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‘That your stepfather had died—which I already knew, obviously, since news travels fast—and that he had bequeathed you your old horse. And since you didn’t have the means to look after him, you were desperate for someone to step in and help you out.’ He stared at her. ‘Is that true?’
Desperate? Was she? Emily met the question in his piercing green gaze. She was certainly still reeling from the recent events which had recently turned her life upside down. Her loathsome stepfather had finally paid the price for his long-standing love affair with the bottle and had died a lonely death, which she couldn’t really be sad about. She hadn’t seen him since the bitter events following his acrimonious divorce from her mother and had been shocked to find herself listed as a beneficiary of his will. She still wondered what had possessed her to beg her business partner for some unplanned leave and then to turn up in a dusty lawyer’s office in Buenos Aires to discover what he had left her. Was it simply curiosity or just a sudden desire to lay to rest the ghosts of her past?
Either way, she had been disappointed. It seemed there had been no deathbed conversion which had made Paul Vickery want to make amends for the harsh treatment he’d meted out to her and her mother. It had been just another twist of the knife really.
‘Some of it is true,’ she said huskily. ‘My stepfather did leave me Joya. But no way did I ask Tomas to get in touch with you. You’re the last person I’d ever choose to contact.’
Alejandro’s mouth flattened as her soft English voice washed over him. Of course he was. He was disposable, wasn’t he? A poor boy with a hard body who could be dispensed with once he’d done his job as stud. He had been deemed suitable enough to introduce her to the art of pleasure and then afterwards tossed aside like a piece of trash. And Emily Green had played him for a fool, hadn’t she? Stared at him with those big sapphire eyes. Tossed her fair hair like a feisty pony, so that it rippled down her back like a field of golden wheat. He’d been transfixed by her Englishness. By her pale beauty and the pert vigour of her young body. Long legs and slender arms and a pale bottom, which curved like the moon.
She’d driven him mad with frustration and desire those hot summer nights when he’d lain alone on his narrow bunk next to the stables, sweat pouring from his brow and his groin close to bursting as he imagined losing himself in all her sweet, secret places. And then, when his dream had finally come true and he had bedded her at last—she had turned around and crushed his honour and his hopes beneath one of her costly leather shoes, before walking away from him without a backward glance.
At the time he had been astonished by her behaviour—but not for long. Because soon after that he was to discover that all women were liars and cheats. But it had been Emily who had hurt him the most, who had wielded the sharpest blade, which felt like it was digging deep into his heart. And didn’t they say that the first cut was the deepest?
‘So what are you planning to do?’ he said, slanting a compassionate look towards the horse who was still trying to summon up the strength to nuzzle Emily’s hand. ‘Put a bullet to his head?’
She recoiled, staring at him as if he had just ascended from the depths of hell.
‘Are you advocating I kill my horse?’ she accused shakily. ‘You, who always loved animals?’
‘Yes, I loved them and still do,’ he grated. ‘More than I ever loved any human, that’s for sure—and way too much to want to condemn them to a life of neglect. Is that what you want for Joya, Emily? For his eyes to grow so dull that he can barely see and he doesn’t even have the strength to put food in his mouth?’
‘Of course that’s not what I want,’ she declared, the quick shake of her head drawing his eyes reluctantly to the thick shimmer of her blonde
hair. ‘But I don’t have...’
‘Don’t have what?’ he prompted silkily.
Emily stared at him, not wanting to divulge the truth—not to him of all people. But what good was pride in a situation like this? Shouldn’t she be thinking about Joya, rather than how humble her life must appear to this new and very different Alejandro, who breathed wealth and power from every pore of his spectacular body?
‘I don’t have the means to look after him,’ she admitted. ‘I live in a small apartment in the middle of London and I couldn’t possibly move him there—’
‘I doubt he would survive the journey anyway.’
She nodded, wishing he hadn’t made the curt intervention because she didn’t need reminding of how frail Joya was. ‘I also have a very modest lifestyle,’ she continued, a rush of blood heating her cheeks as he continued to look at her with a trace of scorn. ‘Which certainly wouldn’t allow me to fund Joya’s care here in Argentina.’
He appeared to be mulling over her words when Rosa appeared on the veranda carrying a couple of the wooden drinking cups known as gourds, and Emily felt a quick pang of nostalgia as she recognised the traditional Argentinian drink of yerba maté. Because it had been Alejandro who’d first introduced her to it—showing her how to suck it up out of the straw-like strainer, which prevented the leaves from clogging up your mouth. Who had told her laughingly that if she wasn’t careful, the caffeine would keep her awake all night—but that was okay by him. She remembered how cosmopolitan he’d made her feel and how the whisper of his fingertips over her skin had made her stomach turn to jelly.
‘Why don’t we go over to the veranda and have this discussion in the shade, while Tomas takes Joya back to the stables?’ Alejandro suggested smoothly.
To Emily’s surprise she found herself agreeing, even though instinct was telling her it might not be such a great idea. Maybe it was the shock of seeing him again which made her follow him up the old wooden steps. Or maybe it was just that old habits died hard, because she’d always been a sucker for his suggestions. Either way, she was glad to take a seat on the veranda, taking a thirsty pull of the bitter drink Rosa had left for them.
Once her thirst had been quenched, she became aware of the Argentinian’s cool gaze fixed on her and she fidgeted a little. He had undone a third button on his white shirt and was stretching his long legs in front of him, drawing her attention to the taut fabric of his trousers, which stretched across the muscular definition of his hard thighs. She could feel beads of sweat breaking out on her forehead as she found herself remembering those thighs hair-roughened and naked as they thrust against the smoothness of her own skin. Yet their physical relationship had been cut abruptly short, she reminded herself, wondering how something so brief could have had such an enduring impact. And then she remembered something else.
‘Tomas told me that your mother had died last year,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m very sorry for your loss.’
It was then that his face changed. She watched it darken with anger and she shrank back a little against the battered wicker chair.
‘You are hypocritical enough to express your condolences?’ he demanded. ‘When it was your spite which meant my mother lost her job?’
CHAPTER TWO
THE LOUD SWELL of the cicadas was the only sound which could be heard above the loud beat of her pounding heart as Emily stared at Alejandro across the faded veranda. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she breathed. ‘How could I have possibly been responsible for your mother losing her job?’
He sliced his hand through the air with a gesture of disdainful impatience. ‘Don’t give me that false wide-eyed look of innocence, Emily.’
‘It’s not false. It’s genuine. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
His brow darkened, his green gaze narrowing. ‘After we were discovered together and you flew back to England as if the hounds of hell were at your heels, my mother was called into your father’s study and told to leave the property immediately, never to return.’ His face contorted with contempt. ‘Twenty-one years of devotion thrown back in her face.’
