Ally Blake last February my first reaction was, Hell, yeah! I adore Ally’s writing, and she’s just all-round fun to work with! Throw in some glorious Australian sunshine, a tropical resort and some bikinis and how could I resist? But let me tell you Ally got the raw end of the deal. I had a hectic schedule last year, and while she was planning her book for the duet—which is, OMG, knock-you-out-of-the-park fabulous!—I still had another three books to finish …
But her enthusiasm for the project and her love affair with Pinterest kept drawing me into the world of the Tropicana. When I’d finally cleared my decks I was all fired up to start.
I absolutely adored creating the world of the Tropicana Nights—an old-fashioned resort from yesteryear, when families holidayed together and entertainment was simple—with Ally. Creating Luke and Claudia was fabulous also. Two people who grew up together with the Tropicana as their playground, who both love the resort in their own ways but who clash over their polar opposite visions for its future.
I love the title of this book. THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT is very apt because—trust me—things soon get pretty fired up between these two childhood friends. They might not be able to agree on what’s good for the Tropicana, but their bodies are perilously in sync.
Ahh … those summer nights …
I hope you enjoy their tumultuous tumble into love. And if you haven’t read Ally Blake’s HER HOTTEST SUMMER YET then run out and get it! You won’t be sorry!
Love
Amy
Those Summer NightsIn Crescent Cove find sun, sea and steamy nights …
Read the first book in this sultry duet:
HER HOTTEST SUMMER YET
by Ally Blake!
AMY ANDREWS has always loved writing, and still can’t quite believe that she gets to do it for a living. Creating wonderful heroines and gorgeous heroes and telling their stories is an amazing way to pass the day. Sometimes they don’t always act as she’d like them to—but then neither do her kids, so she’s kind of used to it. Amy lives in the very beautiful Samford Valley, with her husband and aforementioned children, along with six brown chooks and two black dogs.
She loves to hear from her readers. Drop her a line at www.amyandrews.com.au (http://www.amyandrews.com.au)
Other Modern Tempted™ titles by Amy Andrews:
THE MOST EXPENSIVE NIGHT OF HER LIFE
GIRL LEAST LIKELY TO MARRY
This and other titles by Amy Andrews are available in eBook format.Check out www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
To Ally Blake for her indefatigable enthusiasm and getting this duet off to an incredible start with two wonderful characters in Jonah and Avery.
And for getting me hooked on Pinterest.
Contents
Cover (#u80f3bffb-2c2d-5f0d-8937-3e420b0e102d)
Introduction (#ud31c1b20-aecf-50a8-9601-965e7651fa58)
Title Page (#u95f39433-fc04-54b1-9505-1cea7c8f6289)
Dear Reader (#ulink_56916451-0f02-5ca3-95eb-056afb6ece6f)
About the Author (#ue3971611-2980-518a-8236-78e960f30df9)
Dedication (#u1f748ef2-e1cc-5c4a-87ec-10dcf93f5ac4)
Chapter One (#ulink_7d1c57e6-a375-5154-bc9c-abfc8ff947ef)
Chapter Two (#ulink_d3b860b2-69e0-5b56-9a9b-e583508354f3)
Chapter Three (#ulink_fea22a07-702c-52f7-a347-5dc9966f2433)
Chapter Four (#ulink_5795bec5-72e9-5428-a0c4-708cf265cf2f)
Chapter Five (#ulink_84408f07-31ca-5f7f-9bb8-9ee2f10475b9)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
ONE (#ulink_ab96343c-1e28-551a-9742-db1d1813d26e)
Luke Hargreaves had never seen such an unholy mess in all his life. Uprooted trees competed for space amidst the smashed and splintered building debris. Dangerous electrical and glass hazards lay strewn everywhere. Only one out of the dozen buildings that made up the five-acre property where the Tropicana Nights had sprawled for forty years had survived intact.
Holy crap. The resort was never going to recover from this.
It was hard to believe standing underneath the perfect untainted blue of a tropical north Queensland sky, listening to the gentle kiss of waves as they lapped at the crescent beach fringing this idyllic tourist spot, that weather could be responsible for such violence.
That the light breeze could build to cyclonic, that the cloudless sky could blacken with ominous intent and the calm ocean could rage and pound.
Sure, cyclones were one of the hazards of living on the northern Australian coastline and the resort had sustained damage in the past from such events that regularly stalked the coast from November to March.
But never like this.
This one had been a monster and Crescent Cove’s number had been up.
A decade in the UK had anaesthetised him to the dangers of tropical storms, but, looking at the destruction now, it was a miracle no one had been killed.
All thanks to Claudia.
Luke’s gaze trekked from the devastated resort to the devastated figure standing on the beach, her back to the ocean as she surveyed the damage. Avery had told him Claudia was taking it all in her stride. But he knew Claudia Davis well. Too well. And her look of hopeless despair was evident even from this distance.
Somehow inside his head, despite the march of time, she’d always been a skinny six-year-old with blonde pigtails and skinned knees. And there was something just as gut-wrenchingly innocent about her today. Her ponytail fluttering in the gentle breeze, her petite frame encased in the God-awful polyester Tropicana uniform that hadn’t changed since the seventies, that damn stupid clipboard she always carried around clutched to her chest.
The intense little wrinkle of her brow as if she was trying to wish it all better from the power of her mind alone.
He sighed. He was not looking forward to this.
He shucked off his shoes and stripped off his socks leaving them at the row of lopsided palm trees that formed a natural demarcation between beach and land. Or what was left of them anyway.
Crescent Cove’s beloved palm-tree avenue, which hugged the long curve of beach, was looking equally devastated. Whole trees had been ripped out by the roots, plucked clean from the ground and thrown around as if they’d been mere matchsticks, some still lying on the path or beach wherever they’d been hurled.
It would take a lot of years to build it back to its former glory.
The hot sun beat down on Luke’s neck, a far cry from chilly London, and he shrugged out of his jacket too. He undid his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves on his business shirt. He turned his phone to silent and slipped it in his back pocket. He didn’t want to be disturbed when he spoke to her and he’d already had three urgent texts from the office.
Taking a deep, fortifying breath, he stepped onto the beach and headed towards the woman he’d known nearly all his life, his footsteps squeaking in the powdery sand.
