The Trouble with Mojitos (2 page)

Rik eyed the little firecracker over the rim of his glass and grinned. She was certainly living up to the flaming colour of her hair. He admired her spirit, misguided as it was.

“If you’re not going to do the sensible thing and drop it, then you’ll need an introduction. Someone who knows the mayor and can get you in the door. On this island, you convince the mayor, you convince everyone else.”

“Great. So is there anyone you know who can open the mayor’s door for me?”

Silence. The bartender, bored by the conversation, had drifted away to re-fill the pretzel bowls, and Rik suddenly found something very interesting in the bottom of his glass.

He could do it. Perhaps even should do it.

Except he hadn’t felt very much like doing anything for anyone in a very long time. Sod them all, indeed.

His glass was empty. He couldn’t even remember drinking that last drink, so the alcohol must be starting to do its job at last. But it hadn’t numbed him enough yet. He could still feel the summons burning a hole in his pocket.

He waved his empty glass at the bartender. “Why don’t you just give up?” he asked, finally catching the barman’s eye.

“Because things always work out in the end.”

He rolled his eyes. What kind of naivety was that? Clearly, she’d lived a very sheltered life if she believed persistence was all you needed to get what you want. Sometimes life just kicked you in the nuts for no damn good reason. “I suppose I could.”

“Could what?”

Not just naive, but slow on the uptake too. “I could introduce you to the mayor.”

“You? I thought you had to have connections to get anything done here. You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No.”

She pursed her lips, clearly wanting a more elaborate explanation. She’d have to learn to live with disappointment. If there was one thing he’d learned in this new life that had been forced on him, it was that he didn’t owe anyone anything. And that included explanations.

“So how do you propose to introduce me to the mayor?”

She didn’t give up, did she? Like a mosquito buzzing in a room, tenacious and annoying. But at least the mosquito’s buzz was insistent enough to drive out the awareness of other pains.

He sighed. “I’ll drive you there in the morning, ask to see him. After that, the ball’s in your court.”

“That simple?” Kenzie’s eyes narrowed.

“That simple.” His glass seemed to have a hole in the bottom. It was already empty. Or had the barman not yet re-filled it? The mosquito buzz seemed louder now.

“If I take you to see the mayor, what do I get in return?” Rik asked, not looking at her.

“I have money,” she said. “If that’s what you want.”

He looked at her then, up and down the fragile frame encased in non-branded department store clothing. There was no way she had the kind of money that would mean anything to him. And since he not only had his inheritance, but also the rather handsome payment he’d been given to disappear, money was the last thing he needed.

“Not money.”

The blood ran to the surface of her near translucent skin. “I’m not giving you
that
.”

He laughed, a mirthless, rusty sound, even to his own ears. “I sure as hell don’t need to bribe you for sex either, honey.”

Though he was sure sex with her would be fun, he’d never needed to bribe anyone for anything. Everything he’d ever wanted had been handed to him on a platter, including women.

But no matter how attractive the idea was, he wasn’t in any fit state for that now. Tonight it wasn’t sex he wanted, but oblivion.

“Keep my car keys safe for me until the morning.” He removed the keys from the back pocket of his jeans and slid them onto the bar counter between them.

“That’s it?” She lifted an eyebrow. She had the most piercing blue eyes he’d ever seen, as clear as the water in the bay where he swam every day. “How do I get them back to you?”

“I’ll meet you in the hotel reception at ten.”

“How can I be sure you’ll be there?”

He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Because you have my keys.” And besides, he’d had more entertainment in the last half hour than he’d had since he arrived in Los Pajaros. That had to be worth a little effort in return. “I’ll be there.”

She hesitated a moment before she took the keys and hopped off her bar stool. “In which case, I need to get my beauty sleep.”

“Hey Pollyanna … ” She was halfway out of the bar when he called after her. “You might want to wear a dress. A short skirt will get you much further with the mayor than your current ensemble.”

“I don’t own a dress.”

“You could make a stop in the resort boutique first thing in the morning.”

She shook her head and kept on walking, and with a chuckle he turned back to the barman to order another drink.

