Kitty French - Knight and Day

Warm and peaceful for the first time in a long time, Dylan closed his eyes.

Maybe be could live here after all.

Just for a while, at least.

When he made his way back up on deck a little later, he breathed deeply and scanned the serene bay.

He had a new name.

He had a new home.

Now he needed a new job.

Lucien walked slowly through the closed, empty club, his practised eye taking in every detail of the workmanship to ensure it met with the exacting standards he demanded for his multinational chain of adult clubs. His workmen had all clocked off for the afternoon, leaving him free to conduct a thorough inspection at leisure.

He paused momentarily beside the jacuzzi, his fingers against the cool tiles as he remembered conducting a similar inspection several years before with Sophie at his side. His cock stirred in response, and he pushed the memory aside with difficulty. Sophie wasn't due to arrive on Ibiza for a couple of days, and he missed her like hell, even more so since they'd welcomed Tilly into their lives too.

Sophie was his lucky talisman. The girl who surprised him. She still surprised him even now, after several years as a couple. Every now and then he saw a brand new side of her. She had the biggest heart of anyone he'd ever met, big enough to hold his even before he'd known that he'd given it to her.

Fuck, he missed her.

The sound of someone banging on the fire doors broke his concentration, followed by the sound of a male voice shouting outside.

"Artie, are you in there?"

Lucien frowned, crossing to the doors and leaning against the bar to open the left-hand one slowly. He dropped his sunglasses down against the glow of the low evening sun and regarded the man standing outside with his hand raised ready to knock again.

"Artie doesn't own this place anymore," he said.

The guy dropped his arm, and his whole body seemed to slump along with it.

"Let me guess," Lucien said. This wasn't the first guy to turn up in search of the previous owner. "He owed you money."

The previous owner seemed to have left Ibiza with nothing but the dodgy Hawaiian shirt on his back and a trail of bad debts in his wake after he'd hastily sold the premises and hightailed it off the island a few months previously.

The guy shook his head and leaned back against the wall of the club, his face tipped up to the skies with a resigned expression.

"No. Artie was a friend. I don't suppose you know where he's moved to?"

Lucien shook his head, noting the smooth Californian tone to the guy's voice.

"Sorry my friend. Your buddy didn't leave a forwarding address."

The stranger looked as if he'd been around the block enough times to understand the underlying meaning beneath Lucien’s deliberately sparse choice of words.

He watched as the guy looked up again into the big blue expanse overhead and banged the back of his head lightly against the wall with a heavy sigh.

Something about the American's resigned, melancholy demeanor spoke to Lucien. He looked beat. Lucien had been that man, and he found himself swinging the door wider.

"You look like you could use a drink."

The guy half laughed, though his eyes were anything but amused as he nodded slowly and peeled his back off the wall.

"Too right, man. This is turning into one hell of a long day."

Lucien headed back into the club, aware of the guy pulling the door shut and following him in. He turned as the stranger’s step slowed beside the jacuzzi.

"Not your usual club," he commented, as he scanned curiously over the opulent spa area they were passing through.

Lucien lifted a shoulder. "Ibiza has enough of those already."

He led the way down into the main area of the club. Behind the bar he reached for two tumblers and a bottle of vodka from a box on the floor, watching the American as he leaned against the bar and surveyed the almost completed club.

"So this place is yours?"

Lucien nodded as he headed around to stand alongside the guy, placing the glasses on the gleaming bar.

"All mine." He was as proud of this place as he was of all of the other clubs in the Gateway group. They sat in silence for a second as he poured generous measures of vodka into both glasses.

"Lucien Knight." He held a glass out.

The American nodded as he accepted the drink, and paused for a beat before he replied.

"Dylan Day." His eyes wandered over the aubergine velvet booths around the dance floor, the secluded spots, the sumptuous chandeliers. "This is some place. It holds what... about seven hundred at capacity?"

Lucien glanced up, surprised at Dylan's accuracy. "For a usual club, around that. This place is less because of the adult entertainment configuration. It tops out at maybe three fifty."

Dylan's eyes opened a fraction wider. "And it's still profitable?"

"Gateway Ibiza is club number ten, so yeah. I'm pretty confident about my business model."

"Number ten, huh?" Dylan laughed lightly. "That's impressive in this business."

"You know it?"

"Not the adult entertainment side of it, no, but I've been around clubs my whole life."

"That's how you know Artie?"

Dylan nodded. "I haven't seen him for a few years, but we used to be pretty close. He taught me how to run clubs."

Lucien regarded the other man as he looked around the club with assessing eyes, wondering if Artie's shady business conduct was one of the things he'd taught Dylan Day. He looked slightly less jaded with a drink in his hand, and from what he'd said so far the guy knew his way around a club. Gut instinct had Lucien asking more questions.

"I'm guessing you didn't come to Ibiza on holiday?"

Dylan took a long, slow slug of his vodka and set the empty glass on the bar.

"You guess right."

For the second time, Lucien sensed deep melancholy, learning more from Dylan's body language than his meagre words.

"When do you open for business? It's looking pretty shipshape."

Lucien noted the American's subject change without comment. "Four weeks."

Dylan looked directly at Lucien. "You hiring?"

"Hired, pretty much." Lucien didn't add that the only position that he was having trouble filling was that of general manager. He'd rather be on site himself for a few weeks than employ the wrong person. He splashed a second measure of vodka into Dylan's glass.