* * *
Claudia stared at the wreck before her, a sense of helplessness and despair overwhelming her. She should have known that only a cyclone named Luke could cause this much damage.
She refused to give into the harsh burn of tears scalding her eye sockets.
She would not cry.
Crying was for wimps and she was not a wimp. She’d spent a year of her life renovating her beloved family resort and just because it lay in a shambled ruin in front of her didn’t mean it was time to give into a fit of girly histrionics.
She held tight to the comfort of her clipboard. They would recover from this. They had to.
But how? a little voice asked somewhere in the back of her brain, bleating away in time to the distant drone of generators that had filled the air for days now. The same voice she’d been hearing every time she stood on the beach and was confronted by the true horror of the destruction of the only home she’d ever known.
Well, there was the main resort building—the original structure—for a start. Even now its white stucco façade gleamed beneath the full morning sun like a beacon amidst the rubble, its sturdy stone construction having somehow miraculously survived Mother Nature’s fury with only minimal damage.
How, Claudia had no idea.
How had the dinosaur—or White Elephant as Luke had coined it—managed to survive when the newer edition bungalows, made to the highest ever cyclone specifications, had perished?
It didn’t make any sense. It had been four days since Cyclone Luke, a huge category-five juggernaut, had crossed the coast right on top of them, and it still didn’t make any sense.
None of it did.
Tears threatened again and Claudia blinked them back. She refused to cry as Avery had done. Tears wouldn’t get the Tropicana back on its feet and Claudia was determined to hold it all together if it killed her. She’d been doing that since Luke had deserted her to run the place by herself, since their respective parents had handed the keys over to them and entrusted twenty years of their life’s work to their children.
She would not be cowed by the mammoth task ahead of her just as she’d refused to be cowed by Luke’s ultimatum this time last year to have the resort turned around in twelve months—or else!
She hadn’t needed him to elaborate on his threat—and it really hadn’t been an issue because she had turned it around. They’d had a bumper summer, there was money in the bank and they’d been poised to welcome their best ever winter season in over a decade.
And then along came Cyclone Luke. As determined as the other Luke in her life to take away everything she’d ever known and loved.
‘Bloody hell, Claude. You’re never going to recover from this.’
Claudia blinked as the eerily familiar voice behind her caused everything inside her—her heartbeat, her breath, the metabolism in her cells—to come to a standstill.
Luke?
She turned and there he was. Standing right there. Every tall, lean, clean-shaven inch of him. Close enough to touch. Close enough to feel a very familiar pull down deep and low.
Luke.
The boy she’d hero-worshipped, the teenager she’d crushed on, the man who’d disappointed her more than she’d ever thought possible when he’d turned his back on their legacy.
You’re never going to recover from this?
His words were like a jolt to the chest from a defibrillator and then everything surged back to life. Her lungs dragged in a swift harsh breath, her heart kicked her in the ribcage with all the power of a mule, her cells started metabolising again at warp speed.
You’re never going to recover from this?
Oh, no! He had to be kidding. This had to be a monumental joke. A very bad one.
But no, here he was, in a freaking business shirt and trousers. On the beach. Gloating. A tsunami of emotion Claudia had been stuffing down for four days—hell, for the last year—rose in her chest and demanded to be expressed.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Luke’s eyes widened at the distinct lack of welcome turning her normally chirpy voice deeper. Darker. He shrugged. ‘I saw it on the tele...I just...came.’
And he had. As much as he’d resented the weird pull this place still had over him, he couldn’t not put in an appearance. Escaping to the other side of the world a decade ago, immersing himself in a completely different life had dulled the pull, but one look at the devastation and it had roared back to life.
Claudia blinked at his explanation, then let loose a laugh that bordered on hysteria. But if she didn’t laugh she was going to cry. And it wasn’t going to be dainty little London tears he was no doubt used to from his bevy of gorgeous sophisticated Brits, it was going to be a cyclonic, north Queensland snot fest.
And she’d be damned if she’d break down in front of Luke.
‘How’d you even get here?’ she demanded. ‘The road is still cut in both directions.’
‘Jonah picked me up in his chopper from Cairns airport.’
Claudia vaguely remembered hearing the chopper a little while ago and she silently cursed Jonah for being so damned handy. She made a mental note to tell Avery to withhold sex from him as his punishment for fraternising with the enemy. Because as far as she was concerned, Luke Hargreaves was public enemy number one.
Not that Avery would—those two were still so loved up it was sickening.
‘Well, you came, you saw,’ she snapped. ‘Now you can leave. Everything’s fine and dandy here.’
Fine and dandy? Luke looked at the unholy wreck in front of him. It was the complete antithesis of fine and dandy. He shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘I’m not going to do that, Claude.’
Claudia gave an inelegant snort. ‘Why not? Isn’t that what you do? Leave?’
‘I thought I could...’ Luke flicked his gaze to the flattened resort ‘...help.’
‘Help?’ Her voice sounded high even to her own ears. ‘Now you want to help?’
‘Claude...’ Luke sighed, unsurprised she was still carrying a grudge that he hadn’t wanted anything to do with their parents’ giant folly when they’d decided to retire and pass on the management to their children last year. ‘I can help with the clean-up. And there will be partnership decisions that need to be made.’
A sudden surge of anger burned white-hot in Claudia’s chest. Partnership decisions? What the hell? Did he think she’d be too distraught to not understand the true meaning behind such a casual announcement?
She drew herself up to her full five feet one inch, and jammed a hand on her hip. ‘You think you have the right to waltz in here—’
Claudia broke off as a pressure—rage and something more primitive—built in her sinuses and behind her eyes. It threatened to explode and robbed her momentarily of the ability to form a coherent sentence.
‘To just...sweep in when everything is such a bloody mess...and think you have a right to any decisions? You forfeited any rights when you walked away from the Tropicana last year.’
Luke tried to stay calm in the face of her anger. But Claudia always had driven him more nuts than any woman in the history of the world. She’d always been a firecracker where the resort was concerned, her petite, perennially cheerful disposition slipping quickly to growly Mummy bear when her precious Tropicana was threatened.
He kept his hands firmly buried in his pockets lest he succumb to the urge to shake her. Part of the reason she was in this mess was because she’d refused to listen to reason. If they’d gone the way he’d wanted to go with the resort they’d have been making money hand over fist as part of a bigger chain and therefore sheltered financially from such a monumental disaster.