When it arrived, he stuck Kenzie’s discarded swizzle stick and umbrella into the glass. “Happy birthday to me.” He downed the drink in one long gulp.

@KenzieCole101: Sheesh I’m tired. See you in 8 hours world.

@LeeHill: What’s up Mac? I’m not even asleep yet and I’m 5 hours ahead.

@KenzieCole101: You know I’m useless without a full night’s sleep.

Kenzie woke to the insistent ringing of a phone. Not the chirpy tone of her mobile, but a shrill tring-tring. The room was still dark.

She pushed her long fringe out of her eyes and groped for the hotel phone on the bedside table. “Hello?”

“Miss Cole? This is the night manager. We require your urgent assistance at the beach bar please.”

What the…? “What time is it?”

“It’s a little after 1am.”

He must have the wrong person. Why on earth would she be needed in a bar in the middle of the night? “You have the wrong room.” Her voice was still scratchy with sleep.

“You’re not Miss Cole?” The man’s voice rose in anxiety.

“I am, but I’m sure you have the wrong person.”

The manager cleared his throat. “It’s about your young man.”

What young man?

Oh heavens, he had to mean Rik. What had he done? A tremor of ice ran down her spine and brought her fully awake. But he couldn’t have gone anywhere – she still had his car keys.

“Is he okay?” she asked, struggling upwards and fumbling for the light switch.

“He’s passed out.” And the manager sounded very unimpressed.

She rubbed her eyes. “I’ll be right down.”

She pulled on a sweatshirt and jogging bottoms, tied her hair back in a ponytail, and slid her feet into the espadrilles she’d bought on her first day in Los Pajaros in celebration of having arrived in the tropics. Then she headed downstairs.

Why was she always dragged into other people’s shit? She really had to learn to be less trusting of people. She should have taken one look at that rugged face and those glittering eyes and run as far away and as fast as she could.

But no…she always had to give people the benefit of the doubt. And now here she was, in the dead of night, about to take on someone else’s problems yet again.

The 80s music had long since ceased and the reception lights were on low. But outside the path that meandered between swimming pools and luscious gardens was as brightly lit as Piccadilly Circus on a hot summer’s night.

The thatched bar lay right at the end of the path, where the grassy lawn met the sandy beach. It didn’t look much different than when she’d been there earlier in the evening, a little darker, but still deserted and still full of shadows.

The dreadlocked barman had emerged from behind his bar and was now huddled over a figure sprawled face down across one of the rough wooden tables. Beside him stood a harassed looking young man in a wrinkled white suit who had to be the manager.

“What’s the problem?” she asked in her most cheerful voice.

The manager turned, his face transforming from aggrieved to relieved in an instant. Kenzie wished she felt the same, but instead her heart hit the bottom of her espadrilles.

“We need to get him out of here,” the manager said, huffing as he tried to lift Rik’s dead weight. “Where does he need to go?”

“How the hell should I know?” Kenzie frowned at the two men.

“He gave you his car keys,” the barman pointed out.

“Yes. He asked me to keep them until the morning so he wouldn’t drive anywhere in this state.” She turned to the manager. “Surely you must know which room he’s in.”

The manager stiffened, righteous indignation written all over him. “He’s not a guest of this hotel.”

It just kept on coming.

“Maybe there’s something in his car that will tell us where he belongs?” she suggested. “Then perhaps we can call a cab and send him home.”

“We can’t leave him here while we look,” the manager said. “What if he wakes up and wanders into the sea, or one of the pools? I don’t want to be responsible for that.”

Neither did she. “Okay, we’ll have to take him with us to the main building.”

It took both men to lift Rik off the table. Then, with his arms looped around their shoulders, they began the shuffle back along the brightly lit path. The trip took at least three times as long as it had taken Kenzie on the way down. Impatient to get rid of the lot of them and back to the comfort of her king-size bed, she lengthened her strides and hurried ahead, fingering the car keys in her pocket.

She had no idea how she was going to identify which car she was looking for. This could take all night.

