Chapter 13

Luca shut down the spreadsheet and tilted his head at Alex.

“You happy with the way it’s all going?” It was a rhetorical question. The hotel was moving from strength to strength. It was, as the saying went, a gold mine. Just one of Alex’s many.

“What do you think?” Alex eyed him over the rim of his cup.

Luca laughed. “I think you should open more hotels. Replicate what you have here because it works.”

“Its success is down to you.”

“There are a lot of people in the industry just like me, who’d have achieved the same result. I could put you in touch with a dozen of them right now. Which you know I’m going to have to do.”

Alex sighed, a deep, exaggerated sound. “I don’t know why you seem so keen to go. Have you got another offer? Somewhere that’s putting pressure on you to give them an answer?” Alex leant forward, his voice taking on a sharper edge.

“I’ve always got offers.” And it was true. Most he could dismiss as wrong for one reason or another, but there had been one or two that had been tempting, had made him stop and think. But he’d declined, unsure why.

“Well, I don’t want to have this conversation now. I don’t want to have it at all.”

“Don’t be petulant. And stop pouting. We will have the conversation, because if we don’t you’ll be left without a general manager. You wouldn’t want anything to mess with your bottom line.”

“You know how to wound me, don’t you?”

Luca grinned. “Yes, right in the bank balance.”

“Ouch! Painful. You know me far too well.”

“After all these years? Yes, I think I can say I do.”

They both laughed, heading off the conversation they would soon have to confront.

“Talking of offers, Ry told me you were on a date with Jonathan the other night.” Alex lounged back in the sofa, his smile inviting, intimate. It was Alex Love at his most dangerous. “Jonathan looked… what was the word Ry used? Ah, yes. Smitten. Pure puppy dog, apparently. Except there was a fly in the ointment, otherwise known as Adrian Hardy. Who, apparently, wasn’t looking too happy that you and Mr. Owen-Jones had a romantic evening planned. Why would that be?”

“Jonathan and I were not about to embark on a romantic evening. It most certainly wasn’t a date. Dinner. Two friends. That’s all.” Luca snapped, harder than he’d meant.

Confusion, edged with concern, replaced the mischievous glint in Alex’s eyes.

“R—ight.” Alex stretched the word as he eyed Luca. “Your personal life’s your own, but if something’s bothering you…” Then we can talk, and it’ll go no further. It was the subtext they both understood. It was also the truth. Good friends, who’d long ago been more. Each knew the other’s strengths and weaknesses, faults and foibles, and more than a few of their fears and secrets. More than anything, they trusted each other.

Luca hesitated. What had happened with Adrian had unnerved him, turned him upside down and shaken him. He felt like he was in a snow dome, all his thoughts and feelings swirling around him.

“Jonathan’s a nice guy…” Nice. The word caught in his chest, and he coughed to clear his throat. “He’s under the impression we’re more than we are. I made it crystal clear from the start that anything between us was strictly no strings, and there was no way I wanted it to lead anywhere. He said he was onboard with that, but now?—”

“So what is it, some kind of friends with benefits arrangement? The only benefits I’ve ever known you to be interested in have been about, I don’t know, pensions and private medical cover. The other kind, you know, just casual, that’s never been your thing.”

“Yes, well, I thought it was about time I changed my M.O., because being Mr. Relationship hasn’t exactly done me much good, has it? Sorry,” he said, “I shouldn’t have snapped. But complications were exactly what I wasn’t looking for when I came here. Yet now I appear to have them. The thing is, I like Jonathan. But what I like and value is his friendship. Not anything beyond that.”

“His friendship. Okay. But what about the benefits? They seem to have been dropped from the equation.”

“Because they have been. By me.”

“Ah. That, I’m guessing, was an awkward conversation.”

Luca puffed out a long breath. “We weren’t… a good match. It’s not like we lit up the night sky. So I thought he’d be okay with it.”

Alex barked out a laugh. “Okay with it? Are you serious? There isn’t a man on earth who wants to be told he’s as much fun in the sack as a lump of wood. How’d he take it?”

“He was a bit put out?—”

“You don’t say.”

Luca glared at Alex. “But he said he’d accept my decision. For god’s sake, stop looking at me like that.”

“I’m looking at you like that, whatever like that is, because you want to have your cake and eat it. Jonathan’s keen, anybody can see that, so of course he wants more. But if you don’t, you should be honest and stop seeing him, rather than leaving him hanging. It’s called leading him on, Luca.”

“I’m not leading him on.” Was he? “We go out for dinner from time to time, or the cinema or theatre, but that’s all. Okay, I know he’d like to spend more time with me. But what’s wrong with just enjoying his company? With being friends? Why can’t two people spend time with each other and just enjoy that?”

“Because it’s not how it works, and you know it. Especially when one half, i.e. Jonathan, is so clearly interested. More than interested. Come on Lu, it’s just plain cruel to keep him dangling on a string. And cruel is something you’re not, and never have been. I know you well enough to say that with complete conviction.”

First Adrian, now Alex, telling him the same thing. Jonathan, who was good company, who was nice, who was pleasant, who… left him feeling cold. There was no spark, no desire, no desperate need. No hunger. Unlike a man with a knowing smirk, brimming with cocky arrogance, and dark green brooding eyes that seemed to see into the very heart of him. A man who’d kissed him with a passion that had taken him apart and rearranged all the pieces, leaving him breathless, confused and craving so much more.

“Earth to Luca.”

“What?” Luca jerked, and blinked. Alex was studying him, his clear eyes intelligent and sharp.