But no. Claudia had wanted to keep the resort completely independent. Run it the way their parents had in some grand vision of yesteryear.
And he’d been too busy dealing with the disarray left by his ex, both personally and career-wise, to really care. But this mess was going to require some big decisions.
‘Well, actually, that’s not entirely true, is it?’
Claudia knew exactly what he was alluding to and hated that he was right. Hated it. But his name was still on the partnership agreement their parents had made them sign and he did have equal say—he just hadn’t been interested in claiming it before today.
Claudia sighed, feeling utterly defeated all of a sudden. ‘Look, I get it, you’re here out of some misguided sense of responsibility. But you really don’t need to worry. Everything’s fine and dandy. Just go back to London. I can only deal with one Luke at a time.’
Luke was torn between picking her up and dumping her in the ocean and pulling her into his arms. ‘I’m staying. I have a week off. I can help with the clean-up.’
This time Claudia’s laugh did not border on anything—it had lapsed into full-blown hysteria.
‘A week?’ she demanded, her voice high and shaky. ‘Well, gee, Luke, thank you for sparing seven lousy days out of your busy and important life to help out poor old Claude.’
She shook her head in disgust at him, the urge to slam the clipboard down on his head riding her as hard as the threatening tears. She would not cry!
‘Take a look at this place,’ she demanded, flinging her arms wide to distract from the crack in her voice. ‘Do you think this is going to be cleaned up in a week?’
Luke looked. He doubted it would be cleaned up in a month. But he had a major account on the hook, one that would erase for ever the big one he’d lost because he’d foolishly trusted the woman he’d loved. He couldn’t afford to spend a lot of time away. Hell, he couldn’t even afford seven lousy days.
But he was here, wasn’t he?
‘Let’s just take it one day at a time,’ he suggested, holding onto his temper.
Claudia glared at him. ‘Don’t patronise me. I have an entire army of people ready, willing and able to help me clean up when we get the all-clear. We don’t need someone whose heart isn’t in it and who doesn’t give a damn about the Tropicana.’
Luke clenched his fists in his pockets. Just because he hadn’t chosen to slavishly devote himself to a forty-year-old white elephant, didn’t mean he didn’t care. He glared at her. ‘And I suppose walking around with that damn clipboard and wearing that God-awful Hawaiian shirt and those polyester capris proves your level of give a damn?’
Claudia gasped at his insult. The uniform had been around since the beginning—it was iconic, damn it! But it gave her something else to focus on other than the prickle inside her nose caused by building emotion. ‘I’m on duty,’ she snapped.
It was Luke’s turn to snort. ‘For what? There’s nobody here, Claude.’
Claudia held herself erect. ‘I’m never off duty.’
And that, as far as Luke was concerned, was one of her problems. She was twenty-seven years old and, apart from her brief sojourns overseas with Avery every couple of years, the resort had been her entire focus.
‘You really need a life,’ he muttered, still smarting from her stinging judgment of him.
‘I need a life?’ She laughed again, all high and shaky. ‘This from a man who wears a freaking suit to the beach.’
‘I got the first flight I could,’ he said. ‘I went straight from work to Heathrow. I know it’s hard for you to believe but there are other people in this world just as dedicated to their jobs as you are to yours. Although I think manic obsession probably fits better in your case.’
‘The Tropicana isn’t a job. It’s our legacy,’ Claudia snapped.
Luke shook his head as a storm of frustration and disbelief raged in his gut. God, her doggedness was infuriating.
‘It’s not our legacy. It’s just an old-fashioned relic from a different time and everybody’s moved on but you. You’re not in Dirty Dancing, Claude, and this—’ he threw his arms wide at the destruction before him ‘—isn’t freaking Kellerman’s. Johnny Castle isn’t going to drop by and demand that nobody puts you in a corner.’
Claude blinked. A pain flared in the vicinity of her heart as he took everything she believed in and crushed it into the hot, white sand. Yes, she was sentimental and a romantic and she not only believed but had proved that there was a market for the style of resort he was so disparaging of. She just hadn’t realised he’d thought so little of the things that were important to her.
It made her feel small. Insignificant. Unvalued.
And so very sad. For her and for him. His divorce sure had made him cynical.
And it was her undoing. Her vision blurred, the emotion she’d been holding back for days coming now whether she liked it or not. A solitary tear spilled down her cheek.
Luke saw the tear threaten, then fall and wished he could cut his tongue out. He’d been angry and frustrated and his words had been harsh and ill considered. Strands of her blonde hair had loosened and blew across her face, sticking to the wet tear track and her mouth.
‘Claudia.’ He took a step towards her.
Claudia shook her head and held up a hand to ward him off, swiping at the tear with the other, angry that he was a witness to it, that she was being weak and sentimental in front of him. ‘Just go back to London, Luke.’ She turned away, marching off, needing to get away from his toxic disregard as more tears ran down her face.
Luke watched as she turned away, marching back up the beach, her spine straight, her ponytail barely bouncing as she held her head high. He cursed his insensitivity.
That went well. Not.
TWO (#ulink_359aeb7f-b03c-5671-bc66-ef4674ed1c02)
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.
THREE (#ulink_c0ea92bc-9e58-5675-876e-239a61ca6e9d)
Luke slept too. Unfortunately not the deep, dreamless sleep of the severely jet-lagged. The sleep his body was craving. Whether that was the total chaos his diurnal rhythms had been thrown into or the fact that he was draped around warm, soft woman he wasn’t sure. But his sleep was disturbed with fevered images cavorting through his head.
Difficult to understand, impossible to hold onto.
They slipped elusively through his fingers like strands of the silky blonde hair fluttering in and out of his reach.
There was a woman in a long, sheer gown. He was chasing her but she was always too far away to catch, to really see her. She was laughing, the tinkly sound echoing through his dream in time with his heartbeat. Every time he got close to her she’d disappear like mist only to reappear again in the distance.
She was naked under the gown, glimpses of her buttocks, the bare arch of her back and the side swell of her breasts taunting him. He was conscious of his arousal as he gave chase, as his legs pumped towards her, the desire to hold her, to kiss her, drumming through his veins.
