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