But when she reached the guest car park, it wasn’t too hard to work out which car was Rik’s. The car park was packed full of vehicles that were obviously rentals – all but one, a sleek black Lamborghini.

Doing ‘Nothing much’ clearly paid a lot of money. Perhaps he really was a pirate. Or a drug smuggler. What if she found packages of cocaine stashed beneath the seats?

With her heart knocking against her ribs, Kenzie scoured the car for clues. Nothing. Not a driver’s licence, no scraps of paper – not even a bank bag of marijuana. Relieved by the last but frustrated by the first, she sat down in the passenger seat and racked her brains.

Who was this man? A local, a guest at another hotel? His accent was indistinct. There’d been a hint of something European, but equally he spoke as if he’d learned his English at Eton or Harrow.

She rubbed her forehead. Was anyone missing him?

She jumped as a shadow moved beside her.

“Found anything?” the manager asked, bending down into view.

She shook her head. “Nothing. Did you check if he had any ID on him, or credit cards?”

“Of course. The only thing in his wallet was cash.”

What kind of man drove a fancy sports car but didn’t even have a credit card? In her experience, wealthy people always had plastic of the platinum variety, and weren’t afraid to use it.

Unless her pirate needed to conceal his identity?

Perhaps he was an assassin. Or a stockbroker caught embezzling funds who was now on the run from the law.

She climbed out the car and slammed the door shut. “There’s only one thing to do then.”

“What?”

“You’ll have to put him up in a room for the rest of the night.”

The manager drew up his thin shoulders, offended. “We don’t just give out rooms to everyone who gets drunk in this hotel. I’ll have to call the police.”

Kenzie rubbed her temple where an ache had begun to bloom. If Rik spent the night in a police cell, what were the chances he’d be able to take her to the mayor’s office any time soon? Assuming of course that hadn’t all been a big fat lie.

She squeezed her eyes shut. He’d seemed genuine enough when he offered. Unwilling, but genuine.

Damn him. She needed the mayor’s permission so she could do her bloody job and get off this island and carry on with the rest of her life. Which meant she needed him.

“Fine,” she snapped. “He can sleep in my room.”

There was a sofa. And Rik was so out of it, he’d never even notice he was way too tall for it.

Back in the hotel lobby, Rik lay on a plush banquette, the barman hovering wearily nearby. On the plus side, and unlike Brett, her most recent and completely unlamented ex, Rik neither snored nor drooled in this state.

As the two now red-faced hotel employees manhandled him into the lift, Rik surfaced long enough to mumble “sod them all” before sinking back against the glass wall.

Sod you too
, Kenzie thought.
And Neil, for sending me into this mess
. Though in all fairness, she couldn’t blame the film’s producer. She’d wanted this job. Had begged for it.

As noiselessly as they could, they half-carried, half-dragged Rik down the corridor to her room and she opened the door with her key card.

“On the sofa,” she instructed the men, and they dumped Rik unceremoniously down.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t call the police?” the manager asked, eyeing Rik’s prostrate form.

“Absolutely not,” she said, in the crispest, most professional voice she could muster at this time of night. Or this time of morning.

The barman and manager couldn’t get out fast enough, and Kenzie didn’t stop them. She latched the door behind them and sagged against it.

There had to be worse ways to spend a Friday night, although nothing sprang to mind.

Her gaze fell on Rik, twisted uncomfortably on the sofa. Tough shit. Served him right if he woke with a sore back as well as a sore head.

It was only when she’d undressed and climbed into bed that she noticed the piece of paper sticking out the pocket of Rik’s jeans. The manager clearly hadn’t done a particularly thorough job of searching him.

She shouldn’t bother. She should switch out the light, pull the covers over her head, and get back to sleep.

But that scrap of paper gnawed at her. What if it could tell her who Rik was and where he belonged?

Curiosity won. She padded across the room and eased it out of his pocket, trying hard not to look an inch to the left at the bulge in his jeans. Rik mumbled and rolled over, and she jumped back.

But he didn’t wake.