His body ached with anticipation, his head spun with desire, his breath rasped and not just from the demands of the chase. She laughed again and he ran faster.
* * *
Claudia woke to a whirl of sensation spiralling deep and low inside her and sinking lower still, tingling between her legs and dragging heavy fingers down the backs of her thighs. Her eyelids fluttered open and she blinked, trying to orientate herself through eyes that were gritty, the skin around them simultaneously tight and puffy.
Something weighed heavy across her hip and thighs. And her breast. She was aware of heat at her back and hardness nestled between the cheeks of her bottom as she looked down at the hand no longer at her waist but cupping her breast instead. She froze.
Luke.
His hand moved in a circular motion then, gentle and firm all at once, and her nipple responded with blatant enthusiasm, scrunching tight.
Luke groping her.
Claudia’s heart thundered behind her ribcage and echoed like gunshots through her ears. She was surprised he couldn’t feel it considering how closely acquainted he was becoming with that area of her body.
How long had it been there?
Long enough to have her belly twisted into knots!
She raised her head and looked over her shoulder. He was sound asleep, his leg thrown carelessly over her hip, his thigh trapping hers, weighing her down. His mouth was still at her neck where she remembered it, his hips well and truly aligned with hers and about as close as was humanly possible with clothes on.
She watched as a frown flitted across his forehead, then stared at the stubble covering his jaw, a little darker now. It was surprisingly sexy and Claudia took a slow steady breath to expel any thoughts of sexy from her brain.
She was worried if she moved a hair, a single muscle, if she breathed too deep she would wake him and he’d find himself in this compromising position and then where would that leave them? Their relationship had become fraught enough this past year.
But she needn’t have worried. He didn’t budge, his body remaining heavy against hers in slumber, effectively trapping her slighter frame.
He wasn’t waking and she wasn’t going anywhere.
She turned away from him then, slowly placing her head back on her pillow and shutting her eyes. Willing herself not to think about the press of him along the length of her. About the wild tango her hormones were performing. About the persistent tug down low morphing into something else. Something more.
She just revelled for a moment. This was how it would feel to be with Luke. To be cherished by him. Comforted. Protected.
Loved.
This was what she’d fantasised about during all her teen years. Hoping he’d see her as more than the little sister he never had. Hoping he’d kiss her, look at her as if she was a woman rather than a child, take her to his bed.
Hoping he’d stay.
He shifted against her slightly and Claudia held her breath. She expelled it on a quiet whimper as the delicious friction between their bodies ramped up another notch. The roughness of his barely there stubble scraped at the sensitive patch of skin where shoulder met nape and sensation prickled from the point of contact right down to her nipples, tightening them.
His hand squeezed in some kind of subconscious response because he was definitely still heavily asleep. Claudia’s eyes practically rolled back in her head as her nipple blazed with hot, fiery need. She pushed back slightly, trying to ease the ache between her legs.
Oh, God. She swallowed. She should move—now! She should get the hell away. She should not be using his unsuspecting body as some kind of scratching pole!
Her resort had been declared a disaster zone and Luke was only here for a week.
But neither of those things seemed to matter right now.
She just wanted to push back a little more. Maybe rub herself against him a little. Arch her back, slide her arm up around his neck, pull his mouth down on hers.
Or maybe she could just roll over and press her mouth to his. Beg him for just one time in his arms.
Once was all she needed.
And then her mobile rang.
* * *
Luke could hear the chiming of a bell and the woman from his dream faded from sight altogether as his subconscious pulled him back through the layers of sleep.
He came out slowly, groggily, completely disorientated, his brain cells still heavily mired in fatigue. The sunny room wasn’t remotely familiar, the ocean sounds weren’t familiar, the smell of salt and apple blossom weren’t familiar.
He shifted slightly, struggling out from the steely tendrils of his dream. Where were the heavy blackout curtains, the traffic noise, the smell of percolating coffee?
None of it was familiar.
The weight of something warm and distinctly female filled his hand and he squeezed tentatively.
The breast was definitely not familiar. The last time he’d woken to a woman in his bed it had been his wife and she washed her hair with expensive shampoo that smelled like designer perfume, not sweet and fresh like apples.
He pulled away, his hand releasing the breast, his leg sliding off the woman’s thighs as it all came rushing back.
‘Claude?’
Claudia lay frozen for a few seconds; her phone blaring out ‘Summer Nights’ from Grease alerted her to the fact it was Avery calling. Her friend was probably wondering where the hell she’d got to.
Just lying on my bed letting Luke grope me in his sleep.
Sheesh!
Claudia didn’t answer him or even look back as she snatched up the phone and scrambled off the bed, keeping her back firmly turned on Luke.
‘Hi, Avery,’ she said chirpily as she picked up the call.
Luke half sat in the bed, his eyes on her back as the memory of Claudia’s—Claude’s!—breast, her very erect nipple, burnt a hole in his palm. He might have been only semi-awake but he’d been fully aware of its arousal, and that was going to be impossible to forget. Especially with his hard-on pressing insistently against the zipper of his trousers. He wanted desperately to adjust it but there was no way he was touching himself with her right there—back turned or not.
He slid off the bed on the opposite side, not really paying any attention to what Avery and Claude were talking about. He needed some space. Some distance.
For adjusting.
For thinking.
For mental flagellation.
Luke stalked to the open balcony door and stepped gratefully through the curtains and out into the sunshine, easing things inside his underwear as best he could. The harsh sunlight blinded him a little and he squinted against it, raising his arm to block it out.
The ocean was still flat and listless, swishing quietly against the sand, and he took several deep breaths of salty air, filling his lungs with sand and ocean, cleansing it of London smog, wishing it were as easy to cleanse his brain. Erase the memory of Claudia all warm and soft, her nipple stiff and ready.
He turned his back to the vista, the brightness too much for his tired eyes. He shut them but then the edges of his dream fluttered seductively in the periphery of his mind and his eyes snapped open as his erection surged again.
Crap.
What had he done?
He shook his head. No. He’d been having a normal male physiological response to an erotic dream and Claudia just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Nothing more, nothing less.
For God’s sake, they’d grown up practically siblings.
She was like the kid sister he’d never had. Following him around. Getting into all kinds of mischief and strife with him. Sometimes bratty, always devoted. There’d never been anything between them.
He’d never felt anything other than brotherly towards her.
