"Why?" But he did so.
She inspected his knuckles. "Wow. No grazes. I"m impressed. What did you do, wear gloves?"
To stop his knuckles dragging on the floor, she meant. He couldn"t help laughing. "I"m not a Neanderthal, Sara."
"You"re not a new man either, I"d bet."
"You want a personal conversation?"
She must"ve seen the warning glitter in his eyes because she flushed. "Not that kind of personal. I just wondered what made you tick."
"Same as most people. Oxygen and food."
She rolled her eyes. "You made your first million before you were twenty. Given that you"re not a computer geek...at least, I don"t think you are?"
She was fishing. Not good. He needed to head her off. "No. I"m just good at economics."
"So how did you find that out? You worked in a family business?"
His family had definitely had a business. Generation after generation had gone into it. But he"d chosen not to. "No."
"Then how?"
She clearly wasn"t going to let this rest. And, given that all three lanes of the motorway were jammed solid, he couldn"t go anywhere. So he"d tell her some of it. "I was good at maths, and my teacher had a hunch."
She didn"t need to know it was the teacher who"d bailed him out of the police station when his family had proved impossible to contact.
Ha. Everyone knew the rules: get caught, and you"re on your own. It had been a waste of time even trying to get hold of his family, and the police had known it. They"d had to follow procedure-but they"d wasted little time before contacting his school.
And they"d struck gold.
So had he.
Literally.
"Hunch?" Sara queried.
"That I"d be good at economics as well as maths." He smiled wryly. "It didn"t do much for my street cred, having extra lessons at lunchtime." Not that anyone would"ve dared say anything to him about it. They knew who his family was. The school bullies chose targets without any implied muscle behind them.
"But it paid off."
"Yep. I got a job on Sat.u.r.days and school holidays, working on a market stall." Again, thanks to his teacher, who"d happened to live next door to the trader-and who"d guaranteed that Luke wasn"t like his family and there wouldn"t be any trouble. "The original barrow boy, that"s me."
And he needed to get his patter back. Fast. Get her away from the subject of families. "I talked the stallholder into giving me a share of the stall instead of an hourly wage, and put most of my profits back into the business. Worked out some new lines. And within a year we"d expanded. By the time I was fifteen, I had my own stall and I paid someone to work on it while I was at school."
And he"d refused to launder any of the family"s money. It had caused rows, but he"d stood his ground. And when his cousin had tried to teach him about family loyalty...that was where his other extra-curricular lessons had come in handy.
Boxing.
He"d broken his cousin"s nose.
And it had sickened him, how easy it had been to fall into the spiral of violence and crime. He didn"t want to be like his family-and yet the only way to prove it to them had been to act the way they did. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Luke had also been the one to clean up his cousin"s face and take him to hospital. And when they"d returned to the house, he"d quietly explained to his family that he wanted to stay straight. That he didn"t want to have any part of what they did. And he"d given them an ultimatum: they had to accept that or let him go.
They"d turned their backs on him.
Every single one of them.
Even his mother.
He"d learned then what family really meant. Toe the line or you were out. Try to follow a different dream, and they wouldn"t be there to encourage you.
He was on his own.
So he"d packed and left that evening. Slept on the street because it was too late to find somewhere to stay. And the following day-after he"d returned to hospital and discovered that the reason why his hand still hurt was because he"d broken it-he"d found himself a bedsit where the landlord accepted cash and asked no questions.
"So you ended up owning half the market, did you?" Sara asked.
"No. It was the start of the Internet revolution. I found someone who could do me a website, someone else who could handle the postage and delivery side of things and a wholesaler who"d give me a bulk discount. It was a bit of a gamble, but it paid off. The business went just the way I hoped it would."
"You decided not to go to university, then?"
He shook his head. "I wanted to be out in the real world. Making money instead of listening to other people talk about it." That, and the fact that he hadn"t sat his exams. With his writing hand broken, there hadn"t been any point in even turning up for the papers. So he"d left school at fifteen without any formal qualifications. Which meant no A levels. Which meant no university.
Though Luke had always known that he wouldn"t make it in the money markets. Not with his family background. Who would trust the son of a thief, the grandson of a fraudster? And quite how he"d managed to talk his way onto the MBA course where he"d met Karim, he"d never know.
"So you were a dot-com millionaire."
"Yes." He shrugged. "And then I got bored."
"And that"s when you started buying failing businesses, to see if you could make them work again?"
He knew he should give her a one-word answer and change the subject. And yet...there was something about Sara. Something that encouraged him to talk. So, against his better judgement he told her. "It was by accident, really. The gym I went to...I used to have a beer with the owner, from time to time." A friend of his old boxing teacher-who"d lectured him like mad on the idiocy of bare-knuckle fighting and who"d said he needed to learn the discipline of martial arts instead. "Anyway, Lin told me that the landlords were hiking the rent yet again and he wasn"t going to be able to cover his costs, so he was having to sell up. I didn"t want the ha.s.sle of finding another gym that suited me, so I talked him into letting me have a quick look at his books to see if I could do anything." He smiled. "I could see the problems, and I managed to fix them. In return, Lin gave me a free pa.s.s to the gym and taught me kick-boxing."
"Kick-boxing? Isn"t that...well, violent?"
"Not if it"s done properly. It"s controlled and disciplined."
"Like you."
