Do Not Disturb

by Tilly Bagshawe

  Pulling on her running shorts and sneakers, she looked out the window while Caleb went demented with excitement, hurling himself at the front door to her suite like a canine battering ram. March storm clouds were gathering, but they looked high enough in the sky that there was a good chance they’d blow over. A run would do her good, warm her up for the marathon fucking session she fully intended on having later.

  “Come on then, you moron,” she said, ruffling Caleb’s ears affectionately as she grabbed his leash from the coffee table. “Let’s go.”

  Stuck in his trailer on the building site, Lucas was rapidly losing the will to live.

  Three weeks he’d been here now—three weeks, one day, and two hours, to be precise—and he didn’t think he’d had more than forty hours’ sleep since his plane landed. He had bags under his eyes the size of Louis Vuitton trunks, and his voice had taken on the hoarse, gravelly Serge Gainsbourg edge it always got when he was chronically overtired, exacerbated in this instance by hours spent screaming down the phone at everyone from architects to lawyers to building suppliers.

  To Lucas’s amazement, Anton had been sanguine to the point of nonchalance about his depressing report from the front line and completely relaxed that he’d summarily fired the foreman.

  “It’s always the way,” he commented blithely. “When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, my boy, very little that construction companies do, or don’t do, will surprise you. Now that you’re out there things will kick up a notch.”

  A notch? Did the man have no idea what they were up against? Naturally a workaholic, Lucas went into overdrive, spurred on by his terror of failure and his fury at the steady stream of negative campaigning that had been spewing out of the Palmers camp for months. It turned out that it wasn’t only the locals that Honor had poisoned: seemingly, she’d been busy as a bee, bad-mouthing Anton and the Tischen chain generally, as well as Lucas personally, in a whole bunch of lifestyle magazines, including the influential World Traveler. He couldn’t imagine how Anton had missed it. But then again, he’d missed it too. There simply hadn’t been enough hours in the day to keep track of everything before he left Europe, and there still weren’t. But from now on, he’d be all over that bitch like a rash.

  By day, he spent hour after hour glued to the phone in the poky little trailer, hiring site managers, contractors, and engineers, most of whom he didn’t even have time to meet before they showed up for work. It was risky, he knew, using cheap, anonymous labor like that, choosing builders purely because they were available and gave him the lowest quote. But his only hope of meeting Anton’s targets was to flood the place with more workers than an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, and pray that they worked as fast. Already the site was crawling with men like an enormous muddy anthill, while Julian, the stressed-out architect’s assistant who did most of his boss’s work, yelled at them ineffectually through a bullhorn, waving his drawings in the bitter March wind like a surrender flag.

  At night, Lucas spent long hours doing press searches on the Internet, perched on a packing case in the little beach cottage his moron of a relocation agent had rented for him—what did she think he was, a fucking Munchkin? The ceilings were so low he hit his head everywhere, and the place had more pink and lace than Liberace’s bedroom. Though he was desperate for sleep, he knew he had to think of ways to hit back at Palmers. If Honor was to be believed, every senator, film star, and pop artist in her little black book had committed to take suites at Palmers for the summer. If he read one more puff piece about the hotel’s “astonishing revival” he was going to throw up.

  Then, this morning, his annoyance level had shot up still further when the expensive new multiline phone system he’d had installed in the trailer had died on him, right in the middle of a crucial conversation with Dean Roberts, his head architect and the hapless Julian’s boss.

  “Fucking motherfucker, son of a motherfucking bitch!” he yelled. Switching on his new state-of-the-art US cell phone to try to call Dean back, the words no service flashed in cheerful neon pink across the LCD screen. The guy in the T-Mobile store had warned him that reception locally was erratic and suggested that if all else failed, he could try the beach.

  Sighing heavily, Lucas grabbed the keys to his rented Ford pickup, which had an extended cab. It was a fucking farce, trying to get anything done in this stinking country.

