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“Don’t you?” he challenged
“I live as I believe my mother wanted me to live,” she assured him, “which means fully and freely, with my eyes wide open, ready to embrace whatever comes my way. But that doesn’t mean I have to embrace whatever crap comes along. I’m done with being your expert horse whisperer and a great fuck—everything except a human being with feelings, as far as you’re concerned. No! Don’t touch me!” she warned when Dante caught her beside the bed. “I don’t want to spend the night with you. I don’t want to fuck you. I don’t want to wake in your arms and feel like nothing more than a device you use to blank out memories that hurt you. I know you were bullied as child because of your mixed birth, and I know your stepmother persecuted you, but you’re not alone, Dante. Thousands of other people have suffered in the same way, and how many of them inherited a landmass the size of the UK? And what about the people who love you—people who’ve been loyal to your family for generations? How many of them are lucky enough to have a fraction of what you’ve got? Please don’t expect me to feel sorry for you, because I won’t. You’re welcome to your lonely life. I don’t want any part of it.”
Her hands were jerky and trembling as she swiped up her clothes. After dragging his top off, she chucked it on the bed. She pulled on her own clothes and then stormed across the room. Dante stopped her at the door. She stared angrily at his hand on her arm, and with her usual bluntness, demanded, “Are you going to let me go, or do I have to knee you in the balls?”
Chapter Eleven
Heated? She was on fire. Dante was returning to the party? Total shit! She was well rid of him, Rose concluded, stopping on the path to angrily tie back her hair with the band she kept on her wrist. She was in no mood for romantically floating hair. She felt more like girding her loins and going into battle. Dashing tears from her eyes, she stood with her heart hammering, hovering between fight and flight modes.
Why was she running, and from whom? Dante was the one with the problem. She got to choose. And she chose to return to the party.
~~o0o~~
If Rose was on the edge, he’d put her there. He had to find her and sort this out. No one had ever gotten under his skin as she had. He headed back to the party.
Women flocked. He chose. He discarded. That was how it had always been in the past. He had never allowed himself to care. No one had ever taken him on before or held up a mirror so he could see what he’d become. She was right in saying he brooded on the past. Don’t hug it, she’d said. Hug it? He’d screwed it to the ground trying to forget what his mother must have suffered when he was in no position to help her—and the rest. Rose was right. It was time to let it all go.
It was time to let Rose go too. He paused on the fringes of the crowd. He was a work in progress, and Rose needed a man who could give her what she needed now, which was love untouched by darkness, and a future where she could find happiness and fulfillment.
He’d never been so wired, he realized as he surveyed the bacchanalian scene in front of him. The bonfire was ferociously hot and lit the surrounding area with an unearthly glow, beyond which was blackness. Guests were already pairing off, making for the shadows. The makeshift bar was crowded and rowdy. His men spotted him and greeted him like a conquering hero. He would have to make time for them. His respect for them knew no bounds. He couldn’t run a ranch the size of his without their help. He would trust them with his life. They knew him better than he knew himself. Miguel, his right-hand man, had been like a second father to him when Dante was a boy. Miguel had known his mother and still talked about her with love and respect. Many a night, they’d shared a drink while Miguel reminisced, and Dante had created a pastiche of memories from another’s man’s recollections.
“Miguel!” he exclaimed with pleasure as the older man came up to greet him.
“You should tell her, Dante.”
He frowned, but he knew exactly what Miguel was getting at.
“You’ll lose her if you don’t,” Miguel cautioned as they walked together toward the bar. “Beer?”
“Why not?” He swung an arm around Miguel’s shoulder.
His men were their usual raucous selves, but he couldn’t settle. He scanned the people on the impromptu dance floor. There was no sign of Rose. He saw Miguel’s daughter, Costanza, chatting to some friends. They’d grown up together. Costanza was like a sister to him. They could relax around each other. No explanations were necessary. They knew each other inside out. Spotting him, she waved him over.
“You look thunderous—more thunderous than usual,” she commented dryly. “What’s up?”
“Nothing.” He shrugged.
“And you expect me to believe that?” She followed his stare. “Rose?”
He’d tensed, having spotted Rose heading their way. She looked so beautiful—so angry. The passion only added to her allure. Everyone had noticed her arrival. She was a magnet to the men’s stares. What he knew was anger, they thought was triumph after her success in the gaucho games. They all wanted to congratulate her and crowded around, halting her in her tracks. Tom joined them.
Tom.
He ground his jaw as the other man put his arm around Rose. Just thinking about Tom and Rose doing anything together seriously pissed him off. The other men who’d taken part in the race had surrounded them as if Tom and Rose were a couple. Laughing and chatting and patting her on the back, his gauchos already respected Rose for her work, and after the race, she was one of them.
“Hey—”
He looked down as Costanza shook his hand off her shoulder. His grip had tightened, he realized.
“Save that for your girlfriend,” Costanza told him.
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Really?” She looked at him. “We’d better dance. You need a distraction.”
With Rose only yards away, surrounded by men, he had all the distraction he needed, but he moved like an automaton to do as Costanza suggested, if only to stop him staring at Rose.
“What’s with you tonight, Dante? Is it Rose? Or are the memories bugging you?”