The paper was a single page, creased as though it had been crumpled in anger then smoothed out again. She really shouldn’t unfold it. She should put it back. It was none of her business … 

Oh what the hell … 

She unfolded the paper. A letter. No address, just a barely visible embossed logo in the top left hand corner, in the same ivory colour as the paper itself. The note was hand-written in a large, old-fashioned hand, very neat, and dated several weeks ago.

Rik – you’ve been a pain to track down. No more hiding - we need to talk. I expect you at my engagement party and I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer. I’ll owe you big. Max

Nothing there to give any hint of who Rik was, yet something tugged at the edge of her memory, just out of reach. She moved to the bedside table and sat on the edge of the bed, holding the letter to the light. The paper was thinner than regular office paper, expensive, and the logo caught the light. Not a logo after all but a heraldic crest, a dragon framed by climbing roses. The memory nudged harder. She’d seen it before, and recently.

Think, think.

The mayor’s waiting room! She’d spent the better part of the afternoon staring at this shield, only it had been in full colour, above the obligatory portrait of the governor hanging on the wall. It was the emblem of Westerwald, the nation that owned this southern Caribbean archipelago.

The same nation that had been in the tabloids a great deal lately.

Fredrik and Maximilian …  she slapped her forehead. She’d never have recognised him with the beard and overlong hair, but it had to be …  She had a prince on the sofa in her hotel room! A disinherited prince, to be sure, but that hardly mattered.

A
missing
disinherited prince. She wondered what the tabloids would pay for news of his whereabouts. Nope, not going there. There was no amount of money in the world that would induce her to throw someone into that rapacious spotlight. Been there, done that, and burned the tee shirt.

She perched on the edge of her bed and considered the letter. Just last week she’d sat in the Soho production office and flicked through a magazine article on the recently announced royal nuptials in Westerwald. There’d been a great deal made about the guest list for the upcoming engagement party, a party Rik was clearly expected to attend.

How she’d love to have been a fly on the wall during that confrontation!

No wonder Rik had drunk himself comatose. The thought of going back to the country that had thrown him out, to face the brother who’d succeeded him, perhaps even the mother who’d passed him off as another man’s child, all under the glare of the paparazzi cameras… she’d have got drunk too.

Kenzie set the letter down and took a hard look at him.

Prince Fredrik von Waldburg of Westerwald.

There’d been a picture of him with the article. She remembered it clearly, since she’d stopped for a long look. He’d been dressed in a suit and tie, clean-shaven and conservative, but there’d been a suggestion of ruggedness that had appealed to her even then.

He’d had a glossy blonde on his arm in the picture, a girlfriend with a title to match the perfect looks and catwalk evening gown. What had happened to her? She’d probably gone the way of his inheritance.

Kenzie set the letter down on the bed and stared at her unwelcome visitor. At least he hadn’t lied about being able to introduce her to the mayor. Even disinherited, he probably had the kind of connections that could open a lot of doors for her.

Her heart skittered with excitement. She’d known she was on the verge of something big. Neil had sent her here to fail. But with Rik’s help, she could get the job done and prove to him, and to herself, that she was more than just the poor choices she’d made a decade ago.

You see.
Things always work out in the end
.

Rik lay on his stomach, one leg over the arm of the sofa, the other trailing on the floor. One arm hung at an odd angle and his face was crushed into the cushions. He was going to have an interesting pattern on his face when he woke.

Oh heavens – when he woke … !

What the hell was she going to say?
Good morning, your highness, would you like your pillows fluffed?

Stuff that. She’d had enough of that with the second in her long line of exes. Charlie had expected her to bow to his every whim because he had money and a title, and she’d been so awed by the world he’d introduced her to that she’d done it. She’d gone along with every stupid, hare-brained scheme of his, until she’d been hung out to dry in full public view. The memory rose like bile in her throat. Never again!

It seemed all these rich boys were the same; too much money and nothing better to do with their time than party and get wasted. Though to be fair, those with very little money still had the same tendency, as Brett had proved.

It had all seemed so glam when she’d been in her heady twenties, young and impressionable, but she was older and wiser now. There was nothing glamorous about having a man passed out on one’s sofa, no matter who he was.