Sara Craven - The Bedroom Barter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Former journalist SARA CRAVENpublished her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.

Cover

Title Page The Bedroom Barter Sara Craven www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Endpage

Copyright

THE waterfront was crowded, the air full of the reek of alcohol, greasy food, and the sultry rhythms of local music. People had spilled out of the crowded bars and sleazy clubs, forming shifting and edgy groups in the stifling humidity of the South American night.

Like a powder keg that only needed a spark was Ash Brennan’s wry assessment.

He moved easily but with purpose, at a pace barely above a saunter, over the uneven flagstones, his cool blue glance flicking over the gaudy neon signs advertising booze and women, ignoring the glances that came his way, some measuring, some inviting. All the time maintaining his own space.

Logistically it was only about a mile from the Santo Martino marina, where millionaires moored their yachts and where all the nightspots and casinos which catered for well-heeled tourists were sited. In reality it was light years away, and any tourist foolhardy enough to venture down here would need to take to his expensive heels or risk being mugged or worse.

Ash reckoned that he blended sufficiently well. The sun-bleached tips of his dark blond hair brushed the collar of the elderly blue shirt, which lay open at the throat to reveal a tanned muscular chest. Faded khaki pants clung to lean hips and long legs. His feet were thrust into ancient canvas shoes, and a cheap watch encircled his wrist.

His height and the width of his shoulders, as well as his air of self-possession, suggested a man who could take care of himself and, if provoked, would do so.

He looked like a deckhand in need of rest and recreation, but selective about where he found them.

And tonight his choice had apparently fallen on Mama Rita’s. He went past the display boards studded with photographs of girls in various stages of undress and down two steps into the club, where he paused, looking round him.

It was the usual sort of place, with a long bar and, closely surrounded by tables with solely male occupants, a small stage lit by powerful spots, with a central pole where the dancers performed.

The air was thick with tobacco smoke and the stink of cheap spirit. And, apart from the sound of the piano being played by a small sad-faced man with a heavy moustache, there was little noise. For the main part, the clientele sat brooding over their drinks.

Waiting for the girls to come on, Ash surmised.

Just inside the door, an enormous woman sat behind a table. Her low-cut sequinned dress in lime-green billowed over her spectacular rolls of fat as if it had been poured there, and her curly hair was dyed a rich mahogany. Her lips were stretched in a crimson-painted smile which never reached eyes that resembled small dark currants sunk into folds of pastry.

Mama Rita, I presume, Ash thought with an inward grimace.

She beckoned to him. ‘You pay the cover charge, querido .’ It was an instruction rather than a question, and Ash complied, his brows lifting faintly at the amount demanded.

‘I only want a drink, Mama. I’m not putting in an offer for your club.’

The smile widened. ‘You get a drink, my man. My best champagne, and a pretty girl to drink it with you.’

‘Just a beer.’ Ash met her gaze. ‘And I’ll decide if I want company.’

For a moment their glances clashed, then she shrugged, sending the sequins rippling and sparkling. ‘Anything you say, querido .’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Manuel—find a good table for this beautiful man.’

Manuel, tall, handsome and sullen, set off towards the front row of tables clustering round the stage, but Ash detained him curtly.

‘This will do,’ he said, taking a seat at the back of the room. Manuel shrugged and went off to the bar while Ash, leaning back in his chair, took more careful stock of his surroundings.

He’d been told that Mama Rita had the pick of all the girls who came to Santo Martino, and it seemed to be true. A few of them were already sitting with customers, encouraging them to run up bar bills of cosmic proportions, but there were several lined up at the bar and Ash surveyed them casually as he took out a pack of thin cheroots and lit one, dropping the empty book of matches into the ashtray.

They were a fairly cosmopolitan mix, he thought. All of them young and most of them pretty.

He spotted a couple of North Americans and a few Europeans, as well as the local chicas who’d strayed into port from farms and plantations of looking for an alternative to early marriage and endless childbirth. Well, they’d found that all right, he thought cynically, stifling a brief pang of regret. Because he wasn’t there to feel compassion. He couldn’t afford it.

‘You see something you like, señor ?’ Manuel was back with his beer, his smile knowing.

‘Not yet,’ Ash returned coolly, tapping the ash from his cheroot. ‘When I do, I’ll let you know.’

Manuel shrugged. ‘As you wish, señor. You have only to speak.’ He nodded towards an archway with a beaded curtain behind the stage. ‘We have rooms—very private rooms—where the girls would dance for you alone,’ he added with blatant insinuation. ‘I can arrange. At a price, naturalemente .’