Hell, yeh, he knew. Walking in on a naked woman he could handle. Walking in on a naked Claudia—not so much. ‘Well, if it’s any consolation, it’s not in mine either.’
Claudia smiled despite herself. ‘Maybe this could be another of those things that we never speak of again?’ she suggested.
Luke nodded vigorously. ‘I think that’s a very good idea.’
‘Also, how about we both agree to knock and wait for an answer in future?’
‘Deal.’ Normally he would have held out his hand for a shake but he doubted she’d remove her grip from the sheets for anything. ‘So I’m just going to go and pretend like this never happened.’
Claudia gave him a rueful smile. ‘Sounds like a plan.’
It wasn’t until he was halfway through the door that Claudia realised she still didn’t know why he’d come to her room in the first place. ‘Wait. What did you want to talk to me about?’
Luke turned at the unexpected question. With everything that had happened, he’d forgotten all about why he’d come to see Claudia in the first place. ‘I’m going to stay. Help you manage the resort. At least until the spa is up and running anyway.’
Claudia stared at him for a moment, her heart beating almost as hard as it had when the door had slammed and scared the bejesus out of her. ‘Really?’
Luke grinned. ‘Really. Get dressed. I’ll meet you downstairs. There are things to plan.’
Claudia didn’t know what to say. Or do. If she hadn’t been naked and just made a complete idiot of herself she’d have leapt out of bed and hugged him. As she’d hugged him hundreds of times in the past.
Instead she said and did nothing, just watched him disappear and the door shut after him.
Then she sank down onto her back and, grinning like a loon, pulled the sheet over her head and threw herself into a full naked body shimmy, squiggling her shoulders, arching her back off the bed and drumming her heels on the mattress.
She was getting her spa!
EIGHT
Claudia’s head was buzzing by the time she’d had a quick shower, thrown on her uniform and hightailed it downstairs. Not even the embarrassing thought of what had transpired in her room was enough to stop her from seeking Luke out. She found him breakfasting with everyone else.
‘There you are, darling,’ her mother said. ‘Luke’s just been telling us what you two have been up to.’
Claudia paused mid-sit, startled at the announcement as everyone beamed at her. Luke, sitting in the seat beside hers, gave her a wink.
‘Has he now?’ she murmured.
She knew he wouldn’t have said anything about the...incident, but her mind couldn’t help but go there. Especially as Luke was clearly amused at her mother’s choice of words. His warm brown gaze was level with her breasts and she sat quickly to quell the memory as her nipples firmed against the fabric of her bra.
‘It’s wonderful,’ Avery agreed, the excitement in her voice sharpening her accent.
‘Yes,’ his mother agreed. ‘You are sure your firm will understand, though?’ Gloria pressed.
Luke gave a short nod because he knew his decision to work remotely would not be popular with the partners. Major adjustments would have to be made to accommodate it. Not to mention he’d be working two demanding jobs. Long days at the resort would be backed up by long hours into the night when clients were awake on the other side of the world.
He couldn’t see himself getting much sleep.
But these were extenuating circumstances and at least these days they had the technology to run with something like this so, why not? The Internet made distance a nonsense—email, iClouds, Skype, teleconferencing—anything was possible.
‘It’ll take some setting up,’ he dismissed, ‘but it shouldn’t be a problem.’
‘There now,’ Avery said to two sets of parents. ‘You can get back to your holiday.’
Claudia wanted to kiss her. ‘That’s right,’ she agreed quickly. ‘You guys retired so other people could wait on you for a change. You really don’t have to worry about the Tropicana.’
Her mother beamed. ‘Excellent. I feel so much better knowing the two of you will be doing this together.’
There was general conversation over breakfast about the new addition but Claudia felt inadequately prepared to answer a lot of the questions raised. ‘To be honest,’ she admitted, ‘I’ve never been to a spa and I think I’ve only ever had one massage in my entire life.’ She looked at Avery, who was more accustomed to the day-spa life. ‘That time in Bali...on the beach...do you remember?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Avery smiled. ‘Your masseuse was an ancient woman with hardly any teeth.’
Claudia nodded. ‘And yours was that buff young guy wearing a shirt that showed off every perfect muscle in his abs.’
Avery’s smile turned dreamy. ‘Oh, yes,’ she sighed. ‘Incredible fingers too.’
Jonah looked unimpressed. ‘I hate him already,’ he murmured, gliding a possessive hand onto Avery’s shoulder, and Claudia felt a pang hit her square in the chest at Jonah’s caveman display. She glanced quickly at Luke, then glanced away again.
Avery smiled at Jonah and the look they shared took the pang into chest-pain territory. ‘We’ll have to do some tours,’ Avery said enthusiastically as she dragged her gaze away from Jonah. ‘See what’s out there. See what’s new and innovative and popular.’
‘That will be impossible for a while,’ Claudia dismissed. ‘We have one hundred rooms upstairs that all need to be assessed one by one and given a good clean so we can at least offer them to the public and have some income again.’
