CHAPTER ONE
CHRIS FORRESTER STARED into the amber depths of his whiskey glass and gave a wry smile. The irony was painful. Drowning his sorrows in liquor. What a bloody cliché. He needed to get a grip. So his fiancée had been sleeping with another man for seven months. Get over it. He wouldn’t be the first bloke to have his heart ripped out and slammed onto the public spike of humiliation.
He lifted his glass to his lips and surveyed the circumference of the club room. When he’d arrived at the pretty English holiday destination yesterday, the park had taken him by surprise. His memories of old-fashioned trailers and sad swing sets from his youth were sorely outdated. The mobile homes the holidaymakers rented at the Good Time Holiday Park were brand-new and ultradeluxe.
State-of-the-art stoves, power showers and plush sofas meant when visitors returned after dancing the night away at park-run events or eating in the five-star restaurant onsite, they relaxed in luxury. Chris shook his head. Even the staff weren’t entirely uneasy on the eye. He met the steady gaze of the park’s manager over the rim of his glass.
She arched an eyebrow and pulled her clipboard against her chest. “You still here?”
He lowered his glass onto the bar. “Yep. So are you.”
She smiled. “I work here. What’s your excuse?”
He took a moment to appreciate this beautiful woman. Her eyes were huge. Huge and brown. Not boring brown. They were light...like caramel. Thick and dark, her hair fell down her back in waves highlighted with gold. And her figure? Chris resisted the urge to shake his head a second time. Outstanding. He leaned against the low back of the barstool.
“What’s a woman like you doing hiding away in a holiday park?”
Her smile faltered. “A woman like me?”
He raised his hands in surrender. “It’s not a pickup line. I was just wondering. You should be out there enjoying yourself.”
“I should, huh? What do you suggest I should be doing exactly?”
He grinned and took another sip of whiskey. “You should be an air hostess. Traveling the world, wearing one of those sexy fitted suits that show off more than a name tag and serving me a drink on a silver platter.”
She rolled her eyes and smiled. “My God, you’re not a guy ready for the twenty-first century, are you?”
Chris laughed. “Nothing wrong with fancying a bit of the old days.”
“Of course not...as long as you don’t lose a handle on reality.” She smiled. “Please tell me you don’t think girls get together and have pillow fights in their underwear, then, after a couple of drinks, can’t resist making out?”
He forced his smile into submission and covered his ears. “Don’t say it. Don’t spoil the dream.”
She shook her head. “You need help.” She turned and approached the bartender.
Chris dropped his hands and curled them around his glass.
In a different world where his heart hadn’t taken a bashing and his ego wasn’t entirely flattened, he would have asked her out. Or maybe at least asked her name. As it was, neither would be happening anytime soon.
Dragging his gaze to her butt, Chris smiled. Goddamn. Her pencil skirt clung to her perfect ass like a second skin. He drained his drink and glanced toward the floor-to-ceiling windows of the clubhouse. The rain still came down in torrents as it had all day. It ran in rivulets down the glass, blurring the sway of the pine trees surrounding the huge swimming pool in the distance.
Before he’d arrived, “sunny” Templeton Cove had been sweltering and then this rain came from nowhere. A freak storm that hadn’t let up since ten that morning.
“I’d head back to your trailer if I were you.” Her voice turned his head.
“No, thanks. Nothing about heading back alone to a mobile home appeals to me right now.”
She looked to the window. “It’s supposed to get worse. I’d make a run for it.” She stared past his shoulder. “I’m just about to tell everyone the club is closing for the night. I don’t want to have to worry about my guests getting back to their accommodations safely.”
“You’re the girl in charge, then?”
She met his eyes, a flicker of pride making them more striking than ever. “I’m the manager.”
Of course, he already knew that. Asked a few questions of the bartender the minute she walked in. “Been here long?”
Her gaze lingered on his and two spots of color darkened her cheeks. She looked at her clipboard. “Long enough.”
Chris stared at her bowed head. The temptation to ask what he’d said wrong hovered in his whiskey-slick conscience. No. He didn’t need to know. None of his damn business. He’d only just met the woman. She didn’t need him nosing into her private life.
She lifted her head and her smile was back in place. “So, are you heading back? I don’t want anyone stranded in here.”
Chris gestured toward the rest of the room. “Worry about them, not me. I can handle myself in water.”
She met his gaze. “You can, huh?”
“Swimming instructor.”
“Ah, now it makes sense.”
He frowned. “What does?”
“I saw you swimming length after length yesterday. Thought you were going to break the world record...or you were trying to outswim something.”
Their gazes locked. Chris’s stomach knotted. Far too much sympathy shone back at him. Or was it empathy? He stared past her.
“I like to swim. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“Right.”
He opened his mouth to respond but she was already walking away. He shifted uncomfortably. Was it tattooed on his head he was running away? Did she guess he was that guy? The guy who ran when things got tough. He clenched his jaw. She was the manager of a holiday park. It was her job to talk to everyone and anyone. Even the waste of space drinking at the bar. She was a nice woman. A sexy woman.
When her gaze was turned on him, nothing but goodness shone from her. Her personality screamed kindness and consideration. Chris frowned as the phrase “too good to be true” filtered through his mind.
He turned on the stool. She worked the room, talking to one guest after another. Her hand at their elbow, she subtly eased people to their feet. Men hurriedly finished their pints and mothers ushered their children from the dance floor and fought them into jackets. All of them smiled. No trouble. No arguments. Her looks and her body weren’t to be dismissed, but Chris guessed it was the soft concern in her gaze that got the guests to their feet.
Chris stood and shrugged into his jacket. He grinned as she moved to yet another young family. Definitely another time, another place. Right now, he needed to leave. His loneliness was heavier than ever and he didn’t want to make a fool of himself by saying the words that battled on his tongue to her. Words like “come back with me” and “spend the night.”
Shaking his head, he walked to the double glass doors and stepped outside. He pulled up the collar