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An image of Claudia’s fingers drumming against her belly slid into his mind.
He reached for a pillow and pulled it over his head. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.
* * *
‘Surprise!’ Avery said as Claudia entered the large bright dining room populated with potted palms and an underwater-world mural taking up one entire wall. She couldn’t get used to seeing it so empty, bereft of the usual bustling morning breakfast crowd.
Both her and Luke’s parents grinned at her from a nearby table.
Claudia almost dropped her clipboard at the sight. She’d told them not to dare cut their big adventure short, that there was nothing they could do here anyway. When the cyclone had been building and finally hit, the intrepid adventurers had been out of reach on safari somewhere in the Great Sandy Desert and hadn’t even been aware. But as soon as they’d returned to civilisation and seen the news they’d been on to Claudia.
They’d insisted on coming home but Claudia had begged them not to. She didn’t need to worry about four grey nomads driving a massive RV at breakneck speed, especially when they were over five thousand kilometres away and the roads were still a treacherous mess.
But damn...it was good to see them.
An immediate lump lodged in her throat and she forced it down—she’d done her crying. No more tears. ‘Mum? Dad? When did the road open?’
‘This morning.’ Lena, her mother, smiled.
‘You didn’t have to come,’ she said. ‘We’re managing.’
‘We know. But we couldn’t not.’
And then she was swept into their arms and there were hugs all round and everyone talking at once. The whole disaster and clean-up was retold as Tony served breakfast then sat at the table and ate with them, adding his own embellishments about the worst storm he’d seen in all his forty years.
‘Where’s Luke?’ Gloria, his mother, asked. ‘He’s not still asleep, is he? It’s not like him to lie in.’
‘I think the jet lag’s really knocking him around,’ Avery said.
‘We’ve been working him pretty hard. Getting those soft office hands all dirty.’ Jonah grinned.
Cyrus, Tony and Brian, Luke’s father, laughed. ‘He should be down soon,’ Claudia interrupted. ‘He was getting up to have a shower when I left him.’
The table fell instantly silent and every set of eyes swivelled to her. It took a moment for Claudia to figure out why until she glanced at Avery’s huge goggle eyes.
‘Oh...not like that,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I was just telling him about my ideas for the resort. I thought he was an early riser too. I didn’t think he’d be asleep when I went through the connecting door.’
More silence. ‘He was asleep?’ Gloria finally asked.
‘Like a log,’ Claudia confirmed.
Luke’s parents looked at each other and Claudia was struck as per usual by how Luke was a perfect combination of both of them. His father’s build, his mother’s brown eyes and gorgeous complexion. ‘Does he still sleep in the buff?’ Brian asked.
Claudia averted her gaze as a tide of heat rose to her cheeks, missing the wink Brian shot Jonah. ‘Apparently,’ she said, forcing her voice to sound normal and not crack as she thought about those abs.
That happy trail.
She glanced at Avery, preferring not to be looking at Brian as she thought about his almost naked son. Brian who was very much the blueprint for Luke. Avery was sharing a loaded look with Gloria.
‘He’s leaving on the evening plane tomorrow,’ she blurted out. Claudia wasn’t exactly sure why she’d said it but it seemed important for them all to know that Luke wasn’t part of the Tropicana equation.
Wasn’t part of her equation.
‘Well, that’s a shame,’ Gloria said.
Claudia couldn’t agree more but for some strange reason she felt compelled to defend him. ‘His career is important to him.’
Gloria patted Claudia’s hand. ‘Yes, dear, we know. Now...’ she picked up her cup of tea ‘...tell us about these plans you were discussing with Luke.’
Pleased for the change in subject, Claudia launched into her spiel with enthusiasm. There was so much she didn’t know yet, so much she still had to figure out, but she couldn’t deny the excitement that fizzed through her veins.
The last year or so she’d felt as if she’d been going through the motions. Sure, she loved the Tropicana unconditionally, had never thought to change a single thing, but now change had been forced upon her whether she liked it or not.
It had been a revelation realising that she’d never been particularly challenged here—she could do what she did in her sleep with her clipboard tied behind her back.
