Susan Stephens - The Man From her Wayward Past

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, I work here 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 could now attest.

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.

SUSAN STEPHENSwas a professional singer before meeting her husband on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta. In true Modern™ Romance style they met on Monday, became engaged on Friday, and were married three months after that. Almost thirty years and three children later, they are still in love. (Susan does not advise her children to return home one day with a similar story, as she may not take the news with the same fortitude as her own mother!)

Susan had written several non-fiction books when fate took a hand. At a charity costume ball there was an after-dinner auction. One of the lots, ‘Spend a Day with an Author’, had been donated by Mills & Boon® author Penny Jordan. Susan’s husband bought this lot, and Penny was to become not just a great friend but a wonderful mentor, who encouraged Susan to write romance.

Susan loves her family, her pets, her friends and her writing. She enjoys entertaining, travel, and going to the theatre. She reads, cooks, and plays the piano to relax, and can occasionally be found throwing herself off mountains on a pair of skis or galloping through the countryside. Visit Susan’s website: www.susanstephens.net She loves to hear from her readers all around the world!

Recent titles by the same author:

A TASTE OF THE UNTAMED

THE ARGENTINIAN’S SOLACE

THE SHAMELESS LIFE OF RUIZ ACOSTA

THE UNTAMED ARGENTINIAN

To find out more about the wild Acosta family visit: http://www.susanstephens.com/acostas/index.html

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Susan Stephens

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For the Angry Sparrow

THE SINGLE GIRL’S TO-DO LIST

All roads lead to Rome and there is only one goal here.

He sits proudly at number 10!

1. Get a job

2. Get a flat

3. Get a wax

4. Get a tan

5. Get a hairdo

6. Get a cool new wardrobe

7. Get a gym membership

8. Get a great dance teacher

9. Get a gag for her polo-playing brothers

10. Get a (non-polo-playing) man

AS THE only girl in a family of four polo-playing brothers I’ve had enough—and I mean ENOUGH!—of whips, spurs and raging machismo morning, noon and night.

Get a job

Not exactly the job I imagined, but I have my reasons. What are these reasons?

Actually, I landed the dream job: management trainee in a top London hotel. It was the icing on the cake after achieving a good degree in Hotel Management back home in Argentina, where a career in hospitality seemed the obvious choice to me after years honing my craft on four demanding brothers. But I would rather eat my own feet than keep that dream job by sleeping with a slime-ball concierge who tried to blackmail me by threatening to reveal who ‘Anita Costa’ really was .

People who knew me before this diary entry might ask, what has happened to wild child Lucia, the glamorous, glitzy, fun girl who was always the life and soul of the party, and who now seems to have sunk lower than a whore’s drawers? If you ‘re one of them you’d better read on .

You will note that the one thing I have retained is my sense of humour. Just as well, as right now things couldn’t be much bleaker .

NO ONE knew better than Lucia that a nightclub in daylight was a dismal, skanky place.

She should do. These past few days it had felt as if she spent most of her life on her hands and knees, scrubbing the sticky floor beneath a stark long-life bulb. Glittering and glamorous at night beneath the coloured lights, the club, located on the wild and rugged splendour of Cornwall’s most popular coastline, was high on society’s hot list—thanks to the many opportunities to see and be seen both in the club and on the fabulous beach, where the many sporting activities drew the best pecs around. Lucia’s own dangerously charismatic polo-playing brothers had flaunted themselves in this same area when they were younger, with their hot friend Luke.

Luke …

Was this a good time to be thinking about more muscles and intelligence than was good for a man, captured in one devastatingly desirable package?

A man who was out of Lucia’s reach?

And who just happened to be a polo player. Which meant contravening number ten on her to-do list before she had ticked off numbers two to nine.

‘Don’t you have enough to do?’

Lucia shot up as the club manager hove into view. Van Rickter had been a star on the club circuit in his youth, as he had been at pains to explain to Lucia when she had first begged him for a job—any job. Now he was a middle-aged charmer with a chip on his shoulder the size of a rock, who liked nothing better than to bully his staff. Lucia quickly returned to scrubbing as Grace, another of Van Rickter’s serfs, entered the club.