  In the car he turned up the Van Halen full blast and opened all the windows to keep himself from nodding off. Not even his anger could stop the tiredness lapping at his body like a rising tide, and for once he was grateful for the light drizzle of rain blowing into the car and pricking his cheeks, keeping him awake. He had to go home and sleep tonight, no matter what.

  Pulling into the almost deserted beach parking lot a few minutes later, he turned off the ignition, pulled out his phone, and looked again for the slightest flickering of a bar to indicate he had reception.

  Nothing. If he lost any more time because of this, he’d sue T-fucking-Mobile…

  Swearing under his breath, he grabbed an umbrella from the backseat and got out, slamming the driver’s door and pulling his sweater more tightly around him against the bitter, wet wind as he set off toward the shore. It was easier to get fucking network coverage up a hill in Ibiza than it was on Long Island. Fucking ridiculous.

  He must have trudged half a mile along the sand before his phone finally stuttered into life. Quickly punching in Dean’s direct line, he cupped his hand against his ear to block out the roar of the ocean behind him.

  “Look, darling, I don’t care if he’s in a meeting,” he shouted into the mouthpiece at the unfortunate receptionist. “I’ve spent the past hour trying to get hold of him. I’m shivering my ass off on a fucking freezing beach here. I can assure you, he wants to take this call.”

  The next thing he heard was some tinny hold music, followed by an ominous rumble of thunder and two dramatic flashes of sheet lightning. He barely had time to open his umbrella before the heavens opened and a veritable monsoon of water began pounding down onto the beach.

  “Shit, shit shit.” There were some dunes about fifty feet away that would have offered him some protection beyond the feeble respite afforded by the umbrella. He contemplated making a dash for it but decided it wasn’t worth the risk of losing his precious signal again.

  “I’m putting you back on hold for just a moment, Mr. Ruiz,” the girl’s voice drifted back to him through the din of the storm. “Mr. Roberts will be with you very shortly.”

  “No!” Lucas shouted. “Don’t put me on—” But it was too late. The whiny refrain of “Greensleeves” had already started up, and the rain, if anything, was intensifying.

  “Excuse me?”

  Lucas jumped a mile when someone tapped him on the back. Spinning around, his adrenaline pumping, his fear soon turned to annoyance: it was just a kid. Dressed in running shorts and a thin tank top, the tiny, androgynous figure was soaked to the bone.

  “Have you seen…” it panted, “a dog? He ran into the surf ten minutes ago, and I’m worried he might have…it’s so rough out there.”

  On closer inspection, Lucas could see that “it” was in fact a “she,” and not a child but a very short young woman. Despite her tiny build, there was something unnervingly mannish about her. Her hips were thrust forward, and she squared her shoulders with subconscious aggression when she spoke to him, in a low, husky voice that also seemed quite at odds with her doll-like frame. The only touches of femininity were the brilliant green eyes, like violent slits of storm-wet grass, and the perfect smoothness of her skin.

  “He’s a boxer, about yay high.” She held her hand up to the level of her waist, looking up at him pleadingly. “He’s brown and white, with a—”

  “No,” said Lucas, cutting her off. “Sorry. I haven’t seen anything.”

  He knew he was being rude. But Dean would be on the line any moment, and he needed to concentrate. If he didn’t get the signed contract from th
is guy today and get him and his men out here by next week, he risked losing more precious months of development time. The last thing he had the time for was to go running around the beach on a wild-goose chase because some dippy girl was too stupid to control her dog.

  “Look, please, he might be drowning. Would you mind helping me look for him?” The desperation in her voice was palpable.

  Her arms, Lucas noticed, were thin and muscly, like a sprinter’s, and her chest was so flat he could have ironed his shirt on it. Why did women do that to themselves? Exercise away all their curves like that? Didn’t they realize how unsexy it looked?

