now.
Too much bloody time.
* * *
On the sixth day Claudia was busy inside, ostensibly going over the strategic plan, plotting their progress, seeing what else had to be done/arranged and making some phone calls to local suppliers.
And it really had started out that way.
But from the reception desk she had a bird’s eye view of the pool. The pool that Luke had decided was on his to-do list today. She’d actually put it on Cyrus’s list but clearly they’d swapped. So there he was in a pair of boardies. And nothing else.
He didn’t have that deep nutty tan any more. Although, he had toasted to a light delicious golden colour even in the short time he’d spent back under the north Queensland sun. His chest was as hairless as she remembered, just a sprinkling around his nipples and a fine trail that arrowed down from his belly button.
All the way down.
Her work largely forgotten, Claudia, her handy clipboard clutched to her chest, watched Luke clear all the large debris that had been dumped in the previously sparkling water of the large resort pool that meandered its way all around the outside of the main building. He stood on the edge and pulled it all out with a large net. From leaf matter to building wreckage to about a zillion dead insects.
There was no sign of the mobile phone he had practically glued to his hip the entire week. Taking phone calls from London at all hours of the day and night, downing tools while he dealt with whatever matter was deemed urgent enough by the person at the other end to interrupt his week off, then picking up again and getting on with it.
Nope, as he waded into the pool with the hand-held industrial vacuum cleaner the phone was nowhere to be seen. Just Luke and his boardies and a pair of reef shoes to protect him from any glass hazards that could still be lying on the bottom of the pool, hidden by the slightly murky water.
With her occupational health and safety hat on, Claudia was pleased to see Luke being cautious. But that wasn’t what was causing her to openly ogle him.
No.
That would be the way water droplets clung to his arms and chest, glistening distractedly. The midday sun shone down on him, sparkling in the droplets, and he was literally dazzling to her eyes.
Claudia swallowed as she watched his broad shoulders and powerful quads get to work, sweeping at the layer of silt and sand on the bottom of the pool.
‘Hey.’
Claudia almost jumped out of her skin as Avery’s voice sounded right near her ear. ‘Do you have to creep around like that?’ she protested, pressing her hand to her pounding heart.
Avery frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ Claudia muttered, quickly turning back to the desk.
But it was too late. Avery turned to see what had been holding Claudia’s attention. And found it.
Or him, as the case may be.
She grinned. ‘Well, well, well,’ she teased. ‘Were you perving on that gorgeous hunk of man flesh, Miss Claude?’
Claudia refused to look up and give anything away. ‘Just checking he was wearing the appropriate shoes. That’s an accident waiting to happen,’ she fobbed.
Avery grinned again. ‘Uh-huh.’
Claudia glanced at her friend sharply. ‘I was.’
‘Uh-huh.’
Claudia shoved her hand on her hip. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ she demanded.
Avery shrugged in that gorgeous retro Hollywood movie star way of hers. ‘Nothing. I think it’s great that you can’t take your eyes off Captain Sexypants.’
Claudia blinked. Only Avery would come up with such a fanciful nickname. ‘Captain Sexypants?’ Of all the... ‘Just because you are all loved up, Avery Shaw, does not mean the rest of the world is similarly interested.’
‘Uh-huh.’
Avery got that dreamy look in her eyes again—the one that had been an almost permanent fixture on her face since she and Jonah had become an item—and Claudia rolled her eyes, returning her attention to the paperwork in front of her.
‘You can tell me, you know, Claude. We’ve been friends a long time—you know you can talk to me.’
Claudia glanced up as Avery turned serious, her American accent more pronounced when edged with worry. The thing was she knew she could. Or she used to be able to anyway. But then the resort got dumped on her as a sole responsibility and, even though Avery had been there by her side throughout it all, the onus still fell directly on Claudia’s shoulders. Trying to keep it altogether, make it all work, had forced Claudia into an almost permanent state of seriousness, with no time for frivolous girly chatter.
And then Avery had hooked up with Jonah and how could Claudia possibly dump her problems on her friend’s shoulders? Avery was happy—she didn’t want to bother her with trivial stuff.
The days of their girlhood confidences had been well and truly squashed by her very adult responsibilities.
So now she wasn’t sure how she could say, well, actually, Avery, Luke sleep-groped me a few days back and I’m so sexually frustrated I think I might die from it or at the very least jump the next guy who walks through the door.
How could she even voice that, think of her own petty desires, when the world around her had gone to hell and there were so much more important things to deal with?
And it was just as well she didn’t as Jonah chose that moment to walk through the door and Avery’s face lit up as if he were dipped in chocolate and rolled in sugar.
‘I know, Avery,’ Claudia said, and smiled at her best friend in the whole world. ‘I know. I just have a lot on my plate.’
Avery gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘You need a break.’
Claudia nodded. ‘Later.’ She tapped a pen against the resort plans in front of her. ‘After.’
But then Jonah’s, ‘Where are those refreshments, woman?’ boomed across the foyer and Avery said, ‘I’m just going to organise some drinks for the workers.’
Claudia nodded absently. ‘’Kay. See you later.’
Claudia watched as Avery took off in Jonah’s direction and smiled as Jonah swept her up and pressed a very indecent kiss on Avery’s mouth. She looked away.
Outside. To the pool.
Luke was boosting himself up on the side, his back to her. Water sluiced off his hair and down over his shoulders and the perfectly delineated muscles of his back. For a man who had an office job, he was in excellent shape. In one smooth movement he’d twisted and sat on the coping of the pool. The broad expanse of his chest was exposed to her view now and Claudia drank it in. Firm pecs, flat abs and that distinct trail of hair that arrowed from his belly button down...
Before
