Talia stared around her at the scene of devastation. There were palm trees felled by the hundred-mile-an-hour winds that had uprooted them like matchsticks, and the ground was strewn with branches and vegetation, including seaweed and sand from the beach.
The hotel itself looked as if it had been blasted. Roof tiles lay smashed on the ground, window frames were hanging loose, mosquito screens falling off. She was glad that she was wearing strong rubber-soled shoes and long olive green trousers. There was shattered glass in places, too, and thick palm fronds with sharp edges.
Silently, Luke handed her a hard hat, donning one himself.
‘Take care,’ was all he said to her as he headed indoors.
He’d taken little notice of her on the way here—this time in a high-wheeled four-by-four—just as he had the previous day. It was as if he were blanking her deliberately, and she could do nothing but accept it—and respond in kind. She was grateful, if nothing else, that she was able to mirror his obvious indifference to her. He was treating her as someone he’d hired to do a job of work for him. Nothing personal...nothing intimate.
There was a heaviness inside her that was not just tiredness or jet lag. It had been so stupid of her to have any idiotic hope that Luke might be willing to make a fresh start with her. No, whatever they’d had was over. All that was important now was earning the rent to keep her mother at the villa at Marbella. The doctor’s warning meant she could not risk her mother’s health—she was too fragile, in body and mind. And her dangerously weakened heart—
She sheered her mind away, felt anguish slicing through her with a painful jagged edge.
She had lost all claim to anything personal with Luke. That was all over now—brief as it had been. She’d walked out on him. Now all she was to him was a temporary employee. And that was what she had to remember. She was here to sell her interior design skills in exchange for rent, that was all.
Keep it professional. He doesn’t want anything else than that. He’s made that brutally clear.
As she trailed after him, picking her way through the debris, and then stepped inside the building, she heard herself gasp in shock and dismay at the ravages within. Furniture was overturned, curtains were hanging off their rails, crockery was smashed, and there was a fetid smell of hot, humid, overpowering damp. The place had clearly been drenched, both by the pounding rain and the storm-surge of the sea, and even in the months since the hurricane it had not dried out.
She followed Luke across the huge atrium, her heart sinking at the destruction all around her, stepping carefully through the debris on the floor—bits of furniture, shards of crockery, shreds of curtains, wind-strewn sand—gritty under the soles of her shoes. Dismay filled her. How could anyone think to make something of this place again? Surely the wreckage was complete and it was impossible to restore?
All she wanted to do was get out of there as fast as she could. There was nothing worth saving. The whole place was rotting.
Gingerly, watching every step she took across the littered broken flooring, trying not to inhale the gagging smell of damp and decay, she made her way towards the arching curve of the far side of the atrium where it opened onto the gardens—or what had once been the gardens.
Avoiding a louvered ceiling-height shutter, hanging from its hinges, she stepped out onto the terrace beyond, lifting her eyes and blinking in the bright light after the odoriferous gloom of the interior.
And her breath caught again, her eyes widening in amazement.
The garden might be strewn with palm trees, and vegetation had been hurled across the paths and lawns, but in this lush climate Nature had reclaimed her domain, throwing out vines and foliage to soften the fallen trunks, and vivid blossoms, crimson and white and vermillion pink, to festoon the emerald greenery. And beyond—oh, beyond glistened the brilliance of the azure sea, dazzling in the hot sun. The whole scene was radiant with light and vivid colour.
‘It’s fantastic!’ she breathed in wonder.
She could see in an instant why the hotel had been built here, right at the sea’s edge, fringed with sand so silver she could barely look at it in the bright sunlight. The contrast with the rank, ruined interior could not have been greater. Talia could feel her spirits lift, her face light up with pleasure at the sight.
‘Not bad, is it?’ Luke had stepped up beside her. His voice was dry and he was gazing around.
She turned to him. There had been something in his voice, in its very understatedness, that made her exclaim, ‘I can see why you want it! It’s worth any price!’
His eyes came to rest on her and she could see that for a second, just the barest second, he reeled. But then his gaze shuttered and she could tell that he was deliberately blanking her again.
‘I don’t get sentimental over projects,’ he said tersely. ‘That doesn’t make me money. What makes me money is buying something at a good price and adding value. That’s the opportunity here. The company that owns it wants shot of it, and if I can get it at the right price, and get the refurb costings right, it will make me money. That’s all I’m interested in.’
How sad, Talia thought. What a shame that this place would be all about money. Where was his heart? Where was his soul? Where was the man she’d spent that incredible night with? The one who had lit up her whole world with his ideas, his passion, his determination?
‘Even at the lowest possible cost a refurb will be expensive. More so than a new build because of the clearance costs.’
He glanced at her again. ‘Go around the place—and watch your step. Meet me back here in forty-five minutes. Don’t keep me waiting.’
He strode off, heading down to the shore, already on his phone.
Talia watched him go, watched his assured, powerful stride carving through the debris in the devastated gardens. There was a heaviness inside her. His blunt words had had a bleak familiarity to them. She knew that attitude, all right. It was her father’s. Minimum cost, maximum profit. That was all he’d cared about, too.
It was chilling to see it echoed in Luke.
Then, with a little shake of her head, as if to clear all such thoughts from it, she went back inside and started her tour.
She fished out her notebook from her tote and started to jot things down—rough measurements to begin with, and then a sketchy layout of the ground floor guest areas as she walked, watching her step, through the desolate rooms.