  “I wouldn’t normally ask,” the girl went on, “but there’s no one else around and it’s such a huge area to cover.” She gazed forlornly along the sodden beach in both directions. There were tears in her eyes. “And he can’t swim, you see. He thinks he can. But he’s such a dumb dog…”

  “Look.” Lucas held up his phone bad-temperedly. “I’m on an important call here, OK? If you can’t control your dog you shouldn’t take him out.” He turned away from her as the project manager finally picked up the line. “Ah, Dean. Sorry about that. I’m having a few technical problems I’m afraid. Where were we?”

  Jogging along the sand a few minutes later, calling Caleb’s name into the wind, Honor let her anger distract her from the awful worry. What a vile, rude, arrogant man! Not only had he refused to help her look for poor Caleb, but he hadn’t even offered her shelter under his huge umbrella! What sort of a jerk-off stood there making phone calls when a woman was practically drowning right in front of him? And when a dog might be dying, for God’s sake, struggling for breath in those huge, punishing waves?

  OK, so he was a good-looking jerk-off. Why was it that handsome, rich men always figured they could get away with anything? That the rules of good manners that lesser mortals lived by didn’t apply to them?

  Assholes like him were ten a penny in Boston. Honor could totally picture this guy’s life: probably some stinking rich investment banker, down at his beach house for a few days and pissed because of the shitty weather, used to taking out his bad moods on his wife or his secretary or whichever other of his minions happened to be around.

  Bozo.

  Fucking vain, spoiled…

  Breaking away from her indignant thoughts, her heart suddenly soared as a very wet, very tired, and somewhat sheepish-looking Caleb came ambling across the wet sand in her direction. Thank God he was OK.

  “There you are! You bad boy.” She grinned.

  Stopping a few feet in front of her, Caleb sat down sedately and started wagging his tail, a picture of obedience all of a sudden.

  “Oh, don’t you give me that,” said Honor, sinking to her knees while she clipped on his leash and hugged him, pressing her face against his sodden fur. She felt quite choked with emotion. What would she have done if she’d lost him? “You are such a pain in the ass. But you can make it up to me by keeping your eyes peeled for an asshole on a cell phone, OK? If either of us sees him, I want you to kill. Got it? Kill! You think you can do that?”

  Cocking his head to one side, the dog looked at her blankly.

  “Never mind,” said Honor, shivering as she stroked his head lovingly. Now that he was back safe, she was suddenly feeling the cold. “I’m wiped out, anyway. Let’s go home.”

  Later that night, wrapped up in a cashmere blanket and slippers and clutching a hot water bottle to her chest, she told Devon all about her encounter with the rude man on the beach.

  “I mean, he just stood there,” she raged between sneezes. “It was the biggest umbrella I’ve ever seen in my life, and he left me standing there like a drowned rat. He’d have let Caleb drown.”

  “Shhh.” Devon handed her the hot whiskey toddy he’d had ordered up from the Palmers bar. “Save your voice, honey. The main thing is that you found Caleb and you both got home safe.” He frowned. “I don’t like that you were out there half dressed in this awful weather. You need to take better care of yourself, Honor.”

  Honor sipped the whiskey and smiled. Sometimes it annoyed her when Devon talked down to her like a little girl. But tonight it felt comforting to be babied. Having never had that reassurance from her own father, it was a huge part of her attraction to him, and she knew it.

  “Why?” she teased him. “Don’t you like the idea of another man seeing me in a wet T-shirt?”

  Taking off his jacket and loosening his tie, Devon climbed up onto the bed. Removing the drink from her hand, he put it down gently on the bedside table and pinned her arms back against the pillows, bringing his face right down to hers.

  “No,” he said gruffly. “I don’t.”

  Kissing her, tasting the whiskey and lemon in her mouth, feeling the tiny but firm apples of her breasts rising up to meet his hands as he moved them slowly down over her body, he felt a wave of desire and possessiveness wash over him.