All their efforts last week had been concentrated on the outside clean-up. Apart from a cursory examination of the rooms that had been thankfully largely untouched, they hadn’t worried about them at all. But they were going to need to be electrically checked at the very least.
‘We’ll have to discount them,’ Luke said. ‘This place isn’t exactly paradise any more.’
Claudia nodded automatically at Luke’s shrewd business assessment, ignoring her emotional response to his words. If she thought too hard about their paradise lost it would break her heart, and they needed to be practical.
‘And before anyone comes we’ll have to put in all new landscaping,’ she said. ‘The resort may be a long way off its established old self but I’d like to make a good impression when we welcome back our first guests.’
‘We can pitch in and help you with that stuff,’ Lena said.
‘Harry and I can help with the landscaping,’ Brian said.
‘And your mother and I can contact all cancelled and future guests and see who might still be interested in a basic cheapy holiday,’ Gloria confirmed.
Lena nodded. ‘We’re here, we might as well put ourselves to good use, if you’ll have us. And then when the guests start to arrive we can push off again and let you kids get on with it.’
‘Of course we’ll have you,’ Claudia said reassuringly. ‘This is your place—you don’t need to ask permission to stay. There will always be rooms here for you.’
‘Good to know,’ Brian said gruffly. ‘But we’ve got at least a year left on our trip so don’t keep them blocked for us.’
‘You’ll come back for the opening of the spa, though?’ Claudia insisted.
Brian patted her hand. ‘Try keeping us away, love.’
Claudia smiled at Luke’s father—she’d always had a soft spot for him. ‘Thank you.’
‘So it could be a while before we get to check out spas,’ Avery said wistfully.
‘Not necessarily,’ Jonah said. ‘The best time to go will be before the paying customers come back. You and Claude might be able to squeeze something in.’
‘Cairns is the best place,’ Isis added.
Claudia dou
bted they’d have time to scratch but she nodded anyway. ‘We’ll see how we’re tracking.’
* * *
An hour later Luke had made a list of things he was going to need to set up a makeshift office in the Mai Tai. Jonah was taking the chopper into Cairns for business and had offered him a ride. He was coming down the stairs as Claudia was heading up, her clipboard clutched to her chest.
They slowed as they neared, her on the step below him. ‘I’m off to Cairns with Jonah for a quick trip. Anything you need?’ he asked, waving his list in front of her.
Claudia shook her head as she looked up at him. Way up. ‘Thanks. I’ve given him a list already.’
Luke nodded. ‘You off to assess the rooms?’ he asked
‘Yes. I’m tackling the suites. Isis is doing the first floor. Avery the second.’
‘And the ground-floor rooms?’
‘I’ll do them after I’ve done the suites.’
Claudia shifted her feet nervously. Her gaze was level with his chest, the T-shirt he was wearing gracing its lean musculature like a velvet glove. She remembered how hard that chest had felt behind her the other day. Then she remembered what had happened today.
It was hard to believe on this grand staircase in this voluminous foyer that she could suddenly feel claustrophobic.
She looked down at her clipboard, confused by the skip in her pulse. She dropped it slightly away from her body, relieved to have something else to look at even if it was just pages and pages of pristine maintenance reports awaiting her neat handwriting.
‘We’re just taking notes today,’ she said for something to say in case his head was where her head was at. ‘Don, he’s a local electrician, is coming in two days for the electrical checks. He’s crazy busy but we did him a good deal on his daughter’s wedding here a few years back so he’s squeezing us in.’
‘Yay for Don.’ Luke smiled. The clipboard movement had pulled down her blouse slightly revealing her usually well-covered décolletage. From his vantage point he could see some swell rising out of a soft-looking emerald-green fabric edged with black ribbon.
Was that satin?
It looked like satin, soft and shiny.
And then he was thinking about her breasts again. When, true to his word, he had been trying hard not to.
Crap.
Who knew Claudia favoured sexy lingerie beneath her awful uniform? He’d never look at her polyester blouse the same again.
Claudia took a step to the side so she could walk around him, then hesitated for a moment. Her eyes glued to the clipboard, she murmured, ‘I haven’t really said thank you.’
Luke shrugged. ‘It’s okay. I owe you for being such a stubborn bastard last year. I should have done what I’m doing now back then. It’s just that things at work were...’
Luke didn’t really want to get into it but he’d still been under the gun from losing the account his wife—ex-wife—had stolen from him. It was the main reason he’d wanted the resort handed over to a big chain—his career was in crisis and the resort had been an unwanted distraction.
‘Were?’ she prompted softly.
Luke grimaced at the familiar bitter taste the memory left in his mouth. A flash of black ribbon caught his eye again and yanked him out of the past. ‘It doesn’t matter. The point is I’m here now and I’m in.’
‘And I’m very, very thankful.’ Claudia smiled. ‘We’ll have to remember this day and celebrate it next year as the day we really put our mark on the Tropicana.’
Luke smiled back before the full import of her words sank in. His smile slowly faded. ‘You do know this is only temporary, Claude? I did say just until the spa was up and running. I’m not staying for good. I’ll be heading back to the UK as soon as things are settled here. You’re more than capable of managing the place solo.’