"Figures." Dylan raised his glass in a small salute, a philosophical twist to his lips.

"Is that why you were looking for Artie?"

"He knows I'm good. I don't have a resume, or references, Lucien, but this business is in my blood. I know it inside out."

Lucien didn't doubt it for a second. The way Dylan had sized the place up within moments of being inside the building had impressed him, as had the experienced eye he'd been casting over the bar the entire time they'd been sitting there.

No references, no resume. They were the kind of phrases that rang alarm bells for most people. But Lucien wasn't most people.

"I'm still looking for a manager for this place."

Interest flared in Dylan's eyes. "You won't find anyone better than me."

Formal interviews had never been Lucien's style. He operated on gut instinct, and it had yet to lead him astray.

"So show me. Three months’ trial while I'm still on the island. You do it well, the job’s yours. If you fuck up, I fuck up, and if I fuck up, you'll fucking know about it."

"I won't fuck up."

"Then we understand each other."

Lucien held out his hand, and Dylan shook it with a small smile that widened slowly into a laugh. It had been the shortest, coolest job interview in the world.

"I won't fuck up, man. You have my word."

Dusk had fallen over the bay by the time Dylan arrived back at the boat, and the beach was mostly deserted aside from a couple of dog walkers and a few sun worshippers who'd stayed on to watch the sunset. It seemed as good an idea as any. Dylan stepped into the kitchen to flick on the switch he'd noticed earlier with “deck lights” written on a sticker beside it.

Then, "fuck," he muttered, scrubbing his hand over the three day stubble he'd left to its own devices since he'd quit the States. Even from inside the kitchen he could see that the rails around the boat had just lit up like a Christmas tree, and not one of those tasteful minimalist ones with designer white lights, either.

Stepping cautiously onto the deck, he squinted as he took in the extent of the illuminations. Multi-coloured fairy lights twined all around the chromed rails of both decks, bright winks of pink, lime, turquoise and lemon against the darkening skies.

He should have known better than to expect understated. Nothing about this boat was understated.

Dylan didn't glance back towards the beach, for fear that the sun watchers had changed focus to watch his one man light show instead. He headed up onto the roof deck and opened out one of the low-slung, brightly striped deckchairs stacked up there.

He was just in time to catch the sun before it slipped down below the horizon, a golden peach blaze that cast ethereal shades of pink across the sea.

Watching nature's light show, he could feel his heartbeat slowing to the tranquil pace of the island around him.

He had a new name.

He had a new home.

He had a new job.

Maybe, just maybe, with the right wind behind him, this was going to work out.

"Lucien?" Sophie’s voice was eager and hopeful as she dropped her handbag on the stone table just inside the front door of the villa.

She called out his name even though she half expected that he wouldn't be there. He wasn't expecting her until tomorrow, but she’d rearranged earlier flights to surprise him.

“Lucien?” She called again, disappointment blooming in her chest at the answering silence.

“Wow.” Kara followed Sophie a few seconds later, the heels of her beloved cowboy boots clicking against the polished marble floor of the entrance hall. “You didn’t tell me we were renting from the royals!” she laughed, wide eyed as she lifted her shades to survey the villa. “This place is frickin’ amazing!”

Sophie nodded. Kara was right, it was fit for a king. “Lucien found it.” She couldn’t keep the tint of pride out of her voice. Life with Lucien seemed to gild everything slightly brighter, due mostly to the fact that he put a whole lot of energy into making her happy. They’d stayed here for the first time a few months ago, back when Lucien had initially purchased this latest club. She’d been just as stunned as Kara by it, so Lucien had leased the villa for the summer, and the idea of living in it for the next few months was nothing short of blissful.

It undulated across the cliff top in complete seclusion, glistening white with more curves than Marilyn Monroe. Built on several levels into the rocks, the property meandered down towards the Mediterranean like the most glamorous tree house in the world. Private nooks and crannies scattered the grounds; secret hideaways waiting to be discovered. The underground master suite came complete with an outdoor bathroom for starlit bathing, and the sunbathing deck elevated in the trees was accessible only via a rope bridge. It was a magical place designed with hedonism and unadulterated luxury in mind, and, knowing Lucien, this was destined to be a work-hard, play-hard summer.

“Of course he did. Good old Mr. K,” Kara grinned, kicking off her boots as she wandered into the huge sunken lounge, her fingers trailing over the backs of the deep suede sofas piled high with pillows. She paused by the floor-to-ceiling glass doors offering a panoramic view out over the turquoise sea. “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven, Soph.”

Sophie thanked their driver for bringing in the cases and closed the front door, smiling at Kara, whilst thinking privately that beautiful as it was, it wouldn’t be quite perfect until Lucien came home.

He’d flown out to Ibiza ten days previously, and every day without him was one too many. She missed his presence beside her in the day, and she missed his body on hers in bed at night.

Theirs had been an unconventional and emotionally fraught road to love, and the last five years together had served only to deepen the bond between them. The arrival of baby Tilly had cemented their relationship, and the little girl had very soon become Sophie’s main rival for Lucien’s affections. Not that she minded; it did odd and beautiful things to her heart to see her big, handsome Viking twisted around the little finger of his infant daughter.