In the Brazilian's Debt

by Susan Stephens

  ‘And you’re seriously suggesting that I’m safer with you?’ she exclaimed incredulously.

  ‘I’m saying—you’re staying here, with me.’

  Neither of them blinked as the band started up again, until, lifting his hands, he let her go. He’d felt her body yielding when he’d held her, and, as he could have predicted, Lizzie wasn’t going anywhere. Wound up like a spring, she had to have the fire of the music and the energy of the dance to stand any hope of releasing her tension.

  ‘I think you take pleasure in tormenting me,’ she said angrily as she came back into his arms.

  ‘You only think?’ he murmured, his lips slanting in a grin. ‘I think you love dancing with me, so why pretend?’

  She huffed and raised a brow.

  ‘Some might call dancing with me an opportunity,’ he pointed out, tongue in cheek.

  ‘While I would simply call it a risk to my toes.’

  ‘We dance too well together for that,’ he said confidently.

  ‘Stop it!’ she warned him in an undertone. ‘Don’t you dare flirt with me.’

  ‘Or...?’ Pulling her close, he stared into her eyes, and then with every inch of them connected, body and mind, coaxed her back into the dance.

  ‘Don’t you care that we’re being stared at?’ she asked him after a couple of circuits of the floor.

  ‘I doubt anyone has any interest in us,’ he argued. ‘And if they do,’ he added, in a whisper in her ear, ‘I don’t care.’

  Only a few months before, and the thought of being close to a member of the Fane family would have been unthinkable for him, but Lizzie Fane was the only woman he wanted in his bed.

  When the music stopped, he was irritated to see Lizzie’s friend Danny waving imperatively to Lizzie from the edge of the dance floor. ‘What does she want?’

  ‘You’ll have to excuse me—’

  ‘I will?’

  They glared at each other for a moment and then he stood back.

  ‘I’ll watch out for wolves,’ she said, flashing him one last challenging glance.

  If she didn’t, he would.

  * * *

  Denied Chico’s heat, the enclosing warmth of his arms, and the sheer challenge he presented every time they were together, she felt his loss immediately, but the presentiment of trouble ahead worried her more as she hurried across to join Danny. She had to shake this feeling off. She was in danger of looking for trouble everywhere. She was in the middle of a party, for goodness’ sake. What could possibly go wrong?

  It didn’t matter where she was, Lizzie realised as she made her way out of the crush to where Danny was standing. She felt like that fifteen-year-old girl again, sitting on the stairs listening to her parents fight, and Chico had triggered this uncertainty by reminding her of the past. She still wasn’t sure exactly what part he’d played in the drama, and sometimes she wondered if she would ever find out. She passed Tiago, who was leaning back against the bar and raising his glass to her, and ignored him as she walked on towards Danny. By the look on Danny’s face, something was seriously wrong.

  ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ she pressed urgently.

  ‘I got a call from Scotland, because you were, um, otherwise engaged.’

  ‘And?’ The expression in Danny’s eyes was alarming her now.

  ‘It was Annie calling me—she needed to speak to you, but your phone was off.’

  Not just off, ignored while she was in Chico’s bedroom.

  ‘She asked me to be there for you.’

  ‘Annie did? Why?’

  ‘I think your grandmother’s taken a turn for the worse.’

  ‘Oh, Danny.’ Everything seemed to crumple inside her. Only one thing mattered now, and that was getting back to Scotland as fast as she could.

  ‘There’s something else, Lizzie.’

  ‘Something else? What else could there be? Just tell me.’ She had started shaking, Lizzie realised.

  ‘The bank has repossessed the Rottingdean estate.’

  ‘What?’ Lizzie reached for the edge of the bar to steady herself. ‘Why didn’t Annie ring me before tonight? My grandmother must have known, and she would have told Annie.’

  ‘Because your grandmother wouldn’t let her tell you. Lizzie, come back here—’

  Lizzie was already heading away from the party. She had to leave Brazil for Scotland right away.

  ‘Lizzie!’

  Danny caught up with her in the stable yard. ‘Don’t do anything drastic. I wish I hadn’t told you now.’

  ‘You couldn’t keep this from me. I have to do something. I can’t stay here half a world away, leaving Annie to cope with everything.’

  ‘Of course you can’t—but just remember we have to graduate, and none of us can afford to miss too much term time.’