Solo. Claudia swallowed. Why did that word sound so bloody lonely?
‘Yes...of course,’ she said with a dismissive shake of her head. ‘Of course.’
Even though she felt like a complete idiot. He’d said this morning it was just until the spa was open but she’d been off building castles in the sky. Spinning fantasies of them running the resort together for the next twenty years as their parents had done.
Luke wasn’t sure about the overly bright light in her eyes. The last thing he wanted to do was to get her hopes up. ‘My life is there, Claude,’ he murmured.
Claudia forced a smile onto her face, determined not to show him how much those five words hurt, no matter how gently he’d said them.
My life is there, Claude.
His life was there. Hers was here. She’d do well to remember that over the coming months.
‘Of course,’ she assured him, her voice more definitive this time. ‘I know. And you’re right, I’m perfectly capable of managing the Tropicana.’
Luke nodded, satisfied. ‘No one better.’ He grinned as soft green satin taunted his peripheral vision.
Claudia grinned back even though it felt as if it had been slashed into her face with a carving knife. ‘Well,’ she said as she put her foot on the next step, pulling the clipboard back to her chest. ‘Guess I’d better get on. I’ll see you when you get back from Cairns.’
Luke nodded, disgusted in his disappointment that the cleavage show was over. ‘Yep. Should be back in a couple of hours.’
‘Okay,’ she said.
Visions of green satin, black ribbon and caramel nipples taunted him as he continued down the stairs.
NINE
Two weeks flew by. Two weeks of getting rooms and grounds ready to open again. All the rooms had escaped major damage. Some power points had blown and three rooms had sustained some minor water damage to the carpet when their windows, despite the cyclone taping, had cracked under the force of the wind and allowed water to trickle in.
But three out of one hundred was good going, considering the other accommodation blocks on the property had been completely smashed.
The landscaping was a big job hampered by transport difficulties due to the state of the roads. The extensive Tropicana gardens that had taken forty years to establish and made guests feel as if they were living in a tropical paradise had been about fifty per cent destroyed in a matter of a few hours.
They would take many years to get back to the way they were but thankfully some of the older trees and vegetation had been left intact so they didn’t have to start from scratch.
The problem was supply of raw material. Mature plants and trees and things like mulch were in high demand post-cyclone and difficult to source, which meant the landscaping would be an ongoing job. But they managed with what they could get, transforming the grounds from decimated to rejuvenated in an amazingly short time.
Gloria and Lena worked the phones like the true veteran hotel professionals they were. Claudia was thankful that they’d stayed on to lend a hand, knowing the process would have been much longer without them and it also freed her up to help Isis and Avery get everything shipshape on the inside.
Next week they were welcoming their first trickle of guests—fifteen rooms booked. And the week after that they had a further twenty. Claudia had set a target of fifty per cent occupancy by the time the spa opened a few months down the track and hoped to be back at full occupancy for the summer season at the end of the year.
It was March—it was doable.
They were never going to have the numbers they had before simply because the accommodation units that had been scattered throughout the property had been flattened and were not going to be replaced.
The hope was that the higher-end customers would make up the shortfall.
Claudia and Luke set a couple of hours aside each afternoon to work on plans for the spa. They’d contacted a local builder who Claudia trusted to do the job and consulted a local architect
. They just needed to get plans drawn up and then council approvals and other such legalities under way.
They kept things businesslike between them, barely talking outside what was needed for the Tropicana and rarely seeing each other outside anything to do with the plans. Unlike their childhood, the interconnecting door was not chocked open and they never entered each other’s rooms without knocking and receiving clear direction to do so!
It was a grope-free, nudity-free zone.
And things could have been awkward between them had they not been so busy. But everyone was busy, everyone had their heads down, so it was easy for them to just follow suit and pretend there wasn’t time for chit-chat.
Luke was probably busiest of all working two jobs. After a back-breaking day out landscaping, he was up late into the night working on UK time in the world of advertising. He rarely got into bed before two a.m. And if he was tired, well, he knew there was a queue he could join. Everyone was working hard. Everyone was tired.
* * *
On Friday morning at breakfast, Avery slipped a sheaf of papers across the table to Claudia. ‘I spent a few hours on the net last night and I think we should check out these three day-spas in Cairns.’ She looked at Luke. ‘You too. Seeing them firsthand is much better than getting second-hand descriptions.’
‘Yep. Count me in,’ he said.
Claudia flicked through the printed pages. ‘These look good.’ She handed them to Luke.
‘I can make a booking for us to have something different at each one for tomorrow?’ Avery said.
‘Tomorrow?’ Claudia worried her bottom lip. ‘Do you think we should be tripping off for mani-pedis with the first guests arriving on Monday?’
‘It’s the perfect time,’ Gloria encouraged. ‘There’s nothing much to do between now and then and you won’t get a chance after Monday.’
Claudia nodded. ‘I suppose.’
‘Jonah can take us all in the chopper, make a bit of a day of it,’ Avery suggested.
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