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‘Follow me back to the estancia, Bella.’
‘Until we reach the straight,’ she agreed. Challenging glances met and held. They had learned a lot about each other in a very short time, Bella thought, which, if they were to work together successfully, was no bad thing. ‘Well?’ she pressed. ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘I’m giving you a head start,’ Nero told her with an ironic look. ‘It’s only fair.’
‘Fair?’ She laughed. ‘I’ll give you fair. I’ll have a cup of coffee waiting for you when you get back.’
‘Do you seriously think you’re going to arrive before me?’ Nero vaulted onto his horse. ‘Hasta la vista, Bella. I’ll be in the bath by the time you get back.’
He stayed just far ahead of her to know she was safe. There was no point exhausting the horses, and he had nothing to prove. Neither did Bella. She had more than proved herself, Nero thought wryly. Everything he had sensed about Bella was true—except that her hunger for fulfilment went even deeper than he had thought. That was one problem he could solve. Her hair had felt like heaven beneath his hands—and her body, neatly packaged in practical yet severe riding clothes, had given him a provocative hint of the softly yielding flesh beneath.
She had stopped him because of lack of confidence, he knew that now. Confidence could make a person, just as the lack of it could break you, he mused, easing the pace when he heard her pony falling back.
He liked her all the more for her unflinching acceptance of his scars. But Bella was as stubborn as the grandmother who had raised him. Like his grandmother, Bella would never admit to any inner weakness, believing it made her seem less in control. Unfortunately for Bella, he’d grown up with a woman like that. He knew what was going on.
He slowed the stallion to a brisk trot as they approached the yard. He didn’t want to hurt Bella, but nothing had changed. He still wanted her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SHE blamed it on the tango. Her neatly ordered life had always made sense before, but the tango made her confront her passions and accept that she was human. And it did all that—with a little help from Ignacio—in the first thirty-two bars. She wasn’t exactly a new person by that stage, but she had certainly loosened up, and by the end of the dance Ignacio had managed to prove to her that as much as control was necessary to succeed, so was passion.
As in tango, so in life? One thing was certain, she couldn’t go on the way she had been, marking time.
A number of parties had been arranged for the days following the polo match, and so she didn’t lose face completely, Ignacio had agreed to tutor her in private dance lessons. The barn had a number of uses, Bella had discovered, and not all of them contained the dangers inherent in meeting Nero alone there. Ignacio came equipped with an ancient portable machine to play their music and proceeded to train her with the same mixture of firmness and patience with which he schooled the polo ponies. She’d never be an expert, she accepted, but she was a lot better than she had been by the time Ignacio had finished with her.
‘Don’t be frightened to let yourself go, Bella,’ Ignacio advised. ‘And then the contrast when you draw yourself back will be sharper. You’ll have people trembling on the edge of their seats,’ he assured her when she laughed at her pathetic attempt. ‘Bravo!’ he exclaimed with gusto when she got it right.
Would Nero tremble on the edge of his seat? Somehow, Bella doubted it.
Nero felt her arrive at the party and his gaze followed her across the room. She looked incredible. The transformation from Ice Maiden to Tango Queen was complete, and was all the more impressive because of the contrast it drew between cool Bella and too-hot-to-handle Bella.
Too hot for any other man to handle, Nero determined, making his move. He bridled when he noticed the hungry stares of all the men present following her across the room. ‘Bella.’ He ground his jaw as one of the good-looking young stable lads got there first and led her onto the floor. He narrowed his eyes when he noticed Ignacio raise a glass to him at the far side of the room. Ruthless old rogue.
Nero grinned and then he laughed. It appeared Ignacio still had some lessons to teach him. And he’d obviously been busy with Bella too—boy, could she dance. They were queuing up to dance with her—boys who had hardly started shaving, some of them. And, of course, Bella being Bella, was only too happy to dance with all of them. She had so much joie de vivre waiting to burst out of her—something he’d only caught a glimpse of at the polo party in London. He raised a glass to Ignacio, who bowed his head in acknowledgement of the praise as Bella continued to dance with boys from the project, boys from the stable.
Men too.
He was at her side in moments.
She stared up at him. Her lips were full and red. Lipstick she never wore outlined them, enhanced them, made them gleam. ‘Nero,’ she murmured provocatively.
Her hair was severely drawn back, but he would forgive her that at a tango party, as the style was appropriate for the occasion. Her eyes were smoky and made even more lustrous by make-up. She looked and smelled fabulous—like a warm pot of passion just waiting for him to drown in. And the dress… What a dress. Lownecked and split to the thigh in shimmering silver, it was an exquisite example of the type of dress a professional tango dancer would wear.
María’s daughter, he thought immediately. Carina was a famous tango dancer in Buenos Aires and about the same size as Bella. He had already noticed that María had made sure all the girls on Bella’s scheme had the prettiest dresses to wear, and Bella’s outfit was yet another example of his staff showering approval on her. He’d heard rumours that Ignacio had been teaching Bella to dance, and knew for a fact that Ignacio had found smart clothes for all the city boys to wear. But it was Bella, and only Bella, he was interested in now. There was a new confidence in her eyes, and the outfit, with those fine black stockings with the sexy seam up the back, had changed her, like an actress walking onto a stage she owned. If he waited for Bella to be without a partner, he’d be waiting all night.
And so he cut in. ‘I’m claiming the winner’s prize,’ he told Nacho, owner of the neighbouring ranch, who just happened to be the most notorious playboy in Argentina and who was still stinging from losing the polo match to Nero. Their black stares met in a fierce, no-holds-barred challenge.
‘Would you like a partner who can show you how it’s done?’ Nero demanded when Bella hesitated.
‘Get in line, Caracas,’ she told him with a glint of humour in her seductive, smoky eyes.
‘Nero doesn’t wait for anything,’ Nacho murmured, yielding as good manners dictated he must.
Nero stared with triumph into Bella’s eyes. Remembering their last outing on the dance floor, he offered benevolently, ‘I’ll lead.’
‘Into trouble?’ she murmured.
Those lips!