  Danny was right. Not being awarded her diploma would be a disaster for Rottingdean, and the equine business Lizzie was determined to revive.

  There was no Rottingdean.

  She would not accept that.

  ‘You won’t leave now, will you, Lizzie? Word on the street is you’re going to pass out top.’

  ‘That’s just not important now,’ Lizzie called back.

  ‘Then it should be.’ Running after her, Danny stopped dead, blocking Lizzie’s way. ‘Your grandmother wouldn’t expect you to bail from the course. What help will you be to her then? And you are supposed to be captaining this year’s student team against the students from a neighbouring fazenda. What about us—your teammates?’

  Lizzie was thrown for a moment. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Haven’t you read the notice in the tack room? Oh, no,’ Danny groaned, clutching her head. ‘Chico must have put it up before he came to the party, and then you two disappeared.’

  Lizzie let go a sharp breath. Danny was right. She didn’t want to let her colleagues down. ‘Sorry—I wasn’t trying to give you the brush-off. I’m just so shocked.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ Danny agreed, giving her a hug, ‘but rushing back to Scotland won’t solve anything. It’s too late for you to do anything, according to Annie,’ she added with compassion. ‘And this isn’t a fun match like the game we played against Chico’s team. This is a serious game with talent scouts coming to watch how we handle the ponies.’

  Which would be a unique opportunity for Lizzie, not just to impress but to spread the word about the Rottingdean she still hoped to save. ‘If I catch a flight in the morning, I could be in Scotland the day after.’

  ‘But you’d miss the match and the chance to impress the top scouts and horse breeders,’ Danny pointed out sensibly.

  Scotland had to come first, or there would be nothing to show anyone.

  ‘This has nothing to do with Chico, does it?’ Danny asked as she hesitated.

  ‘No,’ Lizzie said too quickly.

  ‘I’m not trying to say this call from Scotland is a convenient excuse for you to leave, but it is an out.’ Danny’s mouth slanted as she waited for Lizzie to respond.

  Only a friend could say that, Lizzie reflected as she examined her motives.

  ‘This has nothing to do with Chico,’ she said finally, ‘and everything to do with my grandmother and an estate that has been in the Fane family for generations. My parents almost lost it, and my grandmother held it together, and I can’t let her down now. It’s up to me to step up.’

  Danny still looked as if she thought Lizzie was wrong to race
back to a grandmother she couldn’t save and an estate that was lost, but Lizzie knew she had to try.

  CHAPTER TEN

  GUILT CHASED LIZZIE all the way to the door of the grooms’ accommodation, where she felt a firm hand on her shoulder. ‘Chico!’ she exclaimed, swinging round. Clutching her chest, she caught her breath. ‘You frightened me half to death.’

  ‘What’s wrong, Lizzie?’

  ‘What’s wrong is, you have to let me go.’

  ‘Not until you tell me why you’re so upset. What did Danny tell you?’

  Lizzie was trapped between his dangerously familiar frame, and the cold, unyielding door; her emotions went into overdrive. ‘Just let me go!’

  ‘Not until you tell me what’s wrong.’

  Passions soared as they glared at each other. ‘My grandmother’s ill and the estate has been repossessed,’ Lizzie blurted. ‘Are you satisfied now?’

  ‘What?’ Chico said quietly.

  She pulled away. ‘Don’t try to stop me. I have to go.’

  ‘In the middle of the course?’

  ‘Yes, in the middle of the course. I can’t stay here and allow events to unfold without having anything to say about it. I have a responsibility to fulfil, as the last—’ she hesitated, hunting for the right words ‘—as the last responsible person in the Fane family. I have to do something. Can’t you see that?’

  She looked in vain for some flicker of understanding or compassion in Chico’s face, but he remained expressionless. ‘So, you’re leaving,’ he said.

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘I’ll miss you.’

  Of all the things he might have said, that was the last thing she had expected. ‘Will you?’

  ‘Of course. Can’t you tell me more?’

  She couldn’t tell him what was happening at Rottingdean when she wasn’t sure herself. It hurt knowing that, however right it felt when she was with Chico, it was never enough to keep them together, and that this time it was almost certainly goodbye. His face gave nothing away, and when he leaned forward, she pressed back. Undeterred, he fisted her hair, drew her head back, and drove his mouth down on hers. For a moment her mind blanked. Chico’s kisses were like a drug she could never get enough of, but this felt depressingly like a last goodbye.

