‘I come off shift at three a.m. I can talk to you then, but not before,’ she said, aware that Van the Terrible was lurking in the shadows, watching them.
Picking up her mop and bucket, she stalked off the dance floor before Luke had the chance to say a word.
There was only one small consolation in all of this. Her body might be trembling like a leaf, but she was earning a living, and however small that living might be when compared to Luke’s vast income she was living independently. Two small consolations, Lucia conceded with surprise. Confronting Luke hadn’t frightened her. She hadn’t backed down and slithered away to do his bidding. She had felt as if she’d been in a perpetual state of fear since London—finally she was beginning to feel alive again.
So she didn’t need him. Good. He shouldn’t get involved. He would call Nacho—let him take over. Lucia was wild and had set herself on a very different path from him. He was all about polo and business, and had no intention of being distracted or pulled down by anyone. Lucia was clearly on a downward trajectory. With every advantage in the world, she had chosen to work in a club.
Really? Did he believe that?
All he knew for certain at this point was that in his family no one went against expectation, and feelings were curbed as stringently as any horse in a dressage arena. Lucia was composed entirely of emotion. She was an untameable Acosta. He should put her out of his mind for good
Which was easier said than done. He was becoming increasingly worried about her, and in spite of the cold facts he owed Nacho.
Was that all?
So she was attractive. He would soon tire of all the drama.
Wasn’t it entertaining to be around someone with so much character for a change?
Didn’t he love to hunt?
He liked the chase best of all.
What the hell was he thinking?
Lucia was the kid sister of his closest friend. She was out of bounds. And, in the unlikely event that he found himself in the mood for a walk on the wild side, he’d choose someone as worldly as he was—not some pampered Argentinian princess.
Who wasn’t too proud to get down on her hands and knees and scrub a filthy club if that was what it took.
And who was one hell of a good-looking woman, Luke conceded, even in the extraordinary outfit Lucia was forced to wear at work.
All the more reason for him to keep his distance. With his blood boiling in his veins she was safer away from him.
Three o’clock in the morning came and went. The last patron had left the club. They had swept up and tidied and Luke had gone. She’d been too busy to notice when he left. He had left with the blonde, she presumed, feeling sick inside. He definitely hadn’t remembered what day it was today.
So what? Why should she care if Luke had forgotten it was her birthday? She didn’t need him. Luke Forster could go to hell in a bucket for all she cared.
‘Didn’t your birthday start at midnight?’ Grace asked, giving Lucia’s arm a squeeze as they left the club together.
‘How did you know?’ Lucia asked as they took shelter for a moment before braving the rain.
‘I know everything about you,’ Grace teased fondly.
Including Lucia’s real name. Grace was too good a friend for Lucia to want to deceive her. ‘So you’ve heard the party-girl rumours too?’
Grace laughed. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word. You’re not a party girl any more than I am, Lucia. But some of our friends at the club seem to think we should lighten up a bit.’
‘I hope you’re not referring to Van Rickter?’
Grace frowned. ‘I wouldn’t call him a friend, exactly, but there are other nice people working at the club.’
‘What are you hiding under your jacket?’ Lucia enquired as they crossed the road.
‘We had a whip-round for your birthday,’ Grace explained, starting to smile.
‘What is it?’ Lucia asked, her curiosity well and truly roused.
‘I’m not saying. I don’t want to spoil the surprise. But I will tell you this much—everyone seems determined to tempt at least one of us off the straight and narrow this year.’
‘It might take a bit longer than that for me,’ Lucia admitted, shivering as the cold wind whipped around her.
‘Don’t be such a defeatist,’ Grace teased. ‘A lot can happen quickly if you’re lucky.’
Lucia huffed as Grace squeezed her arm again, and then both girls screamed as they sploshed through an icy puddle in the middle of the road.
‘I stuck a couple of mags in the bag as well,’ Grace called out as they parted company at the entrance to the Sundowner Holiday Park. ‘You might recognise one of the centrefolds. You were talking to him in the club.’
Lucia’s heart went crazy with excitement. The centrefold was hardly going to be Van Rickter—unless the magazine in question was Amphibian World.
She ran all the way to the caravan and, throwing her shoulder against the buckled door, launched herself inside. Dropping her things on the floor, she snatched the magazines out of the gift bag and flung herself onto the lumpy bunk. Leafing through as fast as she could, she stalled at the centre page of the second magazine.
Luke Forster was ROCK!’s Torso of the Year.
Dropping the magazine, she threw herself back against the cold tin wall. ‘You blue-blooded hypocrite!’ Her main gripe was not how Luke looked—which was pretty spectacular by any standards—but the way he behaved when he was around her, as if he were a paragon of all the virtues. ‘So you’re incorruptible, are you?’
Now, this was worrying. Not only was she talking to herself, but she was involving a magazine in the conversation. With an angry huff, she plucked the gum from her mouth and stuck Luke’s centrefold to the wall. ‘Take that!’ A thump from her fist secured it. Standing back, she had to concede Luke’s centrefold did brighten things up a bit.
So where was he? Lucia wondered, going through her nightly routine of getting ready for bed in the freezing caravan by piling on more clothes. If Luke was still in Cornwall he was probably tucked up in a nice warm room at the Grand by now—with the blonde. Ack! And if he thought about Lucia at all it would only be to wonder if she was ready to go home yet.
‘No, I’m not ready,’ she snarled, glaring at Luke’s poster. ‘And I’m not giving up. I can’t give up. I can’t go home. Not like this….’
Their nice, warm kitchen in Argentina, where the roof never leaked and the floor was never cold, and she had never once had to pick ice off the insides of the windows …
Unscrewing the top of the flask of hot chocolate that Margaret left on the table each night, she scowled at Luke’s centrefold as she gulped the warm liquid down. She tried not to think about the list of goals she had intended to achieve by now—goals Lucia had been so confident were achievable when she was fourteen.
Reaching beneath the bed, she drew out the precious tote full of memories and extracted the battered notebook in which, as a dreamy-eyed teen, she had written down her innermost hopes and dreams. She didn’t often do this. She saved it for when things were really bad. The bag of dreams, as she called the old canvas tote, was her comforter. It contained her journal from when she was fourteen, and her rather more neglected journal from now. She pulled the old one out and started to read.
It is imperative to follow this