Except the heat in his palm didn’t feel very brotherly. The memory of her softness, of her hardness, felt pretty damn carnal.
Which begged the question—why hadn’t they ever got together? Never had a fling? Never even shared a quick teenage pash? It made sense with their proximity. Of course, she’d been sixteen and he’d been twenty-one when he’d left over eleven years ago but there’d been plenty of times since.
Hell, the only time they’d kissed that didn’t revolve around a hello/goodbye was on New Year’s Eve—and that had never been anything other than a quick chaste peck on the cheek.
‘I have to go,’ Claudia said, stepping briskly out on the balcony in a very businesslike manner, tucking her shirt into her awful polyester capris. But Luke wasn’t fooled. She forgot he knew her better than anyone and she was as flummoxed as he was about the whole groping situation.
‘I’m sorry...about before,’ he said. Luke knew there was only one way to really deal with what had occurred on her bed.
The same way he dealt with everything.
Head-on.
‘Oh...don’t worry about it,’ Claudia dismissed, looking at the balcony tiles and nervously pulling at the wisps of her hair at the nape of her neck. ‘It was nothing.’
‘It was not nothing, Claude. It was not my intention to...molest you in my sleep when I crashed in the bed with you. I don’t think I can be held entirely accountable for my actions given that I wasn’t aware of what I was doing, but I believe in taking responsibility so...I apologise.’
Claudia peeked up at him through her fringe and gave him a vigorous nod. ‘Right...yes...good,’ she said. ‘Now do you think we could never speak of it again?’
Luke laughed then. He’d forgotten how endearingly funny Claudia could be. ‘Deal,’ he said and stuck out his hand.
She shot him a nervous-looking smile but returned the nice firm grip and he lingered for a moment longer than he would normally have. ‘Why didn’t we ever...?’
Claudia frowned. ‘What?’
‘Why didn’t we ever...get it on?’
Claudia pulled her hand from his at the unexpected question. He was so sophisticated now. So different from the boy she’d known. Even the way he spoke had changed. Gone were the broad, flat Aussie vowels. He sounded more cultured now, more anglicised. His voice had taken on a smooth richness that poured over her like thick double cream.
Why hadn’t they ever got together? Was he insane?
Because you were never interested, idiot.
But even as she thought it Claudia knew it wasn’t that simple. There was more to it than that. Much more. Stuff that had never been spoken but somehow she’d known intuitively.
‘Too...complicated.’ She shrugged. ‘We couldn’t have just had a fling where we spent some time together and then went our own separate ways because it wouldn’t just be us getting together, would it? It’d be our parents too. And if something happened...’
Luke nodded as she trailed off. ‘They’d have to take sides. It could ruin a friendship that’s somehow survived twenty years of being in business together.’
And if Luke knew one thing it was how easily work relationships turned to dust, and the long-reaching consequences that could have. He was still paying for the faith he’d put into his.
And he’d vowed to never stick his head in the mouth of that lion ever again.
Claudia shrugged. ‘We couldn’t do that to them. It wouldn’t be fair.’
Luke nodded. She was right. Their parents’ friendship was a very good reason why he needed to forget how it felt to have Claudia smooshed up against him. To have touched her breast. Felt it respond. He shut his eyes to block the mental image even as his palm tingled. He turned around, grabbing the railing hard as he stared out over acres of calm ocean.
Hell. He must be jet-lagged.
Get a grip, man.
Claudia let her gaze wander over the contours of his back. She supposed he didn’t have a tan any more. He used to. Surfing every day with Jonah, he used to go a dark nut-brown. His hair used to be long and shaggy.
And then he’d left.
Claudia dragged her mind back to the present. ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘Avery needs me. Jonah can take you back to Cairns later if you like. I believe there’s an afternoon Qantas flight to Heathrow.’
Luke’s shoulders tensed and he counted to ten before he turned back to face her. ‘I’m not going anywhere for a week,’ he said. ‘I’ll help with the clean-up as much as I can. You might as well just go on and get used to it.’
Claudia regarded him for a moment. His jaw was rigid and his mouth was set in that obstinate line she remembered so well. She’d forgotten how stubborn he could be. And the reality was, she could ill afford to knock back help.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Stay. See if I care. I need every bit of muscle I can get my hands on anyway. But we’re doing this my way—do you understand? I,’ she said, pointing to herself, ‘am the boss. You—’ she pointed at him ‘—are the muscle. Got it?’
Luke suppressed the twitch of his lips at Claudia’s Little Miss Bossy Britches act. He nodded without saying a word. He’d never been known as the muscle before but it brought a whole new connotation to her dominatrix spiel. She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at his easy capitulation but said nothing before turning on her heel and leaving.
His gaze was drawn to the swagger of her butt in those terrible capris.
Who knew polyester could suddenly seem so enticing?
FOUR (#ulink_268b48a5-f940-5141-9a78-6ab1ef40e26b)
The next day they got the all-clear to start the clean-up and for five long days Claudia and the whole crew worked like Trojans to clear the mountains of debris whirled up, ripped to shreds and dumped back down again by the cyclone.
Five long days from sun up to sun down—picking up, chopping up, loading, dumping and starting all over again. Crashing exhausted into bed each night with aches and pains and blisters galore. Waking early to do all again the next day.
Too busy to do any of the leisure things that could usually be indulged in at a beach resort. Too busy to relax on the beach or go surfing after shift end. Too busy for long, boozy chats late into the night. Too busy to take a day off and go out fishing in one of Jonah’s charter boats.
Too damn busy for sure to psychoanalyse a very weird moment that should never have happened. Too busy to question it. Too busy to barely say a dozen words to each other.
But when she shut her eyes, all bets were off and Claudia spent a lot of time fantasising about just where that moment could have gone. If she had shifted against him, slid her arm around his neck. If he had kissed her, if he’d pushed his hand under her shirt.
This was what happened when there were unfulfilled sexual fantasies. They just grew and grew in the deep, dark recesses of the imagination until a person could barely sleep from the wondering.
Maybe they should have got it on as he’d put it. Done it early, rid it from their systems. Hell, their parents would never have even known if they’d had some wild pash one night down on the beach.
It probably would have been one of those awful, soggy, teeth-clashing kisses. Probably. And that would have been that.
