Do Not Disturb (46 page)

Stepping through the open windows into a central courtyard garden overhung with faded pink roses, Lucas offered up a little prayer of thanks. Sometimes he still found it hard to believe that he’d actually made it this far, that his fantasy had at last taken solid, physical shape. Two weeks from now they’d be open for business.

He could still remember the phone call he’d made to Ben last June, the day that Connor had agreed to back him.

“I’ve done it!” he panted breathlessly, leaning against the plastic wall of a phone booth in Santa Eulalia.

“You have? That’s great!” said Ben, who had no idea what he was talking about but didn’t want to burst his bubble by asking “what?” He’d only heard from Lucas twice since he’d gone back to Ibiza. The first time he’d been drunk out of his mind, rambling incoherently about Anton and Petra and the great injustices of the world. The second time he was sober as a judge, but also deeply depressed. He’d insisted that he was going to turn his life around and that he wouldn’t call Ben again until he had. That was six weeks ago, and he’d been as good as his word, not
even leaving a number or address where a worried Ben could get in touch with him.

“I’ve got a backer for Luxe,” said Lucas excitedly.

It took Ben a moment to remember what Luxe was: the fantasy hotel that Lucas had been banging on about ever since they first met in Murren, all those years ago.

“Wow,” said Ben. “Who?”

“A guy called Connor Armstrong,” said Lucas. “You remember him, right? He used to drink at the Cadogan sometimes. Irish. Bit of a twat.”

More than a bit, thought Ben, but all he said was, “Sure, I remember.”

Connor was exactly the sort of smug, self-important prick that gave bankers a bad name; a man who considered it a great joke to harass his secretaries or tell the minimum-wage Pakistani janitor in his office how much he’d spent on dinner the night before. He wore too much aftershave, spoke too loudly on his cell phone, and affected a nauseating mid-Atlantic accent that made him sound like a local radio DJ trying to be cool.

“I didn’t know he was in the hotel business.”

“He isn’t,” said Lucas. “Well, he is now, but he wasn’t. He’s in property. He made some canny deals in Marbella: villas, condos, tourist apartments, that sort of thing. He’s done well.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said Ben truthfully. The assholes always did.

“Anyway, now he wants something in Ibiza. I told him about my ideas for Luxe, and he was sold.”

“That’s terrific,” said Ben. “How’d you convince him?”

Lucas made a grunt that seemed to imply he didn’t understand the question. “I didn’t have to convince him,” he said. “He knows any hotel of mine will be the coolest thing to happen on this island since manumission. Why wouldn’t he want in?”

Ben smiled but said nothing. It was a relief to hear some of the old Ruiz arrogance making a comeback. Without it, Lucas just wasn’t Lucas.

As it turned out, it wasn’t just idle boasting. From the beginning, there was a buzz of excitement on the island about the Luxe project that gave Lucas an incredible frisson and fueled his already rampant ambition. The name alone seemed to have a sort of magic to it, generating hype and anticipation even before the first brick had been laid. Leveraging off that magic for all he was worth, Lucas worked inhuman hours to get the thing off the ground, whirling like a dervish from supplier to supplier and breathing down the necks of his builders like a jealous lover.

Knowing that Petra Kamalski had replaced him at the Herrick only added to his sense of inner urgency. It wasn’t enough to build a great hotel. Luxe had to be the greatest, the boutique David that would one day bring down the Goliath Tischen brand, and with it both Petra and her scheming, two-faced bastard of a boss. As far as Lucas was concerned, Ibiza was just the beginning. Once he’d achieved success here, he could tweak the concept, ironing out any early glitches or issues, then roll his Luxes out across Europe and, eventually, America and Asia too.

Unfortunately, Connor turned out to be rather less of a big thinker. From the beginning he’d moaned on like an old woman about risk. And that was just on the Ibiza project.

“It’s too remote,” he whined, the first time Lucas drove him up to the site he’d found, high up in the hills close to where he was born. He’d chosen it because land was still relatively cheap up here, and the views were nothing short of spectacular. “No one’s gonna want to hike all the way up here,” said Connor gloomily. “They’ll need a chopper just to get to the clubs at night.”