"Like me," he agreed. "Best thing ever if you"ve had a bad day and you want to get rid of the stress."
"By kicking h.e.l.l out of someone, you mean?"
"No." That was what certain members of his family had done. Maybe even still did. Another reason why he didn"t want anything to do with their life, ever. "Kick-boxing"s fast-paced but it"s controlled. And the discipline you learn from it helps with other sports."
"So you"re a sports freak."
"What do you expect from a guy who owns several health clubs?" he asked mildly. "I play squash a couple of times a week, I do kick-boxing a couple of times a week and I do some training in the machine room the rest of the time."
She groaned. "Don"t tell me-and you never miss a sporting event on television."
"Actually, I don"t have a television."
She stared at him, looking surprised for a moment. "Let me guess. You don"t bother watching because you"d rather spend the time working."
"Got it in one."
"But don"t you...? Well, you must do something to relax."
"I do." It often involved a party with some fairly tedious conversation, followed by hot s.e.x. He even considered telling her so, just to see if it would shock her. "Sometimes I go and see a band. Dinosaur rock, as you"d have it. You can"t beat it when it"s really loud."
"What about the cinema? The theatre?"
"Not really my cup of tea."
Then, to his relief, the traffic started moving. "About time, too," he commented. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. "We"re going to be about an hour late. But it"ll still be early enough to eat." And from now on he"d keep the conversation to safe topics. Such as work.
CHAPTER FIVE.
AT FIVE past eight, Luke pulled up in the hotel car park. Sara schooled her face into neutral as she looked at the building. The paint was peeling off the stucco and the woodwork; she had to remind herself that seaside buildings always looked scruffy because of the salt content in the air. And maybe the place would be better inside, less run-down.
But her hopes faded as they walked into reception.
"I"m sorry, there"s been a problem." The receptionist looked ready to burst into tears when Luke started to check in. "We had a burst pipe this afternoon and we can"t put you in the rooms you booked."
"Not to worry. We don"t mind taking two different rooms," Luke said.
The receptionist bit her lip. "That"s the thing. The water damage...it means we only have one room left. A double."
Sara stared at her in horror. Surely the girl wasn"t suggesting that they should share a room?
But that seemed to be precisely what she was saying.
"Luke. We need to talk," she said in an urgent whisper, nudging his arm.
He let her lead him away from the desk. "What?"
"We can"t share a room. We"ll have to go somewhere else."
"At this time on a Friday night in the middle of summer, we"ll be lucky to find anywhere else."
"There must be somewhere."
Luke rolled his eyes. "For pity"s sake, Sara. We"ve been stuck in the car for the last six hours. Right now all I want to do is eat, have a shower, check my emails and sleep. OK, so we didn"t plan on sharing a room. But it"s only for one night. We"re adults and we"re colleagues and we"re perfectly capable of sharing a room without having s.e.x."
She wasn"t so sure. "Uh-huh."
He sighed. "Look, I"m not going to leap on you."
There was no answer to that. And she couldn"t exactly tell him she thought it was more likely that she"d leap on him. So she said nothing.
He clearly misread her silence, because he closed his eyes briefly. "Before you say it, it"s not because I think you"re unattractive either, because you are. And telling you you"re attractive doesn"t mean I"m going to try making a move on you." He shook his head. "Why do women have to be so b.l.o.o.d.y complicated?"
He meant needy, she knew. She lifted her chin. "I"m not complicated."
"I"m not in the mood for an argument. I"m tired and I want a shower and something to eat. We"ll cope. Look, I"ll ask for an extra duvet or something and I"ll sleep on the floor."
"Uh-huh."
He walked back over to the reception desk. "Thanks. We"ll take the room," he said.
Sara simply followed him when he pocketed the room key and picked up both their cases.
The room was even worse than she"d feared. Small, with only just enough room for the bed, one narrow bedside table, a built-in wardrobe and a chest of drawers. No way was there enough s.p.a.ce for him to sleep on the floor. They"d have to share the bed.
"Don"t say a thing," he warned, dumping their cases on the bed. "Right now, my first priority is food."
The meal turned out to be as awful as the room. Apart from the fact it took ages to arrive, her grilled chicken was so dry it tasted like ashes, the sauce was decidedly gloopy and the vegetables were soggy. His food clearly wasn"t much better, because he picked at it and finally pushed his plate away.
"Maybe everything seems so bad because we"ve had a rotten journey," she said. "Maybe everything will seem better tomorrow."
"Maybe." He didn"t look convinced. "Right now, the only thing this place has going for it is the staff."
A receptionist who"d gone into panic mode, a cook who-well, couldn"t-and a waitress who"d whispered at them.
But that wasn"t fair. For all she knew, the burst pipe had affected the kitchen as well. Perhaps the cook had had a lousy day and this wasn"t the normal standard of the food here.
Even so, surely Luke wasn"t really intending to buy this place?
On the other hand, he"d said how much he liked turning round businesses that were in a mess. This one definitely seemed a mess, and it was just the sort of challenge she had a feeling he"d love.
"Right. I need a shower and I want to check my emails."
And then...they"d be going to bed.
Together.
Her mouth went dry.
As he"d said, they were adults. They were perfectly capable of sleeping in the same room-the same bed-without having s.e.x. But even so she felt the adrenalin flooding through to her fingertips as she followed Luke to their room.