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No surprise there, Bella thought dryly. She only had one regret left. She hardly saw Nero. They ate at different times, and he never seemed to be around when she was teaching. Whether he was too busy preparing for the polo match or whether he was avoiding her, she had no idea. It was none of her business what Nero was doing with his time. If she had any sense at all, she wouldn’t miss him.
But she did.
The night before the ponies were due to arrive from England Bella slept fitfully. When she did manage to doze off, the young woman in the portrait seemed to come alive. With a fist planted on her hip and her strong jaw jutting at a determined angle, it felt as if she was sizing Bella up.
At one point Bella shot up with a start and switched the lights on. The room was empty. Of course it was empty, but when the cockerel crowed she realised it was time to get up. Leaping out of bed, she pushed back the heavy curtain. Excitement flashed inside her at the sight of a dust cloud that could only herald the horseboxes arriving from England.
Nero was already out in the yard.
If there was one thing guaranteed to bring Nero out, it was horses.
Heedless of how she looked or what she was wearing, Bella tugged her old dungarees over her pyjamas, adding a baggy sweater for extra warmth. There was no time to scrape her hair back, though she did pause in the bathroom to run a toothbrush over her teeth before racing out of the room and pelting downstairs. Tearing through the kitchen, startling María and Concepcion along the way, she burst through the door just in time to jog alongside the lead vehicle until it slowed to a stop in the stable yard.
‘Leave this to the drivers, Bella,’ Nero said sharply as she began to reach for the locks.
She was elated at the sight of Nero and feeling purposeful at the thought of the horses so close at hand. And determined to have her own way.
‘I said leave it,’ Nero snapped.
Moving in front of her, he said, ‘This is men’s work.’
‘Men’s work?’ Bella demanded. ‘Would your grandmother have said that?’
Nero’s face froze and in that split second Bella said firmly, ‘Excuse me, please,’ and moved past him.
Bella was certain his expression could put a layer of ice on the lake, but Misty was in the back of this transporter and no one was getting in her way.
‘Why don’t you go back to the house and let us handle this?’ Nero suggested in a more persuasive tone. She looked at his hand covering hers. ‘I’ll let you know when Misty’s settled.’
‘I’d like to do that myself. I want to welcome my own horse and check her over. I won’t be going back to the house until I’ve checked all the ponies over,’ she assured him. Planting her fists on her hips, she stared at him and he stared at her, neither of them moving.
‘Shall we get on with this?’ Nero suggested dryly as the back of the trailer was unhitched.
‘Together,’ she insisted.
Nero’s lips tugged a little as he stretched the ironic stare. ‘Together,’ he agreed finally.
Good. This might be Nero’s estancia, but the ponies were her responsibility too. They’d had a long drive, and a transatlantic flight and—
And standing up to Nero excited her. Her heart was pounding. And, much as she loved her work, she couldn’t put all this excitement down to the arrival of her favourite horse.
Nero took charge of the lead horse, a towering bay called Colonel, one of his favourites, Bella remembered, while she took happy charge of Misty. It was inevitable they walked to the stables together—or, more accurately, walked to the small paddock outside the clinic where the ponies would wait their turn to be checked over by the vet.
‘They’ll be here for a few days of observation,’ Nero explained as Misty whickered and nuzzled Bella. ‘We’ll keep her close for a few days, allow her to get acclimatised, and then you can ride her whenever you want.’
Bella’s jaw must have dropped. It was the first time anyone had ever stepped in and told her what she could or couldn’t do with her ponies. ‘When I
judge it right, I’ll ride her.’
‘With the vet’s approval.’
‘In consultation with the vet.’ She had her hand balled into a fist, Bella realised, and it was resting on the top of the fence in a disturbing mirror pose of the woman in the painting in her room. And, just like Nero’s grandmother, she wasn’t about to back down.
The sight of Bella, even in those wretched dungarees, stirred all sorts of unwelcome feelings inside him. Those feelings had only increased when she’d drawn battle lines between them. Why must Bella make his life so complicated? Why couldn’t she just fall into line?
Like the girls who put him to sleep? The girls who had nothing to talk about? The girls who might as well have lived on another planet? Was that the type of person he would like to change Bella into?
Okay. He’d felt her passion in the barn. It was all or nothing for Bella. Sex without commitment would never be enough for her. Sex with commitment was something he had never contemplated. That didn’t stop his happy contemplation of her naked body beneath the shapeless clothes as they led the horses towards the veterinary station. On the surface, Bella was ignoring him, but there was a current snapping between them as she whispered sweet nothings in her pony’s ear. She was probably instructing Misty to obey no one but Bella—
