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How thoughtful. She almost laughed. Real life was such a cruel spectator of vulnerable moments and now she was painfully conscious of her nakedness and quickly pulled up a sheet to cover herself.
‘I shouldn’t think anyone will notice who’s at the party and who’s left by now,’ Chico remarked. ‘So I wouldn’t give it a second thought, if I were you. I’ll go down before you, and you follow,’ he suggested. ‘It will be easier for you that way.’
How considerate, she thought dryly. ‘Good idea.’
He gave her a stare, and for a moment she wondered if he’d seen through her to the uncertainty beneath her confident words, but then he relaxed and started tugging on his clothes. Job done, Chico was moving on to his next project, and she was a fool if she thought what had happened between them meant anything more to him than that.
She tried to settle back and then sat up again. She wasn’t going to lie here, feeling sorry for herself. And she wasn’t going to hide away as if she’d done something wrong. They were consenting adults, consenting, and it had been fun.
It had been a lot more than fun for Lizzie, but this wasn’t the fairy-tale fantasy of her teenage years, but the inevitable consequence of two healthy adults taking advantage of some privacy on a hot, sultry night.
So, if that was all it was, why did she hurt like hell?
Leaping out of bed, she grabbed her clothes. She didn’t need to hold them in front of her as any sort of shield as Chico didn’t even look at her. Reaching for his boots, he stepped into them. He still hadn’t fastened his jeans and his hard, ripped torso was still naked. She felt a violent bolt of lust and subdued it. That was her body talking. Her mind had more sense. And, for sure, Chico had no such thoughts in his head. The sex had been good, but it was done, and he had other things to be getting on with. Fastening his belt, he shrugged on his shirt, and did up what few buttons were left, then shot her a dry look. ‘You owe me a shirt.’
‘You owe me a blouse,’ she countered, her swift riposte hiding a heart that was breaking in two. Yes. This had been every bit the mistake she had anticipated. Did she regret it? No. And she would hide her feelings from Chico, whatever it took. One perfect night, remember?
‘If you see Danny when you go down, will you tell her I’m okay?’
Chico raised a brow as he opened a drawer and reached for a clean top. ‘If I see her.’ He shrugged the top on and then made for the door without another word.
What did she expect him to say? That was great—we must do it again some time? She’d walked willingly into this situation, Lizzie accepted as the door closed behind Chico. And now she was going to see him every day until the end of the course, so she would have to live with the consequences of what she’d done. It was hard to believe she’d been so strong, so certain when she set out for Brazil, and now she’d thrown her whole future into jeopardy.
Because she had ignored her mother’s warning that Chico was poison?
She couldn’t believe that. She wouldn’t believe anything bad about Chico, but she’d been so young at the time of the scandal it was hard to be sure of the facts. She could remember her grandmother holding her when Lizzie had needed reassurance after hearing her mother saying terrible things about Chico. Now Lizzie wondered if she had been meant to overhear her mother’s increasingly bitter condemnation of him, which had been liberally laced with Serena’s obvious dislike of her daughter Lizzie.
There was no reason for Serena to be jealous of her, Lizzie reflected. Her mother was still a beautiful woman, while Lizzie would always be a carrot-top and unexceptional, but Lizzie’s growing friendship with the young Brazilian groom had been the final nail in the coffin of their relationship back then. He’s trouble, that one, Serena would say as she followed Chico with her hungry stare.
Her mother’s words hung in the air now, tainting everything, and goading Lizzie with the fact that Serena might have been right about Chico caring for nothing and no one, which was one of her regular taunts. Chico’s childhood, running wild in the barrio, and witnessing his brother being shot dead, must have left him emotionally damaged, and possibly incapable of feeling, though Lizzie’s grandmother had insisted this wasn’t true, and that Chico was real—authentic. He had no airs and graces that her grandmother could detect. What you see is what you get with Chico, she had insisted, but some people can’t deal with that type of honesty, Lizzie.
Her grandmother’s words had washed over her head when she was an impassioned teenager and all she’d cared about was Serena driving her friends away, but for some time she had known that her grandmother was right. She had disowned Lizzie’s parents shortly after Eduardo had left Rottingdean House with his young groom. Frustratingly, Lizzie didn’t know all the circumstances behind their departure, but, thanks to newspaper reports at the time, she did understand something of the way her parents had been living, and their accusations against Chico, especially as she had become the butt of everyone’s humour at school when the salacious details of her parents’ scandalous parties had leaked out, and everyone except Danny had mocked her.