Because she sure as hell was spending a lot of her supposed sleep time wondering about a wild pash with Luke now.
Too much bloody time.
* * *
On the sixth day Claudia was busy inside, ostensibly going over the strategic plan, plotting their progress, seeing what else had to be done/arranged and making some phone calls to local suppliers.
And it really had started out that way.
But from the reception desk she had a bird’s eye view of the pool. The pool that Luke had decided was on his to-do list today. She’d actually put it on Cyrus’s list but clearly they’d swapped. So there he was in a pair of boardies. And nothing else.
He didn’t have that deep nutty tan any more. Although, he had toasted to a light delicious golden colour even in the short time he’d spent back under the north Queensland sun. His chest was as hairless as she remembered, just a sprinkling around his nipples and a fine trail that arrowed down from his belly button.
All the way down.
Her work largely forgotten, Claudia, her handy clipboard clutched to her chest, watched Luke clear all the large debris that had been dumped in the previously sparkling water of the large resort pool that meandered its way all around the outside of the main building. He stood on the edge and pulled it all out with a large net. From leaf matter to building wreckage to about a zillion dead insects.
There was no sign of the mobile phone he had practically glued to his hip the entire week. Taking phone calls from London at all hours of the day and night, downing tools while he dealt with whatever matter was deemed urgent enough by the person at the other end to interrupt his week off, then picking up again and getting on with it.
Nope, as he waded into the pool with the hand-held industrial vacuum cleaner the phone was nowhere to be seen. Just Luke and his boardies and a pair of reef shoes to protect him from any glass hazards that could still be lying on the bottom of the pool, hidden by the slightly murky water.
With her occupational health and safety hat on, Claudia was pleased to see Luke being cautious. But that wasn’t what was causing her to openly ogle him.
No.
That would be the way water droplets clung to his arms and chest, glistening distractedly. The midday sun shone down on him, sparkling in the droplets, and he was literally dazzling to her eyes.
Claudia swallowed as she watched his broad shoulders and powerful quads get to work, sweeping at the layer of silt and sand on the bottom of the pool.
‘Hey.’
Claudia almost jumped out of her skin as Avery’s voice sounded right near her ear. ‘Do you have to creep around like that?’ she protested, pressing her hand to her pounding heart.
Avery frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ Claudia muttered, quickly turning back to the desk.
But it was too late. Avery turned to see what had been holding Claudia’s attention. And found it.
Or him, as the case may be.
She grinned. ‘Well, well, well,’ she teased. ‘Were you perving on that gorgeous hunk of man flesh, Miss Claude?’
Claudia refused to look up and give anything away. ‘Just checking he was wearing the appropriate shoes. That’s an accident waiting to happen,’ she fobbed.
Avery grinned again. ‘Uh-huh.’
Claudia glanced at her friend sharply. ‘I was.’
‘Uh-huh.’
Claudia shoved her hand on her hip. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ she demanded.
Avery shrugged in that gorgeous retro Hollywood movie star way of hers. ‘Nothing. I think it’s great that you can’t take your eyes off Captain Sexypants.’
Claudia blinked. Only Avery would come up with such a fanciful nickname. ‘Captain Sexypants?’ Of all the... ‘Just because you are all loved up, Avery Shaw, does not mean the rest of the world is similarly interested.’
‘Uh-huh.’
Avery got that dreamy look in her eyes again—the one that had been an almost permanent fixture on her face since she and Jonah had become an item—and Claudia rolled her eyes, returning her attention to the paperwork in front of her.
‘You can tell me, you know, Claude. We’ve been friends a long time—you know you can talk to me.’
Claudia glanced up as Avery turned serious, her American accent more pronounced when edged with worry. The thing was she knew she could. Or she used to be able to anyway. But then the resort got dumped on her as a sole responsibility and, even though Avery had been there by her side throughout it all, the onus still fell directly on Claudia’s shoulders. Trying to keep it altogether, make it all work, had forced Claudia into an almost permanent state of seriousness, with no time for frivolous girly chatter.
And then Avery had hooked up with Jonah and how could Claudia possibly dump her problems on her friend’s shoulders? Avery was happy—she didn’t want to bother her with trivial stuff.
The days of their girlhood confidences had been well and truly squashed by her very adult responsibilities.
So now she wasn’t sure how she could say, well, actually, Avery, Luke sleep-groped me a few days back and I’m so sexually frustrated I think I might die from it or at the very least jump the next guy who walks through the door.
How could she even voice that, think of her own petty desires, when the world around her had gone to hell and there were so much more important things to deal with?
And it was just as well she didn’t as Jonah chose that moment to walk through the door and Avery’s face lit up as if he were dipped in chocolate and rolled in sugar.
‘I know, Avery,’ Claudia said, and smiled at her best friend in the whole world. ‘I know. I just have a lot on my plate.’
Avery gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘You need a break.’
Claudia nodded. ‘Later.’ She tapped a pen against the resort plans in front of her. ‘After.’
But then Jonah’s, ‘Where are those refreshments, woman?’ boomed across the foyer and Avery said, ‘I’m just going to organise some drinks for the workers.’
Claudia nodded absently. ‘’Kay. See you later.’
Claudia watched as Avery took off in Jonah’s direction and smiled as Jonah swept her up and pressed a very indecent kiss on Avery’s mouth. She looked away.
Outside. To the pool.
Luke was boosting himself up on the side, his back to her. Water sluiced off his hair and down over his shoulders and the perfectly delineated muscles of his back. For a man who had an office job, he was in excellent shape. In one smooth movement he’d twisted and sat on the coping of the pool. The broad expanse of his chest was exposed to her view now and Claudia drank it in. Firm pecs, flat abs and that distinct trail of hair that arrowed from his belly button down...
Before she could follow it all the way to its destination, Luke turned again and pushed up through powerful quads into a standing position.
Her gaze was drawn to those legs. Lightly haired, his calves firm without being bulky. And then there were his boardies. His very wet boardies that clung in all the wrong places, outlining the hardness of quads beneath but also the part of his anatomy she’d felt up close and personal only days before.
Claudia’s mouth suddenly felt as dry as day-old toast.
He chose that moment to look up and suddenly she was looking straight into his eyes. Eyes that, despite distance and the barrier of glass, seemed to pierce right to her centre. Their gazes locked and held and Claudia’s heart banged around in her chest. Her breath hitched. Her mouth went from dry to arid.
