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‘Six hours ago,’ Gloria confirmed. ‘His flight was delayed out of Singapore. Which is why I told him he should have booked an earlier flight, that he was cutting it fine if anything happened.’ Disapproval and anxiety laced her voice. ‘I think he should have landed by now though.’
Claudia strode from the kitchen, her red gown fluttering around her ankles, ‘Okay, are we all ready?’ she asked.
‘You guys go ahead. I’ll wait for Luke,’ Gloria said.
‘All right,’ Claudia said, smiling brightly, refusing to let his looming presence upset her equilibrium.
She’d held it together for the last two weeks just fine; she wasn’t going to let his imminent arrival take the gloss off the night they’d all worked so hard towards. Even if she did feel as if she was about to throw up as the nerves in her stomach knotted ever tighter.
Where was he?
She’d been strung tight as a bow all day as the full gamut of emotions had run riot through her body and she wished he’d just get here already. Get the awkward, stilted greetings out of the way so she could enjoy this night she and Avery had been planning for a month.
Instead of waiting for Prince Charming—à la Captain Sexypants—like some lovelorn teenager.
‘Let’s go have some fun,’ she said to the people who meant the most to her in the whole world.
The people who did love her.
Avery, who was looking as ethereally gorgeous as ever in a smoky silver frock, smiled and looped her arm through Claudia’s. ‘Let’s party,’ she said.
* * *
Luke glanced at the dash clock in his rented car. Damn it—he was an hour late. He cursed the state of the roads and the interminable stops for roadworks. He cursed the airline. He cursed the rental company that had mixed up his booking.
It seemed everything had conspired against him getting to the Tropicana Nights on time.
His mother, who was fanatically punctual, would not be impressed. And Claudia? No two ways about it—she’d be really pissed at him.
So what else was new?
His heart beat a little faster at the mere thought of seeing her again, angry or not. He’d thought about her obsessively for two weeks. Reruns of their last night together had played over and over in his head.
He hadn’t missed the tension; he hadn’t missed the temptation. But he had missed her.
God, how he’d missed her!
A decade in the UK and she’d barely crossed his mind. Three months back in Crescent Cove with her and he could barely think of anything else.
He felt as nervous as a teenager on his first date.
He didn’t know what to expect, what he was going to say, how he would feel. How she would feel. He just knew coming back, seeing her again, had been the one bright spot in these last two weeks, getting him through interminably long days at the office, days that he’d once thrived on and had now lost their lustre.
He knew it was just jet lag and readjusting to the crappy London weather and having to wear a suit and tie again instead of boardies and a T-shirt. He’d fallen out of the groove and was having a hard time getting back into it. But he hadn’t been able to explain how scoring the firm’s biggest account to date—an enormous coup—had left him feeling so...underwhelmed.
How working on Jonah’s low-budget ad campaign had been more satisfying and stimulating than the slick multimillion-dollar one that had taken up months of his life.
Coming back to Crescent Cove, with an office that looked out over the mighty Pacific and was less than a minute’s walk to a beach of the finest powdery white sand, had somehow tripped a switch in his brain that refused to be reset.
A few months ago the only powder he’d cared about was the type that covered the ski fields of St Moritz. Now, he found himself yearning for the sun and the surf.
Another road worker with a stop sign loomed ahead and he raked a frustrated hand through his hair, bringing it down to rub at his smooth jaw as he decelerated. It made him think of Claudia. Of the conversation—the naked conversation—he’d had with her about stubble. He’d shaved on the plane. He didn’t know why—years of conditioning, he supposed—but suddenly even that annoyed him.
Shaving twice a day? What the hell for?
The bored-looking road worker stood aside, flipping the sign around and, ignoring the slow sign, Luke accelerated quickly away.
* * *
‘It’s going great, don’t you think?’ Avery said as she threw her arm around Claudia, who was watching everything from the sidelines.
Claudia nodded. ‘It looks amazing!’
And it did. Avery and her vision had transformed the foreshore, where the avenue of palms met the beach, into a fairyland of lights strung through the trees and the nearby foliage.
