the waitress with the ugly glasses wasn’t after anyone. If she were, she’d wear contacts, and make the most of eyes that could be truly startling were they not framed by thick plastic. Pointedly he turned to the man on his other side, an Italian goldminer. A few minutes later the maître d’ brought Guy another plate. “Please let me know if that’s not to your satisfaction, sir,” he said with meticulous politeness.
“She chickened out, did she?” Guy smirked.
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“You heard,” Guy said. “Yeah, this is okay.” Brandishing his knife as he talked, he began telling an offcolor story to his neighbor.
When they’d finished their entrées, it was the waitress who removed their plates. Her name tag said Katrin. Luke had read that the resort was near a village that had been settled over a hundred years ago by Icelandic immigrants; with her blond hair and blue eyes, she certainly fit the stereotype. Then, as she reached for his plate, he saw on her wrist the red mark where Guy had twisted her skin, and felt an upsurge of rage that was out of all proportion.
Because he’d always loathed men who picked on those who were weaker, or otherwise powerless to defend themselves? Because basic justice was a tenet he held no matter what the class distinctions?
He said nothing; the woman had already made it all too clear she hadn’t been grateful for his intervention. In no mood for dessert, he ordered a coffee.
“Join me in a brandy?” John murmured.
“No, thanks,” Luke replied. “Jet lag’s catching up on me, I’m going to call it a day very shortly.”
This was true enough. But Luke had never been one for alcoholic excess; his father had drunk enough for five men. One more reason why Guy’s drunken pronouncements had gotten under his skin. He and John talked briefly about the abysmal markets for copper and nickel; then Luke saw Katrin approaching their table with a loaded tray of rich desserts. She lowered it skilfully onto the dumbwaiter and started distributing tortes and cheesecakes with scarcely a pause. She had a very good memory and was extraordinarily efficient, he thought with reluctant admiration. So what else had he missed in his initial assessment?
Guy had ordered a double brandy. As she started to put it on the table, he deliberately brushed his arm against her breast. “Mmm…nice,” he sneered. “You hiding anything else under that uniform?”
So quickly he wondered if he’d imagined it, Luke saw a flash of blue fire behind her ludicrous glasses. Then the brandy snifter tipped as though the stem had slipped through her fingers. The contents drenched Guy’s sleeve and trickled down his pale blue shirt. “Oh, sir,” she exclaimed, “how careless of me. Let me get you a napkin.”
As Guy surged to his feet, his face mottled with rage, Luke also stood up. She’d done it on purpose, he thought, and suppressed a quiver of true amusement: the kind he rarely felt. “Guy,” he said softly, “you cause any more trouble at this table, and I personally will see that the deal you’re working on with Amco Steel gets shelved. Permanently. Do you hear me?”
There was a small, deadly silence. Guy wanted that deal, everyone at the table knew that. Wanted it very badly. Guy snarled, “You’re a bastard, MacRae.”
Technically Guy was telling the exact truth: Luke’s father had never bothered marrying Luke’s mother. But Luke had long ago buried any feelings around the circumstances of his birth. “I’ll kill the deal before it even gets to the table,” he said. “Now sit down and behave yourself.”
Katrin had reached for a serviette from the shelf below the dumbwaiter. As she straightened, she gave Luke a withering look which said more clearly than words that she neither needed nor appreciated his help, and passed the crisply folded linen to Guy. “The resort will, of course, look after the dry cleaning of your suit, sir,” she said, and very calmly passed out the remainder of the drinks and desserts, as if nothing had happened.
Adding a formidable self-control to his list of the shapeless and bespectacled Katrin’s qualities, Luke drained his coffee cup and said flatly, “Good night, all. According to my time zone it’s 2:00 a.m., and I’m going to hit the pit. See you all in the morning.”
On the way out, he stopped to speak briefly to the maître d’. “I trust there’ll be no repercussions for the waitress at our table,” he said. “If he were working in my office, Mr. Wharton would be slapped with a sexual harassment charge. And I’d make damn sure it stuck.”
The maître d’, who was at least five years younger than Luke’s thirty-three, said noncommittally, “Thank you, sir.”
“I’m sure there’ll be no further trouble from Mr. Wharton.”
“Certainly, sir.”
Luke said pleasantly, “If she’s fired or otherwise penalized, I’ll file a complaint with the management.”
“That won’t be necessary, sir.”
Suddenly Luke was tired of the whole game. Why was he wasting his time on a woman who patently couldn’t care less about him, and had resented his help? Bed, that was where he should be, he decided, and marched toward the elevators.
In bed. Alone. As he’d been for rather too long.
Once he got back to San Francisco, he must do something about that.
CHAPTER TWO
LUKE slept well, went for an early morning run, then returned to his room to shower and dress. After straightening his discreet silk tie, he shrugged into a jacket and ran a comb through his black hair; he’d had it trimmed last week in Milan, although nothing could subdue its tendency to curl. He glanced quickly in the mirror, meeting his own dark brown eyes, so dark as to be almost black. He’d do. He looked his usual self: well-groomed, single-minded and totally in control.
Not bad for a kid from Teal Lake.
Luke grimaced irritably. He didn’t want to think about Teal Lake. Now or ever. So why was he standing here admiring himself when he should be downstairs? There were some valuable contacts he could cement in the next few days.
He took the elevator to the main floor. The resort might be situated in the wilderness but there was nothing remotely backwoods about it. The dining room had tall, velvet-draped windows and a magnificent stone fireplace, flanked by striking oil paintings of the prairie wheatfields. It was mid-July, the lake as smooth as the mirror in his room, the eastern sky a limpid blue.
He’d like to be out there, Luke thought. Capturing the sky’s serenity with his digital camera.
But not right now; there were more important things to do. As he started across the room to his table, Katrin the waitress emerged from the kitchen. She was wearing a peasant skirt and an embroidered blouse. He said cheerfully, “Good morning, Katrin.”
Her steps didn’t even falter. “Good morning, sir.”
In three words she managed to imply that although being polite to him was part of her job, it was far from her personal preference. Again Luke felt that wayward flash of true amusement. He’d been insulted many times in his life, both as a raw kid working the mines of the Arctic and as a ruthless entrepreneur. But rarely with such finesse. Not one wasted word.
He’d like