There was a frankness to his gaze and in that instant she knew, she just knew, he’d been aware of her interest all along. A part of her wanted to hide behind the desk, hide from the directness in his gaze, but he chose that moment to sweep a flat palm up his belly to his chest and her eyes helplessly followed.
She couldn’t look away.
He motioned to her then, inviting her to join him and, God help her, she wanted to. Really freaking bad.
But the phone rang, dragging her back from the edge, and she leapt on it as if it were the last life buoy left on a sinking ship, picking it up and brandishing it at him, barely stopping herself from kissing it.
He looked at her long and hard for a moment before shrugging and nodding and she turned away gratefully, catching her breath as she greeted the caller, her usual chipper phone manner lost in the mental images of a half-naked Luke.
Captain Sexypants indeed.
* * *
Later that evening, with the bulk of the clean-up finally completed, Claudia threw an impromptu luau down on the beach for all the volunteers. Back before the resort was blown to hell, every Saturday night was luau night. It was one of their most popular themed events amongst their largely family clientele as well as Crescent Cove locals.
This wasn’t going to be anywhere near as fancy as that. There wouldn’t be drums and ukuleles to hula to and there wouldn’t be the usual feast but then, there wouldn’t be two hundred people either. There was only a dozen to cater for and, given that there was enough raw material to make a bonfire big enough to be seen from space, all they really needed was some fresh seafood and some cold drinks.
Jonah had been tasked with taking one of his boats out and catching some fish, which he’d done most admirably. Tony, their chef, who was still with them after all these years, had cooked the fish along with an amazing rice-in-coconut-milk concoction and piping-hot fresh bread. Avery had dug out the leis and a CD of Hawaiian music.
And even if partying was the last thing Claudia and her aching body felt like, she put on her uniform, plastered a smile on her face and was the chipper Claude that everyone knew and loved because these people had helped out and worked like dogs, out of the goodness of their hearts, and she owed them.
But it felt good to sit down on one of the logs that ringed the fire and just listen to the chatter and the swish of the ocean. To not do anything. It felt like the first time she’d sat and done nothing for over a week.
She buried her toes in the cool sand and let the bliss take over. Hull, Jonah’s hulking great hound, had collapsed on the sand beside her.
She tipped her head from side to side to stretch out aching neck muscles. She rubbed at the left side with her hand and winced as her index finger twinged. She looked down at her hands. They were in bad shape from a week of hard labour—some old blisters on her palms in various stages of healing, her fingers rough and dry from pulling out a zillion splinters.
She’d kill for a day at one of those fancy spas.
Iron out the kinks with a massage. Get a pedicure. Sit in a sauna and soak half the day. Maybe one of those full-body scrubs.
Nearby laughter pulled her out of her fantasy and Claudia smiled as she watched Cyrus and Isis perform a rather good hula. Jonah in his boardies and Avery in a tangerine bikini with a matching sarong low on her hips danced a much closer, sexier number in the shadows further away, lost in each other.
A pang of jealousy bit Claudia hard in the chest.
‘They look good together.’
Claudia looked up, all the way up, to find Luke looking down at her. He was in boardies as well—dry this time, thank goodness—and his chest was covered with a form-fitting T-shirt. She resolutely ignored the wetter, less dressed image of him that floated in her mind’s eye but his eyebrow kicked up and he looked at her as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.
‘Yes, they do,’ she said and hoped like hell the words didn’t sound as squeaky as they’d felt leaving her throat.
She was relieved when he broke eye contact, handing her a frosty bottle of beer. She took it gratefully as he stepped over the log and lowered his butt, plonking down beside her.
Claudia shifted to make some room for him.
Or put some space between them, anyway.
She looked back at the fire, which had settled from a blazing inferno to a dull roar, as they both took some swallows of their beers, neither saying anything for a few moments. Until Luke mentioned the elephant sitting next to them at the fire.
‘I was hoping you’d join me in the pool today. Just like old times.’ Luke had been acutely aware of her eyes on him today and his blood had flowed thick and sludgy through his veins as her gaze had continued to linger.
Claudia kept her eyes firmly fixed on the flames that danced before her. Why had he hoped that? Surely after a sleepy grope he knew they’d progressed far beyond the innocent pool games they’d played as kids? Even through the glass of the window she’d felt the pull of him, had been aware of him like no other man.
‘I don’t do much swimming these days,’ she dismissed.
‘What, not even in that magnificent ocean right on your doorstep?’
She shook her head. ‘Too busy.’
Luke took a swig of his beer ‘That’s a shame...I seem to remember you looked good in a bikini.’
Claudia faltered, her pulse flickering madly in time with the flame as she glanced at him. What was she supposed to say to that? Since when did you pay any attention to how I looked in a bikini? Or, not as good as you do in wet clingy boardies?
Or maybe, more aptly, don’t flirt with me?
‘I leave the bikinis to Avery,’ she said, dropping her gaze to the fire again. ‘There’s too much to do at the moment to bunk off for a cool dip.’
Luke tutted at her dismissal. ‘The clean-up’s essentially done,’ Luke said. ‘I’m sure you could have squeezed in a quick, dirty swim.’
Claudia, who almost choked on her beer, was shocked into looking at him again. He laughed at her scandalised look, then winked. ‘I was referring to the state of the water.’
She narrowed her eyes at him, wondering how many beers he’d consumed. Maybe the jet lag was hitting him in one large wallop and taking over his mouth.
Either way, she chose to ignore his comment and the direction he seemed to want to steer the conversation. ‘The outside is largely complete but there’s still a long way to go,’ she said. ‘We have to keep moving forward.’
Luke sighed at her determination to stay serious. He’d hoped as he’d sat beside her that she’d loosen up a little—relax as everyone else was doing.
But no. The uniform should have been a clue.
‘So what’s next?’ he asked as he reached down and absently petted a mellow Hull.
Claudia took a mouthful of her beer before she answered. ‘Back to the drawing board. Starting again. Working out how much I can do with the insurance money.’
‘It’s not going to cover it all?’
Claudia shook her head. ‘It may have been enough twenty years ago, not today. Hell, it’d probably have been enough for just a normal cyclone but...’