  Being away from her for so long had been hard, stuck in Boston with Karis and her incessant demands for attention. Though he’d told Honor he no longer made love with his wife, this wasn’t strictly true. Sex was infrequent and, from Devon’s perspective, perfunctory. In his own mind sharing the marital bed wasn’t really a betrayal of Honor, more something he kept from her out of consideration, because it would hurt her. But Karis would have smelled a rat if he’d switched their love life off completely—he daren’t risk it.

  It did make him feel a little weird, though. When he was at home in Boston, his life continued much the same as it always had. He loved Honor, and he missed her, missed her mind, her body, her touch, everything. And yet when he was away, there were days when his relationship with her felt almost like a dream. Karis, the kids, the office—they were reality. It was becoming easier to compartmentalize his affair, to switch it off mentally, when he needed to.

  “I need you,” Honor whispered. Shrugging off her blanket and sliding down the bed beneath him, she opened her legs and wrapped them tightly around his waist, like a baby monkey clinging to its parent.

  “And I you,” said Devon. Easing himself out of his pants, he slipped inside her, as urgent and hungry as a virgin schoolboy. “Christ, Honor, I’ve missed you. So much.”

  Arching her back, Honor gently rocked him back and forth inside her, closing her eyes the better to lose herself in his movements and the musky, masculine smell of him she’d been dreaming of for so many long weeks.

  Finally, gloriously, the frustrations and annoyances of her day began to melt away like the last of the winter snow dissolving in the spring sunshine.

  Caleb was OK. Palmers was improving, albeit at a snail’s pace. And now her darling Devon was back in her arms, where he belonged. It would take more than one arrogant prick with a cell phone to spoil that.

  CHAPTER TEN

  TWO WEEKS LATER, Lola Carter looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and sighed loudly. After a sleepless night interspersed with some heavy bouts of sobbing, her face was so puffy she looked like she was having an allergic reaction.

  “Fuck you, Bryan Sutton,” she said, splashing freezing water onto her skin. The shock made her gasp for breath, but she had to do something to snap herself out of this funk. The bastard so wasn’t worth it.

  Bryan was supposed to have flown out with her from Boston to the Hamptons this weekend. He was the one thing that would have made her mom’s tedious birthday cocktail party bearable. But now…now it was all ruined.

  OK, so he loved himself a bit. High school quarterbacks always did. And Lola did have a worrying habit of falling for the best-looking, most popular guys around, rather than the nice, decent boys. (Being packed off to St. Mary’s by her parents had done nothing to dampen her social life. Everyone knew that boys hung around all-girls schools like flies on shit.) But Bryan also had a sensitive, loving side—or at least, she’d thought he had, before she caught him red-handed with that slut Lorna Mantoni.

  “No more high school jerks,” she told her reflection sternly, slathering on a big
dollop of moisturizer and willing herself to feel better. In an hour’s time she’d have to play the dutiful daughter in front of two hundred of her parents’ dullest East Hampton friends, so she had to get her shit together.

  From now on, she would only date college guys. Period. Someone from Harvard College, or the law school even. That should at least make her dad happy.

  Things between Lola and her father were still not good. Devon might have won the battle to enroll her in St. Mary’s and steamroll her into taking a bunch of science courses that bored her to tears, but Lola still hadn’t given up her dreams of becoming a designer. They fought about her future constantly. Unbeknownst to Devon, she’d already made formal applications to a bunch of fashion schools and sent them off in secret. Man, was he was going to go ape-shit when he found out. But so far she’d done a good job of hiding all the brochures and paperwork. And at least breaking up with Bryan would score her a few advance points in her dad’s good books. Devon had hated him from day one.

  Wrapping her green bathrobe around her shoulders, she padded back into her bedroom and opened the blinds. It was only half past five, but the sky was already getting dark. Right now it was the sort of bruise-blue color that Lola loved. She’d tried many times to capture it in a silk dye—how great would it be to have a full-length evening gown that color?—but had never quite gotten it right.

  “Knock, knock?”

  Karis, immaculate in a white Givenchy jacket and navy flared trousers, slipped into her room carrying a tray laden with smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on toast, Lola’s all-time favorite snack.