‘See you down there, Lizzie—’
As Chico closed the door behind him all that old humiliation came flooding back. She allowed it a few ugly seconds to inhabit her, and then she pulled herself together. She wasn’t fifteen now. This was very much the present day, and she had a goal and a purpose in being here that went far beyond moping around in Chico’s bedroom. She wasn’t even going to waste time being angry with herself for putting herself in this position. Grabbing her clothes, she headed for the shower.
* * *
Danny was waiting for her when she got back to the party.
‘Well?’
Danny was avid for news, but Lizzie’s mouth firmed when she glanced at Chico, who was holding court in the middle of a group of polo players and their groupies.
‘Come on,’ Danny pressed again eagerly.
Turning her back on the group and Chico, Lizzie met her friend’s gaze. ‘I screwed up.’
‘You didn’t...?’
‘Let’s just say, I won’t be a notch on our lord and master’s bedpost, more of a scratch.’
‘So, Chico had an itch?’
‘This isn’t a joke, Danny.’
‘So, you did...’
‘Yes.’
‘And it was amazing. Don’t tell me. I really don’t want to know. But you did talk about the past and get that sorted out?’
Danny knew how many questions remained unanswered. At a guess, the whole village of Rottingdean knew about that. ‘No. We didn’t talk,’ Lizzie admitted.
‘But you will?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said honestly.
Thankfully, Danny knew when to leave things alone. They had been confidantes for ever, or so it seemed to Lizzie, but there were some things she couldn’t share, not even with Danny, and Danny respected that. Lizzie doubted she would ever tell anyone that she had made love to Chico Fernandez, while he had had sex with her. That wasn’t something you lightly shared around. ‘You don’t mind if we don’t talk about it, do you?’
Danny stared at her for a moment, and then gave her a hug.
CHAPTER NINE
HE HAD NEVER had sex with one of his students. He liked to think he had more sense. Lizzie had scotched that idea. He didn’t have any sense where she was concerned, but then he didn’t have sex with anyone who blew his mind like Lizzie Fane.
Of all people, Lizzie?
Why not Lizzie? They’d been close when she had been too young to touch, and now that attraction had exploded into something so much more.
So this isn’t revenge?
Revenge? He certainly had enough reason to revenge himself on the family that had almost ruined his career before it began. If Eduardo had been a different person, Chico would have been
out on his ear. But like him, Eduardo cared nothing for prestige and the influence of the so-called aristocracy, and everything for truth and straight dealing. And he had believed in Chico, taking his word above that of strangers.
And if this were revenge, why Lizzie?
As an angry youth he’d thought any member of the Fane family fair game after what they’d almost cost him. But now the only answer he could come up with was that he cared about Lizzie. He’d been incapable of feeling for so long, this truly was a revelation to him.
Forget the past—he’d just noticed Tiago peeling away from the pack of players. The music had picked up pace, and everyone was dancing. The moon was out, the stars were bright, and the spirit of South America had infected all the party-goers, and Lizzie was talking to Tiago. Damn! She was dancing with him! Excusing himself from the group he was talking to, he muscled his way through the crowd and homed in on his target. ‘Do you mind if I cut in?’
Tightening his hold on Lizzie, Tiago met Chico’s stony gaze with amusement, and it was Lizzie who spoke up. ‘Yes, I’d mind,’ she said.
Brave words, but her eyes betrayed her. Those eyes were hurt and he knew why. He had treated her like any other savvy woman of his acquaintance, and had forgotten this was Lizzie. He stared levelly at his teammate. ‘Tiago?’
Tiago didn’t need asking twice.
He caught hold of Lizzie’s arm when she went to move away. ‘Are you refusing my invitation to dance?’
‘Yes,’ she said bluntly, attempting to freeze him with a look.
‘I know you want to dance with me.’
‘Oh, do you?’ Her words were angry, and two red patches had appeared on her cheeks. He guessed if he hadn’t been her boss and this training course hadn’t depended on his endorsement, she would happily tell him where to go.
‘One last dance?’ he suggested.
‘Why?’ She tipped her chin to regard him coolly.
‘Because we both want to.’
