‘Wait!’ Van Rickter barked in a way she was certain must draw Luke’s attention. ‘If you’re off the floor longer than five minutes, you’re fired. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Crystal,’ Lucia said, backing towards the stockroom.

‘Find the biggest uniform you can’ was Van’s parting shot.

‘Thank you. I will.’

She disappeared behind the door with a gust of relief. She couldn’t care less what Van Rickter thought about her. Ever since London she had wanted to be thought a sexless amoeba without cheekbones, breasts or a waist. Seeing Luke had only reinforced that desperate wish. Far from wanting to flirt with him, she would happily turn her back on all men with the greatest relief. And whatever sort of mess her life was in, she would sort it out. Not her brothers. And definitely not Luke.

Last year’s uniform wasn’t much better on her than this year’s, but at least it had a skirt. Well, almost. Wriggling into it, she plucked the matching satin shirt from its hanger and slipped it on, tying it beneath her ample breasts. She hesitated over the grubby plastic camellia blossom she was supposed to pin behind her ear. There were limits.

She walked out of the stockroom straight into Luke. Just her luck—he was at the bar buying drinks. Now she couldn’t breathe, let alone pull something out of the bag to defuse the shocked look in his eyes. ‘Luke!’ she said, feigning surprise as her heart threatened to explode. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I might ask you the same question.’ he said, taking a step back to eye her up and down.

Telling herself she was used to alpha males, having grown up with four of them, she lifted her chin. ‘This is where we always go,’ she said, gesturing around as if she was at the club with a huge gang of friends. This only succeeded in causing Luke’s eyes to narrow with disbelief.

With shock crackling between them as Luke scoffed disbelievingly, she drank him in. Luke was the essence of male. Bigger and more powerful than the other men in the club, he was infinitely better looking. Luke had always been able to melt her with a glance—though at the moment that glance was doing its best to incinerate her, which for once rested more comfortably with Lucia than the smouldering, sexy look Luke was so good at. He was even bigger than she remembered—harder, tougher—though, as always, immaculately groomed, with shoulders wide enough to hoist an ox and hard-muscled legs that went on and on to … to a point from which she quickly averted her eyes.

While she had not only let herself go, but was wearing last year’s shabby club uniform, with her hair scraped back and her face glowing red and shiny beneath the lights. Perfect.

‘Lucia?’ Luke rapped sternly, staring down at her with knife-sharp eyes. ‘Are you working here?’

Of course she should have said, What’s it to you? But a row might draw attention and she couldn’t afford to lose this job. ‘No, of course I’m not working here,’ she protested with a laugh, glancing around to make sure no one had heard Luke calling her by her real name. ‘I come here so often they let me hang my coat in the stockroom.’

‘Really?’ Luke drawled, with an even more contemptuous expression in his brooding amber gaze.

‘Okay, from time to time,’ she admitted, brushing it off as she continued to stare at a face that was mesmerising in its harsh masculine beauty. If you wanted hard there was no better hard to be had than Luke Forster—as her yearning and thoroughly confused body would now attest. But Van was prowling, Lucia noticed. ‘Gin and orange for your friend?’ she suggested as the blonde, having exited the restroom, made a beeline for them.

‘I have ordered our drinks, thank you,’ Luke said coolly. ‘Vanessa,’ he murmured, in what Lucia considered an unnecessarily indulgent tone, ‘I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine.’

‘Not so much of the old,’ Lucia joked weakly, feeling awkward and ridiculously exposed when she compared herself to Luke’s neatly styled friend. The blonde was even prettier close up, and was hanging on to Luke’s arm as if her life depended on it.

‘Do you work here?’ Vanessa enquired, visibly relaxing once she had assessed Lucia and found her lacking in—well, practically everything.

‘I help out here occasionally,’ Lucia said carefully.

‘How nice to have such a … sociable job.’ The blonde looked at Luke for approval of her assessment, but Luke was too busy studying Lucia.

Van, having spotted money, was sniffing around. ‘Have you seen our new casino yet?’ he crowed.

Van clearly imagined he had found a high-roller in Luke, but Lucia knew Luke had never gambled in his life, and rarely drank. Having summoned another of his serfs—a far more attractive cocktail waitress than Lucia—Van ushered the small group away.

The only good thing about it, Lucia mused from the shelter of the bar, was that Van was so drunk on the scent of money he had chosen to walk backward in front of Luke—until he collided with a table and then had to turn and chase after his big-striding guest.

The crowd on the dance floor fell back at Luke’s advance like the Red Sea parting, and Luke paused at the entrance to the casino just long enough to shoot a stare at Lucia that assured her this wasn’t nearly over yet.

Get a flat

Admittedly, this is not quite the accommodation I had in mind. But, again, there are reasons. And holiday parks are all the rage, offering an unparalleled level of lifestyle, according to the ads I’ve read in magazines. Sadly, my des res is a leaking tin can on wheels, with no discernible braking system, parked in a ramshackle field on the edge of a crumbling cliff a good half-mile walk from the shelter of the guest house. Try that out for size in a sleet storm in winter.

SHE spent the rest of the shift swinging like a pendulum between kicking herself because Luke had caught her out and wondering how on earth to explain to her brothers’ clearly bemused friend what she was doing there—without actually telling him what had happened, that was. Why hadn’t she been frank with him and looked to Luke to keep her safe? He was the next best thing to a brother, wasn’t he? Why hadn’t she told him the truth?

Because it was none of Luke’s damn business!

And because she had never felt more ashamed or more soiled in her life. He would never look at her the same way again if he knew … She couldn’t be further from her dream of building her own life, independent of Luke and her brothers, Lucia realised as Van switched off the soft lights in the club after another long night, turning on the harsh glare of factory-style strip-lighting.

There was a song about a girl from South America who was tall and young and lovely. Lucia had used to hum it beneath her breath when she was a pre-teen, never dreaming she would turn into the other girl from Ipanema—the one who was short and a bit too fat, plain and olive-skinned. And stupid. She had to be stupid to have got herself into such a mess in London. How could she go home and tell them the truth now? It was all too humiliating, too shameful.

So she would ride this storm out like any other, Lucia told herself firmly. She just hadn’t fathomed out how yet.

She had been monumentally thrown at seeing Luke again, Lucia reasoned as she helped the barman clean the bar. She was making the climb back, though, however long it was taking, and she should cut herself some slack. Tonight the best thing she could do was to concentrate on cleaning up and earning a night’s pay.

His attention on the blonde hadn’t so much slipped as fallen down a ravine—a ravine with Lucia at the bottom of it. To say he was shocked at seeing her working here would be putting it mildly. It was a world away from the last time he’d seen her, dancing so hotly he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. How had she gone from that to working for a toad like Van Rickter? How was that supposed to further Lucia’s career? And where was she living? Who was she spending time with? What had happened to the girl who had blown him out of the water with her sass, her dancing, her brilliant smile, her world-class flirting, her breasts? Okay, so the breasts were still pretty amazing, but the rest …