And that distance had never seemed greater, Lucia concluded, as she attempted to stuff one breast inside the elasticated boob-tube only to have the other spring out. And she had yet to tackle Grace’s hot pants. Malevolently gleaming silver beneath the flickering light, they taunted her in silent reproach for a diet high on cheap and comforting junk food.
Having finally managed to subdue both breasts, she approached the hot pants warily, like an enemy that had to be put in its place.
Ouch!
The hot pants were definitely in place.
In tank top and jeans, ripped, tanned and pumped after exercise, Luke Forster was reclining with his cowboy boots crossed on an ornate coffee table at his hotel suite at the Grand Hotel in St Oswalds when he took a call from Argentina.
‘Do me a favour and look Lucia up while you’re there in Cornwall?’ Luke’s closest friend, Nacho Acosta asked him after they had finished discussing their latest polo match.
‘Lucia’s in Cornwall?’
‘That’s what she told me,’ Nacho confirmed.
Luke stalled. Must I? Was his first thought. Lucia was Nacho’s sister, and more trouble than any man needed. As Nacho recited Lucia’s number he processed some swift mental imagery that seemed to centre mainly on Lucia’s breasts.
That was so wrong. Nacho was his best friend and Lucia was the nearest thing Luke had to a sister. Breasts were definitely off the menu.
Lucia’s breasts were pretty spectacular.
‘She’s gone off radar again, Luke.’
He shook himself round to take in what Nacho was saying.
‘Though this time my sister has been good enough to leave a voicemail with the news that she’s revisiting old haunts.’
Luke groaned inwardly. He was doing the same thing, so bang went his excuse not to look for her. Raking tense fingers through his thick brown hair, he added a couple of days to an already crammed schedule. Juggling wide-ranging business interests with his family’s huge charitable foundation, as well as playing polo at the international level, demanded enough of his time without going on some wild goose chase looking for Nacho’s wayward sister. It wasn’t as if Lucia going off radar was anything new. The only female in a family with four forceful brothers, Lucia had broken away as soon as she could, quickly gaining the reputation of being a party girl extraordinaire.
‘I know she’s all grown up now, but I still feel responsible for her,’ Nacho was explaining. ‘You will do this for me, won’t you, Luke?’
How could he refuse? Nacho had assumed responsibility for his siblings when their parents were killed in a flood, which had worked out great for Lucia’s brothers, who were all older than Lucia, and had been okay for Lucia to begin with. But when she’d hit her teens …
‘I’ll find her,’ he confirmed. ‘If she’s revisiting old haunts, what about school?’
‘Which school?’ Nacho demanded.
They both laughed.
Super-bright and super-bad, Lucia had run several headmistresses ragged. ‘If she’s in Cornwall,’ he murmured, thinking out loud, ‘it shouldn’t be hard to find her. The village is dead, apart from the club. Let me follow a hunch,’ he said, remembering Lucia dancing at the wedding. That chick could move.
‘I can’t ask for more than that,’ Nacho agreed.
They started talking polo again, but Lucia had taken up residence in Luke’s head. Both their mothers were Cornish, which was how the two families had met each year, holidaying together at the same quaint guest house on the rugged Cornish coast. The Sundowner had excellent stables and immediate access to the beach, which had given it the edge over the rest of the local accommodation where Luke’s parents were concerned. The Sundowner Guest House was intimate and private, plus the owner’s quirky take on hospitality, treating every family as her own, meant it offered something money couldn’t buy.
Luke loved Cornwall. He was glad to be back here doing business. It was the one place he felt free. Maybe he hadn’t realised it as a boy, but when he’d galloped across the beach with Lucia’s brothers he’d been true to himself. Now he was successful in his own right he wanted to recapture those feelings of elation and freedom.
‘Let me know as soon as you hear something, Luke,’ Nacho pressed him, adding, ‘I envy you being back in St Oswalds. Do you remember tearing up the beach on those wild ponies?’
‘How could I forget?’ He liked that Nacho felt the same. ‘Would you come back if I reinstated polo on the beach?’
‘You bet I would,’ Nacho assured him.
With one of the top polo players in the world on board, his plan was already starting to take shape, but as Nacho applied more pressure for him to bring polo back to Cornwall Luke was still thinking about Lucia.
He and Lucia were so different. Luke was an only child, brought up preppy and obedient, and when he was a boy the Acostas had seemed an exotic bunch to him, with their dark flashing eyes and outstanding horsemanship. He had made a point of riding on the beach at the same time as the brothers, wanting them to see his own skill on a horse. Nacho had taught him how to stand on a horse’s back while it galloped, nearly killing him in the process, while Lucia had merely tossed her glorious black hair in his face and turned a dismissive back.
Remember those eyes when Lucia flashed a challenge? Those dark, mischievous eyes …
Damn those eyes! Lucia was more trouble than she was worth. ‘I’ll be in touch when I’ve got something to tell you, Nacho.’
‘That’s good enough for me, Luke.’
He exchanged the usual pleasantries and ended the call with Lucia firmly fixed in his mind.
He was still thinking about her later that day, remembering the last time he’d seen her at an Acosta family wedding. Expecting a temperamental teen, he had found a woman who was all grown up. And hot. The way she had sashayed up to him, only to veer away at the very last moment on the pretext of seeking out one of her brothers, had left him with an ache in his groin and sweet revenge on his mind.
Forget Lucia, Luke told himself sternly as he waged the endless razor war on stubble that refused to surrender. Tonight he was meeting an attractive blonde who ran an events company, which dovetailed nicely with his plan to start investigating the possibility of reinstating the annual Polo on the Beach event, which had been started way back by Lucia’s father. His conversation with Nacho had crystallised his plans, and though it was a setback to find St Oswalds so run down, construction was one of the main planks of his business, so it made perfect sense for him to regenerate the village and bring the world back to its door.
And Lucia? What part would she play?
So much for forgetting about Lucia, Luke concluded, studying his freshly shaved face in the mirror. Shaving was a necessary habit rather than a purposeful exercise. Stubble was already shading his face, making him look more piratical than ever. His East Coast American father liked to protest that he could never understand where Luke’s looks
