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‘And the biggest steak you’ve got,’ a husky male voice interrupted.
Having casually jumped the queue, Chico was handed a plate already loaded with every delicacy his uniformed chefs could provide. ‘I don’t want my new recruits fainting on the job,’ he explained. ‘Here—take this.’ He pressed his own plate of food into Lizzie’s hands. ‘Well?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘Don’t stand there staring at it. Eat before it gets cold.’
‘I’m a vegetarian.’
‘Vegan?’
‘No.’
‘Slap a hunk of cheese onto her plate,’ he ordered the chefs, swapping plates.
Lizzie passed the plate forward to the waiting chef. ‘Cheese omelette, please.’
Damn, if she didn’t sound like the prissiest food freak on the planet, but no way was she being told what she could eat. Chico Fernandez might rule what she did as a student, but her downtime was her own. Tilting her chin at a determined angle, she joined Danny at a table by the window where they could chat undisturbed—only to discover that Danny, like everyone else in the cookhouse, had been watching Lizzie’s exchange with Chico with interest. Didn’t anyone ever take him on? Lizzie wondered.
‘Do you have to provoke him?’ Danny demanded.
‘Why not? It’s fun. I had to stand up to him. Dinosaur—trying to make me eat his plate of flesh.’ She flashed a glance at Chico’s table, knowing it was more than Chico’s dietary concerns for her. These brief encounters with him were bringing it all back to her—the times they’d shared, the jokes they’d told, the gossip they’d exchanged, and the wild rides they’d enjoyed through the magical glens of Scotland. And weighted against that—very heavily weighted against that—was the pain he’d caused her, and that was like a reopened wound as if Chico deserting her had only happened yesterday. She’d gone downstairs on the morning he left to find all the other grooms in the stable yard at Rottingdean, but no sign of Chico. She could still feel the sickening blow of incredulity when they told her he’d gone back to Brazil with Eduardo. She couldn’t believe them—and now? Looking back, she had to admit her feelings all those years ago had been the overreaction of a hormonal teenage girl.
‘Fun?’ Danny queried, breaking into her thoughts. ‘If that’s what you look like when you’re having fun, I’d hate to see you when you’re angry.’
‘Sorry.’ Shaking her head as if that could disperse the memories, she set about distracting Danny. ‘You weren’t exactly all sweetness and light with Tiago, I seem to recall.’
‘And where’s the similarity in that?’ Danny asked, pausing with her fork halfway to her mouth. ‘One polo player owns this facility and can throw us both out on a whim, while the other is a guest player. Chico is a whole different deal. You know that as well as I do, Lizzie, and you shouldn’t take him on. Just behave,’ Danny coaxed as Lizzie pretended nothing was wrong as she tucked into her omelette.
‘I promise,’ Lizzie agreed.
‘For how long?’ Danny groaned as she followed Lizzie’s gaze.
‘Hateful man,’ Lizzie muttered as Chico raised his glass to her.
‘I can see how much you hate him,’ Danny remarked as Lizzie’s cheeks flamed red.
* * *
Bandaging. Something Lizzie had believed she could do really well, but maybe not at six o’ clock in the morning. The class had gathered round Chico to pay attention as he worked, while all she could register was that his touch was so deft, that watching those long, lean fingers was a thought-stealing distraction—
‘Lizzie?’ Chico glanced up. ‘Would you care to demonstrate my technique to the class, please?’
This would be all right if she could concentrate, and if her cheeks didn’t burn red from Chico being so close to her. She actually gasped when their stares met and held. ‘Sorry—I’m being fumble-fingered this morning.’
‘No problem,’ Chico growled. ‘We can wait.’
And she did make a good job of it. ‘Same time tomorrow, everyone,’ Chico said when she’d finished.
Straightening up, she turned to leave with the other grooms, but Chico stopped her with his hand on her arm. Relax, she told herself firmly as heat zigzagged through her.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he began.
