Before I can answer, Alex barks out a laugh. “Oh Milo, fucking hell. Her?Her? Are you serious?”
I shrug. I don’t see what the big deal is. And, looking at the clock, I need to hurry this meeting along, or I’m going to be late to the stables.
However, it’s not a satisfactory answer for our mother, who has clearly had enough.
“Will someone please explain to me what is going on? I want to know who this girl is, what New Year’s has to do with it, and finally, regardless of her equestrian skills, why on earth you’ve married someone who hates you?”
“Jesus. Are you already fu—sleeping together?” blurts Lando, correcting himself after a glance at our mother.
I train my glare on him. “Not that it’s any of your fucking business, but no, I am not. It’s not like that, I told you already. She’s an excellent horsewoman, and I’m lucky she’s available.” I face my mum, deciding she’s the only one in this room I want to address. “Ruby doesn’t hate me. Admittedly, when we first met at New Year’s, the tension was a little frosty?—”
“She tried to run him over with her horse?—”
“What?” She interrupts Alex, her eyes wide like only a mother’s could be when they hear one of their children was in imminent danger.
“Al, shut up,” I snarl. “It was an accident, Mum. We crossed paths without seeing each other.” I glower at all my other siblings, daring them to correct me, and continue when they don’t. “But since then, we’ve come to a mutual understanding. I found her just after she got screwed over by a former boss, and she'll really be beneficial to the team once I’ve trained her. Marrying her seemed like the only option we had for her to play.”
“Not an option, Milo,” Lando retorts.
Ignoring him, I wait for my mum to speak, because she’s being uncharacteristically tight-lipped.
“Mum, any questions? Anything to add?”
“No.”
Alex scoffs quietly. I look at Hendricks, who turns to the window, brow raised and biting down a smile. They’re all thinking what I’m thinking.
“No?”
“No,” she repeats, resolute and firm. “I interfered with Lando, and look what happened there. Alex had a baby we didn’t know about until she arrived in the village, then Hendricks . . .” She tuts, loudly. “Anything I have to say clearly isn’t working. If you want to marry someone who hates you, then I’m not standing in the way.”
Hendricks is now wearing a full-blown smile. For someone who didn’t have anything to say, she sure was loud. None of us is particularly adept at relationships, the first time around anyway, and she will prove me right at some point in the near future.
“Okay . . . well, good. Because you’re all wrong. Ruby doesn’t hate me.”
I return to the place I’ve been spending most of my time for the past twenty-four hours—the kiss.The feel of Ruby’s body pressed against mine, the sound of her insistent moans as I swallowed them down, her taste . . . I’m getting hard just thinking about it.
So, no, I’d bet a lot of money on her not hating me at all.
Not even a little bit.
CHAPTER 10
Ruby
Ihate Miles Burlington. Definitely.
If I could hate him more, I would.
“Ruby!” he yellsagain.“Shift your arse back in the saddle and sit up straighter. You look like a melting candle.”
It’s been like this for four hours, switching between three different ponies. I’m at the point where my name’s been yelled at me so much it’s barely a word. Just a noise, a jumble of letters. I’m ready to turn myself in to immigration with my hands held out. They can take me. They won’t yell at me like Miles Burlington.
But I do as he asks even though every muscle in my body screams for a reprieve. I do it while fantasizing about how I can murder him right here on the polo field. A short, sharp whack with my mallet to his overly large, egotistical head should do it nicely.
“Drop your grip on the mallet, and you’ll be able to make contact.”
Again, I repeat the movement, while smiling sweetly. He doesn’t even know he’s schooling me on the best way to kill him.