“Fine,” said Lucas stubbornly. “We’ll build a helipad.”

A screaming match ensued, but Lucas eventually got his way. His raw energy and natural flair, combined with Connor’s cash and contacts, acted like rocket fuel, propelling the building work forward at a frightening speed despite Connor’s cup-half-empty attitude and almost ceaseless naysaying. Lucas acted as architect, project manager, and PR chief rolled into one. Having had every
detail of the plans in his head since he was a teenager, he was damned if he was going to pay some outsider to come and tinker with them, wasting money and time on sketches and pie charts.

He’d also learned a number of lessons from building the Herrick. All the construction workers on the Luxe site, down to the lowliest plumber’s assistant, had their pay tied firmly to deadlines. The result was that now, a mere ten months after construction began, the hotel was finished. And a fucking work of art she was too.

“Fuck you, Anton Tisch!” Yelling at the top of his lungs, Lucas listened as his voice ricocheted off the walls and steep hillside in a volley of echoes. With the contractors finished, paid, and sent home, he had the place entirely to himself—king, at long last, of his castle.

“Fuck you, Petra!” he roared, sending a second ripple of sound off in pursuit of the first. “I’m back! Lucas Ruiz is fucking back!”

Annoyingly, he was interrupted midshout by a buzz from his inside jacket pocket.

“Yes?” he barked grumpily into his battered old Motorola. But seconds later the annoyance was gone and his face suffused by a broad grin.

“That’s wonderful! How long are you here?” he asked, picking up a stray pebble and hurling it high into the air, then watching it fall out of sight into the depths of the valley below.

“Tonight then. At seven.” He laughed, shaking his head as he hung up the phone.

Well that was one for the books. It looked as though his already glorious day was about to get even better.

Bounding up the gravel path a few hours later, clutching a chilled bottle of Moët and a fistful of wild daisies he’d picked on the way, Lucas rapped loudly on the front door with his fist.

God it felt strange to be here! The last time he’d been in this garden—three years ago now, although it felt like thirty—he’d been running the other way, taking off down the hill like a bat out of hell before old man Leon could get his hands on him. He remembered his feelings so clearly: the panic and adrenaline mingled with the joyous rush of the great sex he’d just had and an overwhelming urge to burst into laughter. Nothing had seemed very serious to him then. Now, he thought with a pang, everything did.

But his gloomy thoughts were banished the next moment as the door swung open and he found himself face-to-face with a gloriously naked Carla.

“
Querido
,” she breathed huskily. “Flowers, for me? You shouldn’t have.”

Gazing in unashamed admiration at her body, he wondered if she’d had any work done since he last saw her. If she had, then her surgeon deserved a medal of honor. She must be, what, forty-seven now? But her skin showed no signs of sagging, and her breasts, as brown and full as coconuts, the tiny pale-pink nipples standing to attention to greet him, were as firm and high as ever. Her dark hair had been cut shorter and dyed a striking, deep red, but it suited her. And her bush, he noticed with delight and amazement, had been trimmed and shaped by some extortionate pubic topiarist into the shape of a heart and dyed to match the hair on her head. In nothing but a pair of red Louboutin stilettos and a diamond choker, she looked like every schoolboy’s fantasy, with only a few faint fans of lines around her eyes and lips to indicate middle age.

Dumping the bottle and flowers unceremoniously on the floor, Lucas gathered her up in his arms without a word and carried her straight up the stairs.

“That way,” she giggled, pointing to a door at the end of the corridor as he burst into bathrooms and offices, looking for a bed. Following her directions, he carried her to what he assumed
must be the marital bedroom and laid her gently down on the black satin counterpane.

“Very Ozzy Osbourne,” he said, clocking the deep-red velvet curtains and vast, black onyx sculpture of a panther at the foot of the bed. “I wouldn’t have thought old Pepe had it in him.”

