The Hotel Magnate's Demand

Amy clung to her stomach, willing it not to swoop again. She didn’t want that unwelcome feeling to reach her eyes as it threatened to do each time. She wouldn’t cry. She’d never cry over that. Not again.

‘Eight years. Wow. And still looking over our shoulders, ruining all our fun.’ Amy smiled, hoping he’d take her words as she’d meant them—teasingly.

‘And by the looks of it you two haven’t changed much either. Still giggling over boys and drinking too many cocktails.’

Something resembling a smile lifted the corner of his mouth and he flicked his suit jacket back to push his hands into his pockets. He got it. He got her. He always did.

‘You just wish we were giggling over you.’ Amy smiled again. She couldn’t help it.

She’d always liked to tease Luke. She’d always pushed and pushed till the grim look on his face cracked into a smile. It was a game she’d enjoyed playing when she was eighteen and had had her whole life in front of her. Now, at twenty-six, she should be more cautious. She should have learned a few lessons. But it seemed with Luke she was still clueless. Because flirting with him felt good. Still.

‘I’m sure you are.’

He leaned in and Amy caught his scent. The same fresh, oceany goodness that she remembered. His lips brushed her cheek just lightly. As if he was afraid to go near her.

Amy was grateful. It was important to keep her distance. Especially with Luke. There was no doubt she’d been looking forward to seeing him again. She’d thought about it often since rekindling her friendship with Willa. She’d asked Willa about him a few times. Subtly. Without letting on to her friend how she felt.

Not that she was sure how she felt. Luke was someone from her past. Her very long ago past. And even then he hadn’t been anything to her…just a crush. And she hadn’t been anything to him. Just his sister’s silly little friend. An idiot who’d needed rescuing.

Amy clutched at her stomach and turned back to the bar, where Dave was now racking up the drinks. She smiled, she flirted, she paid all her attention to Dave. So much so that she could see him blushing underneath his beard. Her stomach settled. Her heart returned to normal. She wouldn’t think of that night. She wasn’t sure why she kept thinking of it—she’d learned to block it out years ago.

Maybe it was because Luke was here. And he smelled the same. She still remembered breathing him in as he carried her out to the Jeep and took her to the hospital. She remembered clinging to him shamelessly as he laid her in the back seat.

‘Don’t leave me.’

‘I’m not. I’m right here. But I have to drive.’

‘No!’ The tears from her eyes had met her still wet cheeks. ‘Please. Just hold me.’

She’d been irrational. She’d known that at the time. But she hadn’t been able to help it. For those three minutes the fact that his arms were around her had been the only thing stopping her from collapsing, and she’d been convinced she’d stop breathing if he let her go.

He’d reached for her hair, stroked it back off her forehead. Then with one finger he’d traced the cut in her lip. She hadn’t winced. His touch had soothed the pain. She’d clung to his hand.

‘No one is going to hurt you again, Amy. I promise you.’

‘But…’

‘Amy—look at me.’

That was when she’d seen his eyes so violently green.

‘I promise you.’

She’d believed him. She’d looked into his eyes and into his soul and seen her protector. She’d let him go then and sat silently until they’d reached the resort hospital.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_d240aa05-6ce6-5d70-ad08-c18056cdaba6)

‘I THINK YOU may have sufficiently embarrassed the barman, Lollipop.’

Amy’s face broke out into an uncontrollable grin and she turned back to where the voice behind her was coming from.

‘Don’t call me that.’

‘What’s wrong, Lollipop?’ He smiled. The slow, lazy smile that he specialised in. ‘Lost your sense of humour?’

‘No…’ Amy grinned. ‘But I have lost my tolerance for your teasing. And if you haven’t noticed…’ Amy put one hand on a hip and pushed it out ‘…I’m not as skinny as I used to be.’

Yeah, he’d noticed. Luke beat down the heat pumping through his veins. Amy wasn’t the skinny teenager of eight years ago. She’d changed. Filled out. His eyes slipped to her chest. Really filled out. And although he’d always considered her a pretty girl, she’d always been just that—a girl. But she wasn’t a girl any more. She was a woman. And, by the looks of the body she was showing off in a tight white skirt and tan silky blouse, she was all woman.

But she was still his little sister’s friend. Her silly, irresponsible friend. The girl who was too pretty for her own good. The girl who made an art form out of flirting. And that hadn’t changed. The barman was still flushing and throwing furtive glances Amy’s way.

‘Some things have changed, but not everything.’

He nodded towards the barman and Amy turned to see the direction of his gaze. The barman smiled shyly before fumbling with a glass and allowing it to drop with a loud smash to the ground.

He leaned in close to Amy’s ear so no one else could hear. ‘Still making men do stupid things.’

As soon as the words had left his mouth he regretted them. He watched her stiffen. He felt her shrink away from him and her cheeks burned an instant red. He hadn’t meant that. Not what she thought.

‘Amy, I…’

She smiled. Wide. Fake. ‘It’s okay.’ She gathered drinks. She hoisted her purse under her arm, flicked her hair and left. Making him feel like the most insensitive man in the country.

He knew what had happened all those years ago wasn’t her fault. She’d been a kid. Sure, she’d been silly, naïve—reckless, even. But who wasn’t at that age? She hadn’t deserve what had happened to her and he’d made sure that the loser who’d attacked her understood how wrong he’d been.

Luke watched her walk back to the table filled with people he hadn’t seen in years. People who had once been closer to him than his family. People who’d made him feel normal. People who’d made him feel as if he belonged somewhere for the first time in his life. For the only time in his life. He’d never felt like that since.

The memory of that summer on Weeping Reef had got him through some tough times in his life. Had it only been a few months they’d all lived together on the island? It had seemed like longer. It had seemed that summer had lasted for years. It was the place where he’d remembered being young. Having fun. Being himself. But that was over. His reality now was work and responsibility and money and more work.

And he liked his life. He didn’t want to go back. He’d grown up so much since then, learned so much. He was different now. Stronger.

But as he watched Amy walk away, clearly angry and upset, he didn’t feel strong. He felt twenty-four again. Inept. Out of his depth and totally unable to decide what to do next. At twenty-four he would have ignored it. Ignored her. Ignored the way she felt and the fact that he’d put his foot into it. He would have sat with the others and said nothing. Carried on as if nothing had happened.

But he wasn’t twenty-four any more. He was turning thirty-two in a month. And over the years he’d learned that the only way to solve a problem was to throw himself into it. Avoiding problems always made them bigger, more bad and harder to solve. Walking away was for sheep, and he wasn’t a sheep. Not any more.

His feet flew across the floor and he had his arm on hers before she even sat down. ‘Amy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it came out.’

Her eyes shot up to his. The same pretty brown eyes he remembered from all those years ago, but now a little more lined around the edges. From laughing. Or perhaps from crying. Probably both. If her life had been anything like his it would have been filled with both over the last eight years.

There were no tears in her eyes now, but there was something else. A fierce, angry determination he’d never seen before.

‘It doesn’t matter, Luke, that was a long time ago.’

She turned away, but he wasn’t letting her go. She didn’t fool him. There was no way she didn’t still think about what had happened. He did. A lot.

During the last year in particular he had thought about it constantly. Since Koko. Since he had almost been the father of a daughter himself. He’d thought about all the things that could go wrong. All the trouble a girl could get into. He’d braced himself. He’d been as prepared as he could. He’d actually been looking forward to it after the initial shock had worn off.

‘Amy.’ He took the drinks from her hands and placed them on the table before moving a little closer to her. ‘I’m sorry.’ He held her eyes. ‘I meant you’re still an impossible flirt.’