The Socialite's Secret. Carol Marinelli

Luke frowned and watched a small blush spread up her neck and to her cheeks. ‘What happened to Lucy?’

      ‘That’s my …’ Scarlet didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t want to tell him about the alias that she used for hotel bookings and things. There was a heady thrill that Luke really had no idea who she was.

      It was unbelievably refreshing.

      ‘I’ll have a glass of champagne,’ Scarlet said to the bartender, instead of answering Luke’s question.

      ‘Put it on mine,’ Luke said.

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘No problem.’ Luke drained the last of his drink and turned to sort out the bill. ‘See you,’ he said.

      ‘You’re going?’

      ‘God, yes,’ Luke said as the music pumped.

      ‘That’s not very polite! You can’t buy me a drink and then leave me alone.’

      Luke conceded with a small smile. ‘Drink fast, then.’

      She took the tiniest sip.

      ‘And another,’ Luke said, and then he started to laugh as Lucy—or was it Scarlet?—pretended to take another tiny sip.

      They were, it would seem, going to be here for a very long time.

      ‘Who are you here with?’ she asked.

      ‘My brother and his friends,’ Luke said. ‘It’s his twenty-first.’

      ‘And why are you wearing a suit?’ Scarlet asked, and then took another tiny, tiny sip.

      ‘To ensure that I look like an idiot.’

      ‘Well, I think that you look …’ She looked over his body and then up to his pale face. He was clean-shaven but there was a dark shadow on his jaw, and his eyes, when she met them properly, were a very deep shade of brown. So dark that she couldn’t see his pupils. ‘I think you’re beautiful.’

      ‘I don’t think I’ve been called that before,’ Luke said, smiling at her Californian accent. ‘Though I’m quite sure you’ve been called it many times.’

      Now Luke looked at her properly, in the way he’d been wanting to since he had turned around to her voice.

      That dress showed far too much pale skin and the red stilettos she wore looked a little too big for her skinny legs. His eyes moved to her face and she was way more than beautiful. That fluffy hair was at odds with her delicate features and her mouth was very full and red.

      A little too full perhaps, Luke thought, wondering if she’d had fillers, but, God, she was surely way too young for all that sort of thing.

      He wanted to kiss her.

      That in itself was a rather bizarre thought for Luke. While he thought about sex for approximately fifty seconds of every minute, to want to reach over and kiss, simply kiss, a virtual stranger was something he had never felt before.

      Luke checked his memory.

      Nope, not once.

      This was a new feeling indeed.

      ‘So who are you here with?’ he asked.

      ‘A few people.’ Scarlet shrugged but was saved from elaborating when one of his brother’s friends came over. ‘Hey, Doc,’ he said, and picked up his drink, but then he gave Luke an odd, wide-eyed look and left them.

      ‘Doc?’ Scarlet checked.

      ‘Doctor,’ Luke said, and told her a little bit more about himself. ‘Which is the reason I’m wearing a suit. I was at an interview earlier.’

      ‘Doctor?’ Scarlet frowned and, almost imperceptibly, screwed up her nose, as if he had said that he specialised in sewerage and had just dropped in for a drink midshift.

      ‘What do you do?’ Luke asked her.

      Scarlet looked at the bubbles fizzing up in her still very full glass and it matched her veins because they seemed to be fizzing too with excitement. Luke really didn’t know who she was, which meant she could be anything she wanted to be.

      Anything at all.

      But what?

      And then she remembered her time in Africa and a very far-off dream, and she brought it to life but with a little slant.

      ‘I’m an OB nurse,’ Scarlet said.

      ‘Where?’ Luke asked, rather hoping it was at the Royal!

      ‘Back in LA.’

      ‘You’d be called a midwife here.’

      ‘A midwife?’ Scarlet checked. ‘A what?’

      ‘A midwife,’ Luke said, and watched as she started to laugh.

      He didn’t get a chance to play with words and, oh, they wanted to play with words, but his brother was heading over and Luke had no intention of sticking around for a drunken conversation with him. ‘I’ve got to go,’ Luke said, and as he moved to his full height from leaning against the bar he realised just how tiny she was because even though she was wearing stilettos he towered over her.

      ‘So,’ she asked, ‘where are you moving on to?’

      ‘Moving on?’ Luke checked, and then realised that she was asking him what club he was off to next. ‘Bed.’

      ‘Yum!’

      She took another sip of her drink and met his eyes. Luke had never met anyone like her in his life and, leaving aside the flirty offer, he actually wanted to know her some more, but well away from this dive.

      ‘I meant …’ Luke said, then gave up trying to correct her. ‘Can I Call the Midwife?’

      Clearly she didn’t get his little joke because she frowned at his invitation to get in touch.

      ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Luke said. She was from another part of the globe after all and, yes, he was going back to the hotel, he decided, as an overly friendly Marcus joined them.

      ‘Can I have a word?’ Marcus asked, slapping him on the shoulder.

      ‘Sure,’ Luke agreed, knowing full well that Marcus would be asking for some more money to be put behind the bar before Luke left. Marcus was studying medicine and was perpetually broke. It annoyed Luke. He himself had worked all his way through med school but he chose to say nothing tonight as it was Marcus’s birthday.

      But as they pulled away from Scarlet, and Luke went to get out his wallet, it turned out that Marcus had other things on his mind.

      ‘How did you two get talking?’ Marcus asked.

      ‘What?’ Luke frowned. ‘Do you know her?’ he checked, wondering if she was cutting one of Marcus’s friend’s lunch. ‘Is she here with—’

      ‘You don’t know who she is, do you?’ Marcus grinned. ‘Do you ever come out from behind that stethoscope of yours? That’s Scarlet.’

      ‘I know that.’

      ‘Anya’s daughter.’

      ‘Oh!’

      Yes, Luke did know who Anya was. After all, she had been famous before he’d even been born, not that Luke paid much attention to such things, but he had seen Anya and her entourage leave the club. Now that he thought about it, he did recall that Anya had a daughter who went everywhere with her.

      He glanced over and saw that Scarlet was trying to get away from some loud, obnoxious guy who was trying to drag her over to dance, and two burly men were moving in.

      She was here with her own bodyguards, Luke realised, not the vague friends that she had alluded to. Now he understood Marcus’s friend’s odd look when he had come over.

      Scarlet