“That’s Rex,” said Carla, nodding at the panther as she fumbled with the buttons on Lucas’s fly. “He’s supposed to protect me from intruders when Pepe’s away. Symbolically, obviously.”

“Well, he’s doing a pretty lousy job,” said Lucas, freeing his rock-hard erection at last and boring into her like a freight train.

Carla gasped at the force of him. He hadn’t even taken his shoes off, so desperate was he to get inside her. Though it was over quickly, she was gratified that he hadn’t lost any of his skill or generosity as a lover, going down on her afterward for a languorous twenty minutes until she had come twice herself. Pepe went down on her occasionally, usually on Valentine’s Day or their anniversary, but he always made her feel as though he were bestowing some hugely irksome favor. With Lucas, she felt like an ice cream that he was taking his sweet time to enjoy. It was pure heaven.

Afterward they showered together, dressed, and went downstairs to the kitchen, where Carla put together a simple supper of cold meats, salad, and a perfect Spanish omelet, washed down with plenty of chilled Chablis. As it was still so warm they ate out on the terrace, drinking in each other’s company, the heady scent of bougainvillea, and the beauty of the view, which looked even more lovely in the milky moonlight than it did by day.

“You have to come up and see her before you leave.” Lucas, who’d talked about nothing but Luxe since they’d rolled out of bed, was still waxing lyrical. “You were the one who made her possible, after all. If it hadn’t been for you, for your inspiration and help and support—”

“You’d have made it anyway,” said Carla, pouring herself a third glass of wine. “No, don’t shake your head at me, Lucas. You
were the most ambitious man I’d ever met back then. I suppose you still are now,” she added dreamily.

Lucas’s face darkened. “My ambitions have changed,” he said grimly. “It’s not only about personal success anymore.”

“Oh?” Carla looked at him questioningly. His features had set hard, and the veins on the back of his hand, she noticed, stood up like swollen tree roots as he clenched the stem of his wine-glass. “What is it about, then?”

A muscle in Lucas’s temple twitched involuntarily. “Revenge,” he said quietly. “It’s about revenge.”

He told her the whole story, of how Anton had set him up and blackened his name throughout the industry.

“It wasn’t enough to get rid of me at the Herrick,” he said bitterly, stabbing at the remnants of the omelet on his plate with a fork. “He wanted me bankrupt, ruined. He tried to take away everything I’ve ever worked for.”

“Why would he do that?” asked Carla rationally.

“How the fuck do I know?” said Lucas, getting increasingly irate. “Because he’s a fucking psychopath. He even tracked down Petra fucking Kamalski and hired her as my replacement.”

“The girl from EHL?” Carla remembered Lucas’s passionate rages about Petra from years ago. Privately, she’d always thought his hatred of Petra was at least partly fueled by sexism. Much as she adored him, Lucas had always been pretty old-fashioned when it came to women in the workplace, particularly women who threatened to outperform him. But she wisely kept her thoughts to herself.

“Yeah, can you believe it?” said Lucas furiously. “He pulled her out of the Ritz in Moscow,
hugely
overpromoted her.”

“Look who’s talking,” teased Carla gently.

“That was different,” snapped Lucas. Clearly, he wasn’t in the mood for banter. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to take it out on you. But you don’t understand. Anton’s evil, and so is that bitch.”

Getting to his feet, he wandered over to the edge of the terrace. Below him, the olive groves glowed an eerie white gray in the moonlight, and beyond them the calm waters of the Mediterranean stretched out like a giant sheet of silver foil. Coming up behind him, Carla slipped her arms around his waist and pressed her lithe, soft body against his. She could feel the tension coiled inside him like a mattress spring about to snap.

“Be careful,” she whispered softly. “Tisch is a very powerful man, and not just in the hotel world. From what I’ve read he has a lot of contacts in Russia still, and those guys don’t mess around. You might end up with polonium slipped into your tea.”

Turning around, Lucas kissed her tenderly on the forehead.

“Don’t worry,” he smiled. “I don’t drink tea.”