‘I hear there’s a big do on tonight,’ Grace announced, dropping her bag on a nearby table. ‘Wish I didn’t have these sniffles. A red nose and leaking eyes doesn’t do much for tips. I was hoping to meet someone fabulous tonight who would take me away from all this—’

As Grace gestured around Lucia reflected that not so long ago just the mention of a ‘big do’ would have been a call to arms. She had loved nothing better than to tease and flirt and dance. With four brothers ready to flatten any man who so much as looked at her the wrong way, she had grown up with no concept of danger when she turned it on, and had felt free to be as flirtatious as she liked. Her instant reaction to the merest suggestion of a party would have been on with the five-inch heels, the dress at least a size too small, followed swiftly by slap, glitter, lashes and nails, all topped off by the studiously perfected party pout. But that was then and this was now, and things were very different now.

Turning to Grace, Lucia thought her friend looked unusually pale tonight. ‘Let me take your shift if you’re not feeling well,’ she suggested.

‘Another shift straight after this one?’ Grace shook her head in firm refusal ‘You haven’t stopped working since you got here. You’ll make yourself ill if you go on like this. Put on your heels tonight, walk in like you own the place, see who’s around. Save one for me if there are any likely men.’

Inwardly Lucia shuddered, but as Grace laughed she wiped her hot face on her sleeve and joined in the merriment. Grace had no idea what had happened to Lucia in London, and Lucia wasn’t about to burden her new friend with details of that experience.

‘Uh-oh, here comes trouble,’ Grace warned as Van Rickter returned.

While Grace hurried into the back to get changed for work, Van Rickter picked on Lucia. ‘Hey, Anita from the block,’ he sneered. ‘Put some elbow grease into that scrubbing. I can always find someone to replace you.’ With an ugly laugh, he spun on his Cuban heels.

Everyone at the club knew her as Anita. It was the name of Lucia’s favourite Puerto Rican character from the musical West Side Story . Finding a surname had been easy. Sitting in a coffee bar, she’d thought, Just lose the ‘a’ . So Lucia Acosta had become Anita Costa. Why the subterfuge?

It wasn’t possible to have people treat you normally, let alone strike out for independence, when your four polo-playing brothers featured on every billboard in town.

Resting her hands on the small of her aching back, Lucia dreamed of Argentina and the endless freedom of the pampas. Her warm, safe home in South America had never seemed further away, especially when it turned out that she had a real talent for jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. Her life, since that rogue concierge in London had made staying on at her job there impossible, had been one long slide down. It made no difference that she came from a wealthy family, and anyway, she was determined to go it alone.

‘Okay?’ Grace trilled as she hurried past with a crate of drinks.

‘Never more so.’

Brushing her hair back, Lucia returned to scrubbing. After London she was glad to have a job at a club where no one knew her. Before she died, her mother had used to say to Lucia, ‘Keep your wits about you.’ Well, she’d certainly failed at that in London, believing the concierge was her friend.

It was hard to believe her mother had been killed almost ten years ago in a tragic flood. Demelza Acosta had been Cornish, which was why the family had always holidayed in St Oswalds. And why Lucia had fled here, she supposed, seeking refuge in the one corner of England where she remembered being truly happy.

Lucia’s head dipped over her scrubbing brush as Van Rickter came into view.

‘It’s your lucky day, Anita,’ he observed sarcastically. ‘I’ve sent Grace home. No one wants to be served cocktails by a waitress with a runny nose, so you’re on bar duty tonight. And don’t even think of complaining that your cleaning shift doesn’t end until seven,’ he warned. ‘You’ll have plenty of time to get ready.’

Half an hour to race over to the caravan, hose herself down in cold water and get back to the club. If she didn’t stop to eat it should be possible. ‘That’s fine with me.’ She needed the money.

Van Rickter’s piggy eyes almost disappeared into folds of unnaturally pale flesh as he eyed her suspiciously. ‘Make sure you clean yourself up. And put some hand cream on. Those wrinkled mitts are enough to put anyone off their champagne.’

‘I will,’ she said, flashing a smile she knew would rattle Van Rickter far more than an exhausted look. She got tips on the bar.

Being nice and clean was more important for work than a full stomach. No one wanted a stinky server leaning over them, and she sure as hell wouldn’t get any tips, Lucia reasoned, teeth chattering as she tied her wild black hair back neatly. She had just showered in shriekingly cold water in the beat-up caravan that came with her other job, and with ice on the insides of the windows it would take some considerable time before she warmed up.