She sincerely hoped not. Her thoughts were the wrong side of X-rated.
‘You think I’m being hard on you, for no good reason, but either you want to succeed or you don’t.’
‘I want to be the best,’ she said frankly.
‘Good.’ Chico’s level stare held her gaze, and she got the uncomfortable feeling that somehow he could read her thoughts. ‘I know you from way back, Lizzie, and if you build on the talent you showed then, you could be the best.’
‘Thank you.’
She left the stall thoughtfully, half hoping he would call her back. It would have been good to talk as they had used to, but that was another one of her daydreams, and Chico had no trouble separating their personal and professional lives. If only she could do the same. The air had been electric between them with so much left unsaid. Perhaps it was better that way, though she had a suspicion that at some point they would have to clear the air between them, and that it might be explosive when it happened, with years of bottled-up emotions on both sides pouring out.
* * *
He leaned back against the dividing wall of the stall, thinking about Lizzie, and wondering why fate had seen fit to reunite them. Lizzie’s wildflower scent was in his head, but what did she feel about him? Guilt? Regret? She wasn’t easy to read. What did she remember about all those years ago? Why hadn’t she responded to his letters? He could accept that her parents would tell her lies about him, but Lizzie knew him—or she had used to.
No child would willingly believe a stranger above her own parents, he reasoned, but Lizzie was a woman now, and surely she had worked out what type of people they were?
Yes, life should be simple, and fate should stay out of it, but, whatever happened while Lizzie was on his course, the next few months should prove instructive—for both of them.
* * *
Chico Fernandez, Lizzie fumed as she crossed the yard on her way to the cookhouse for breakfast. How was she ever going to get that man out of her head? She couldn’t think of anything else. She hadn’t slept a wink last night, because her head was full of him—full of sex. She had come here with one goal in mind, and now she had another, more pressing preoccupation—sex. Danny hadn’t helped, saying there was nothing wrong with being a healthy female with healthy female urges.
If only it were that simple! If only she could get through the day without being in what could only be described as a heightened state of sexual arousal, which precluded having a sensible thought in her head. So, what did this mean? Was she going to be incapable of functioning until she’d had sex with Chico Fernandez? Couldn’t she be stronger than that?
And, if she did have sex with him, what then?
Her heart would be broken. Her nights would be even more troubled, and she would probably be thrown off the course.
Great. Were Chico’s nights troubled? Somehow, she doubted it.
‘There’s a letter for you, Lizzie,’ Danny said as soon as Lizzie had settled into her chair at what had become their regular table by the window.
It was a letter from home. All thoughts of Chi
co temporarily suspended, her heart raced as she opened the envelope. She hated having to leave her grandmother to face their many creditors alone, and dreaded what the letter contained.
‘So?’ Danny prompted.
‘So...?’ Lizzie repeated distractedly as she scanned the letter quickly.
‘So yet again, you were hanging out with the man of the moment for a long time, so I just wondered—’
‘Well, stop wondering, because nothing happened.’ Lizzie looked up and then read through the letter again, slowly this time.
‘Not bad news, I hope?’ Danny prompted.
Lizzie shook her head. ‘I’ll get us both some coffee, shall I?’
Danny stared after her with concern as she got up from her chair and walked out of the cookhouse. She needed a moment to think—time alone to gather her thoughts. Her grandmother had become gradually weaker; the doctor thought it advisable for her to spend a little time in hospital. The house would be locked up, and everything would be safe, so there was nothing for Lizzie to worry about—which made Lizzie wonder if there was anything she could have read to worry her more. Whatever happened, nothing must be allowed to get in the way of the course, her grandmother had written in her shaking script. Lizzie had to save the family firm. ‘There’s no one else, Lizzie. There’s only you left now.’
‘Can you move away from the door, please? You’re holding up some hungry men.’
She looked up with a start, straight into Chico’s cool, assessing stare.
