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Busywork!Not Mariano in a wide-sleeved shirt diving into a pond fantasies!
I know!I can hose down the mats before Gustavo gets here. There’s nothing like a squirting pressure nozzle to concentrate the mind. Alicia would laugh so hard at that she’d poop an entire herd of cattle.
It’s just as wellI’m alone with my turbulent self this morning. I can fill water buckets, then check Tattle’s stall for errant lead ropes or halters or blankets (because: yum); fill up hay nets before inspecting for turds or wandering sandwiches (again, sneaky Tattle nibbles whenever she can get away with it); clean and condition bridles, saddles, boots…whatever keeps me in motion and not thinking too much.
And that’show my whole day goes, pushing myself physically so the thoughts can’t get in. It isn’t until I’m in the shower, lathering myself up and washing barn dust from my hair, that I think about what I’ve done, and what I still have to do.
As in:get dolled up for an un-romantic evening with Mariano.
I could call it off.Lish would approve of that, though she hasn’t said so. When he turns up, all I have to do is open the door, tell him I’ve changed my mind, and close it again. No harm, no foul. All I have to do is say no, and I’m free. Back to being Lolly Benoit, stable hand, working her way up the ladder.
Instead,I find myself curling my hair into a simple chignon and slipping into the scarlet dress I know turns heads. I apply the lightest of make-up but pick out a pair of Fuck Me Stilettos that I promptly rename ‘Fuck you! Stilettos.’
I’m Charlotte Benoit,daring to bend the universe to my will. I’m going to bust the bonds of time and space and travel back to twenty-four hours ago, when Mariano Arias was still a polo god in my eyes, still the kind, considerate man he’d shown himself to be in the barn, and I would have been nervous-excited out of my skin to attend the gala on his arm. Never mind that the idea of being a bait-date feels…unseemly.
Eyes on the prize,Lollz. You have GOALZ, remember? You do your job and he’ll do his and we’ll all end up winners in the end.
“What do you say,Wiggy? Do I pass?”
Mr. Wiggins lovesme best when I roll around on the couch, tickling his tummy. This silk-sheathed nonsense is for the birds as far as he’s concerned. He huffs and turns his back on me, hunkering down for the night.
“Well,pardon me for existing. Just for the record, Lish would say I’m knock-’em-dead gorgeous. So there!”
I pick out a lipstick.Not a major task, seeing as I have a grand total of three—if I include the gloss Lish gave me for my birthday.
Mariano is right on time,his knock a jolt to my senses.
No backing out now.
I blot my lips,force a smile, and crack the door to a gasp and a short bow. “You take the breath away, Ms. Lolly.”
But it’shim who takes my breath away. I’ve seen pictures of him in a tux in the society style posts the polo club plasters all over their social media accounts. But the fact of him—his hair styled without lookingstyled, the cut of his suit accentuating his broad shoulders and his fit physique, the boutonniere pinned to his lapel.Damn.For a second I wish he were really mine. Then I remember what this is: fake everything.
“A deal’s a deal.”I close the door and he brings his hands from behind his back. In spite of the hardness of my words, I almost melt. He’s holding a small box, the kind with a cellophane window in the top. Inside is a corsage of white orchids. It would be sweet, if it were real.
“Would you like me to…”He opens the box, andyes, I would like him to…exceptno. What I want is for any part of this to be real, or the kind of real it would be if yesterday hadn’t happened. It isn’t, but I hold out my hand anyway, ignoring the warmth coursing through me as he slips the flowers onto my wrist—just another part of the plan to make other women jealous.
He smellsof musk and danger, kisses and crime, want and betrayal, and, more than anything else, desire. Mine, not his.
His car’s no better,full of deep, musky notes and the unholy reek of money. Money he says he doesn’t have any longer. His problem, not mine. I’m here for the promotion, nothing more.
He talksand damn if he doesn’t ask me questions. How long have you ridden? What’s your polo handicap? What brought you to—? You know, questions he should have asked me in the not-interview that we did/n’t have.
I givehim the answers he deserves—the shortest possible, in other words—my dress falling open at the thigh as we take a corner. I leave it.The leg—that goes all the way from the pristine-clean floor mats beneath my stab-you heels to my curvy you-can’t-touch-this ass—clearly on display.If he sneaks a peek, so much the better.
Mariano handshis keys off to the valet and comes around to open my door. He doesn’t take his eyes off me, but the look is somehow filled with somethingmorethan scrummy lust.
Damn he’s a good actor.If he can look at me like he wants to devour me and shelter me, then imagine how he’ll look at whatever moneybags-cum-patroness he nabs.
Once again,I put my hand in his, though I wish the flame that blazes through me would ignite something in him. Passion, maybe? Honor? A genuine desire for me, with my trusty pair of castanets in hand, so I could clackety-clack his traitorous knackers. I have to bite back a snort. Lish would love that one.
The club has extendedthe gazebo by about three American football fields and made space for a dance floor, a four-piece band, and a dining area. There are fairy lights strung across the ceiling and bunches of thick, white peonies on every table. The place is swamped with music and chatter as we make our way through the crowd to the middle of the dance floor.
Mariano turnsme to face him.
His eyes meetmine and I swear time screeches to a halt. Not just slow-mo but actual stoppage. For that millisecond, I consider a spook-and-spin, but dammit Mariano is a horseman and he can read me as well as any pony. The instant I’m going to whirl, he takes a tighter grip of my hand and holds me in place. It’s just how I imagine he’d hold the reins with that ‘I feel you and you feel me and we’re not pulling against each other, but we are rightheretogether’ kind of connection. If it weren’t for that light but firm pressure, I’d be gone.
Instead of breaking awayfrom his touch, I’m immobilized. His hand is warm and smooth, but the current that sparks through my every nerve is fire. The jolt goes straight to my heart, restarting it and sending it crashing against my ribcage. I feel like a dumbass for wearing the dress with the plunging neckline because if anyone looks where the V of it leads, they will see my bounding heart.