“Ry said something else, about Adrian also being in the pub. He said the atmosphere around the two of you was so thick he could have cut it with a knife. Does your lack of interest in taking advantage of Jonathan’s benefits happen to have anything to do with said grumpy, but also very hot farmer?”

Luca paused a beat too long. Alex grinned; he’d been handed the answer on a plate.

“Do I sense a love triangle? The good people of Love’s Harbour would be shocked. Or maybe not.”

“No, you don’t. There’s nothing going on between me and Adrian Hardy.”

“Hmm, there seems to be an awful lot of nothing going on going on.”

Luca poured more coffee, swearing under his breath when he sloshed some over the side.

“Lu? Are you really so sure about that?” Alex asked, his voice softer.

Luca shook his head. For all that he trusted Alex, more than he trusted anybody, he couldn’t talk about what had happened with Adrian. It felt too raw, too breathtakingly dizzying.

And it absolutely wasn’t going to be happening again.

“Adrian and I have a business arrangement. He’s a supplier. There are lines that shouldn’t be crossed. It’d be unethical.”

“A supplier, yes. Of salad veg and herbs. One of a number of local farmers we contract with. And I’d trust you implicitly not to allow personal matters to interfere with your professional judgment.”

“As I said, there’s nothing between us. And that’s the way it’s going to stay.”

The weight of Alex’s answering silence pressed against Luca.

“If you say so,” he said at last. “But he’s not a man you’d be in a hurry to kick out of bed. Just don’t tell Ry I said that, because you know what he can be like.”

Their gazes caught, and they smiled. Ryan, good natured and friendly, the driving force behind the pub’s success — and who had a possessive streak a mile wide when it came to Alex.

Luca’s early relationship with the young publican had been strained, his and Alex’s very dim and distant past had been a hurdle that had been difficult to clear — until Alex had said, or done, something to allay any fears. Luca hadn’t asked and Alex hadn’t divulged how he’d set Ryan’s mind at rest.

“No, he’s not,” Luca conceded. “But, he’s also arrogant, cocky, domineering?—”

“Another way of putting it is sure of himself, confident, and masterful.”

“You make him sound like the hero of a Regency romance. I can assure you, he’s not.”

Alex shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, I don’t read them.” Wrapping his arm around Luca’s shoulders, he pulled him in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before gently pushing him away. Luca smiled, reassured as he always was by the strength of Alex’s friendship.

“Look, if you say nothing’s happened, then I believe you. But then I suppose nothing is open to interpretation.” Alex hesitated, his brows drawing together. “Don’t jump down my neck with what I’m about to say, but you’ve been kind of shut down, or closed off, since you and Bruno split up. I’d hoped Jonathan might have been the one to give you the lift you need, but if he’s not, he’s not.” Alex shrugged. “You’re not satisfied with life, and believe me, I know what that’s like.” His lips twisted in a rueful half smile, but it faded fast. “The problem is, before you realise, it becomes your default mode.”

“I’m not looking for relationship counselling.” Luca laughed, but it tasted bitter in his mouth.

“No, but all I’m doing is trying to be a good friend. I wanted you to come here because you’re the best at what you do. But it wasn’t only a business decision. I also wanted you here in the hope that you’d think about what you really and truly want from life.”

Luca shook his head. “I know what I want, and you know it too. Nothing’s changed. My career, Alex, it means everything to me. There are still ladders to climb, and boardrooms to conquer. After everything fell apart with Bruno, I was desperate to be somewhere else for a time, where I wasn’t constantly reminded of everything that happened. You came to my rescue when I needed it most. I’ll always be thankful that you gave me the life line I?—”

“Your career, and how important it is to you. I get that more than anybody. But there’s more to chasing the next new, bigger, better, opportunity. We’re more than the next deal, or the next dream job. For all the rewards they bring, they won’t keep you warm at night. Take it from me, I know. You deserve that warmth. Perhaps not with Jonathan, but if there’s a chance you can have it with somebody else, even if only for a while, don’t turn away from it. Grumpy farmers with drool inducing muscles do have their uses.” Alex smiled, and slapped Luca on the shoulder. “I’ve got to go. Just think about what I’ve said, okay?”

Moments later, Alex was gone. Slumping back into the sofa, Luca stared up at the ceiling.

Shut down. Closed off. He’d thought he’d made a good job of pushing it out of sight, but Alex had seen right through him, as he always had and no doubt always would. There was no point in even trying to deny his friend’s assessment, but hadn’t that been what had kept him sane after his life had been thrown on the rocks? Nice men, pleasant men, men like Jonathan, he could handle, because they did nothing for him. They didn’t heat his blood, didn’t make his stomach knot in want, didn’t make his breath hitch, his skin tingle, or his cock pulse. Men like Jonathan didn’t do all the things men like Adrian Hardy did.

ThatAdrian Hardy did.

“Bloody hell.” Luca buried his face in his hands. The farmer was everything his cool, clear, logical brain told him he didn’t want and didn’t need, but the visceral memory of that dirty, wet, messy kiss as Adrian had pushed him into the wall, had pressed his hard body against his, making his heart race faster as his cock had filled, had nothing to do with cool, clear logic.

The office was too small, the walls too encroaching. Sunlight streamed through the window, making it feel too hot. The need to be outside, to out run everything that was disturbing his calm was too much to resist. Plunging headfirst into work, that was how he’d always blotted everything else out. His stomach tightened. His work, which had been both the problem and the solution. A fresh breeze rustled the leaves on the big oak outside his office window. But burying himself in work wasn’t the answer, not today.

Tomorrow was a rare day off, and he was going to add the afternoon to it. Checking his diary, and leaving a message with his PA that he was available only in an emergency, he fled into the warmth of the late summer’s day.