Luke took a swig of his drink and watched Claudia’s toes, painted a cute shade of pink, wiggle in the sand.
‘So you want to talk about where we go from here?’
He felt her tense beside him and her toes stopped their wriggling. ‘I’m not selling to some consortium, some...giant hotel chain, Luke.’ She glared at him and Luke couldn’t decide if the flare in her eyes came from her sudden well of pissed off, or the fire.
‘If you’ve stopped by to butter me up about that you might as well keep on going.’
Luke knew it was important to stay calm and frankly he was too wrecked from a week of hard yakka to get into an argument. ‘Okay, so what are we going to do?’
‘The Tropicana has been here for forty years. Our parents ran it together for twenty of those years. And it will be again.’
‘Complete with Tiki Suites, salsa nights and lei stringing?’
Luke felt her hostile glance shoot bullets of disapproval straight into his chest.
‘Yes. What’s wrong with those things?’ she demanded. ‘I know they probably don’t seem very sophisticated to Mr Hotshot Ad Exec, but the Tropicana has always been a family resort—that’s the way our parents wanted it. And that’s the way it’s going to stay.’
‘And what about you, Claude? What do you want?’
Claudia frowned. Where was the man who had teased her about a bikini before? He was looking at her as he had by the pool earlier, as if he was trying to see all the way to the inside. And now, as then, it discomforted her.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean if you were given a bottomless bucket of money and told you could build whatever you wanted—anything—what would you build? Not what our parents wanted, not what the town wants, not what’s always been. What Claudia Davis wants.’
Luke watched her intently as she opened her mouth to say something and then shut it again. Conflict crinkled her brow. Wisps of blonde hair had loosened from her ponytail and the ocean breeze blew them gently across her face. The firelight played across her features complementing their fineness but it also illuminated her internal struggle, backlit her doubt.
She chewed on her bottom lip, contemplating the question as if he’d just asked her to tell him the meaning of life in ten words or less. The firelight glowed in the moisture she was creating and his gaze dropped to her mouth briefly before returning to the fire, tuning into the background noises of surf, laughter and hula music.
He drank his beer and waited quietly for her to figure it out. Was the question really that difficult?
Claudia contemplated the rim of her beer bottle, conscious of the time ticking away. She didn’t know. She’d been so caught up in her parents’ vision it had become her own. And she loved the kitschy, retro feel they’d created. But was it what she wanted?
What did she want?
She rubbed absently at her neck again and the muscles protested. ‘A day spa,’ she said on a whim. ‘A place for people to be pampered.’
Luke blinked, both surprised and excited by her answer. ‘Yeah?’
For a brief moment their eyes met and the spark in his caused a flutter of possibility inside Claudia’s chest. But reality intruded and snuffed it out. She shook her head. ‘The people we attract here can’t afford that kind of decadence, Luke. We’re the affordable alternative.’
‘Can’t we be both?’
Claudia frowned. ‘Being good at one thing is better than being half-arsed at two.’
‘So then let’s not be half-arsed. Let’s be some kind of hybrid resort where we cater to both ends of the market.’
‘I think that’ll be really confusing to the market, don’t you? High-ticket clients aren’t going to want to be bothered by a bunch of screaming kids and salsa lessons on the beach.’
Luke shrugged. ‘So we keep them separate—we have enough land. Why shut ourselves off to another, potentially very lucrative, source of income?’
Claudia could feel that flutter again and her pulse picked up slightly as her imagination started to run a little wild. Avery would be great at managing and running a spa business. Temptation shimmied possibilities in front of her—typical that Luke would be an integral part of that, enticing her with firelight and his strange but lovely accent like a big, fat, juicy apple.
She dragged her gaze off him and looked into the fire. Bad enough that he’d reminded her of how she’d perved on him in the pool today, but now he was waving a shiny new future in front of her.
Get behind me, Satan.
Luke was encouraged by Claudia’s contemplation, the little flare of interest he’d seen in her gaze. He nudged his thigh against hers and a quiver of something hot and sinful spread all the way up to his groin. ‘Just think about it, Claude. You don’t have to rush into anything.’
Claudia looked down at his thigh, all warm and muscled in the firelight. And tempting. Oh, so tempting. It was hot against hers and she didn’t think it had anything to do with the fire. Did he feel it too or was it just her? She wondered what he’d do if she slid her hand onto it. If she slowly moved it upwards.
Right. To. The. Top.
She blinked as the image formed in real time in her head and stood abruptly, shocked by the ferocity of the urge to follow through. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said, looking straight ahead. Not down at him. And his eyes. And his smile.
And his outrageously sexy accent.
Luke smiled at the stiffness of her stance. ‘Good,’ he murmured.
Claudia nodded. ‘Right, well...I think I might turn in,’ she said, still not looking at him.
Luke chuckled. ‘Sweet dreams.’
Claudia swallowed as she thought about the dreams she’d been having this last week.
Not one of them sweet.
‘See you in the morning,’ she said with as much nonchalance as she could muster before she fled the beach for the safety of the Copacabana Suite, far away from men with sexy accents and delectable thighs.
FIVE (#ulink_57c35348-ea7e-5954-922d-3b6331a4c9ff)
Claudia barely slept a wink. It was as if Luke had tripped some switch in her brain and a hundred different possibilities for what the Tropicana could be had bombarded her. And frankly it was a relief to think about something other than the way Luke’s hand had felt on her breast. The way his boardies had clung to him in the pool.
The way his thigh had sizzled against hers.
By the time morning rocked around, her head was buzzing. And she needed to share! Avery and Jonah weren’t on her radar—she’d walked in on them too many times to know that spontaneous bursts of shared creativity were off the table.
But the one man who had inspired them was just through a connecting door and he was in there alone.
She rose at six, climbed into her uniform—the skirt for a change—and made copious notes. When she was all spent she took to the floor, pacing it until the clock ticked over to seven—a perfectly reasonable hour. After that, all propriety was off. She rapped once on the door before pushing it open, knowing in her gut that Luke wouldn’t have locked it.
The room was like a black hole when she pressed inside but that didn’t deter her. It was only eight in the evening in the UK—still a perfectly decent hour. She marched over to the curtains from familiarity alone and yanked them back with a harsh squeal along the railing. Another impossibly sunny day greeted her and was surprisingly buoying.

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