  ‘Will you let me help you?’ he said again as they broke free.

  ‘I don’t know what you can do to help,’ she confessed.

  ‘Money can do a lot of things, Lizzie.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘This is something I have to do by myself.’

  ‘It may not be that easy.’

  ‘When is life ever easy?’

  ‘It might be easier if you sometimes allowed people in.’

  She looked at him with surprise. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning, I’ve got people who could look into this for you—while you finish the course,’ he said pointedly. ‘It’s worth bearing in mind that without the accreditation from here your business plan will stand little chance.’

  She listened patiently, but she already knew what she had to do; when he’d finished, she killed Chico’s idea stone dead. ‘Will your people hold my grandmother’s hand when she’s dying? Will they explain to the tenant farmers that they don’t have a home any more? No, Chico. This is something only I can do.’

  ‘Now? In the middle of the night?’

  ‘As soon as I can.’ She glanced at the door, eager to start her packing.

  ‘How long will you be gone?’

  ‘As long as it takes.’ She didn’t even know if she’d be coming back. She couldn’t afford the plane fare, and any money she had would have to go to pay legal fees, and even that would be a stretch.

  ‘But you have commitments here.’

  She searched Chico’s eyes, wondering if he would miss her, or if he was asking purely practical questions, perhaps already thinking about who could take her place on the course, and lead the team at the end-of-year match. ‘I couldn’t feel worse about leaving.’

  ‘Then, don’t leave. You’re the captain of the team, Lizzie. You have responsibilities here. You’d be leaving your fellow students in the lurch, and you’ll jeopardise your chance of graduating this year.’

  A shiver ran through her at what seemed like an implied threat, but maybe she was overreacting. She steadied herself. ‘Some things are more important than ambition, and my grandmother’s life is one of them.’

  Instead of backing off, Chico moved in close, and, planting his fist on the door, he stared into her eyes. ‘You do know this is the last thing your grandmother would want you to do, don’t you, Lizzie?’

  ‘She needs me. And family always comes first. The tenants are my extended family, and I care about what happens to them.’

  Chico’s exasperation broke through. ‘You talk to me about family?’

  ‘Yes, I do, and I’m not frightened to bring the subject up. I expect you to understand that what I’m dealing with now is very much in the present.’

  Shaking his head, Chico pressed his lips down in disagreement. ‘I’ll tell you what I do understand. I understand. I understand family and how they can ruin your life. Why can’t your parents do something useful for once?’

  Lizzie laughed this off. ‘I don’t think they’re going to start now, somehow, do you?’

  They both knew the answer to that question, and as Chico swore viciously his anger sliced through her. He had told her something of his hideous childhood in the barrio when they’d had their solitary chats in the stable, and then, after suffering all that, he’d been drawn into Lizzie’s family’s sordid affairs.

  ‘You asked me how my parents affected me, and you’re right,’ she said. ‘As a child I did feel rejected. If it hadn’t been for Danny’s friendship, I don’t know what I’d have done. I hid myself away at home. I didn’t trust anyone, and then you came to Rottingdean, and perhaps I sensed a kindred spirit, because you were the first person I really opened up to. But that girl you remember? That’s not me. I’ve changed. My grandmother moved back in, and taught me to trust again, and how to live life on my own terms. I’ll never forget what she did for me.’

  ‘What she did for both of us,’ Chico said.

  A slow breath eased out of her. ‘So, you haven’t forgotten?’

  ‘How could I forget, when your grandmother and Eduardo saved me? When I heard I’d been accused of assaulting your mother, I was staggered at first, and then I was angry. It was as if I was ten years old again with a gun stuck in my back pocket, eager for revenge. And after the fury I felt impotent, because there was no way I could defend myself against the accusations. I wrote to you, confident that you knew me, and would know those accusations were lies, but you never replied. That’s when I learned to close off my feelings.’

  ‘I never got any letters,’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘Your mother,’ he ground out, full of frustration and anger at what had been lost—trust, friendship, together with Lizzie’s peace of mind for so many years. ‘She took them. Your mother must have destroyed my letters. She stopped you having them.’

  ‘We don’t know that for sure,’ Lizzie, always the voice of reason, pointed out quietly.

  ‘She must have done,’ he argued fiercely. ‘Who else would do that to you?’

  Lizzie looked down and thought about this for a moment. ‘Does it matter?’ she said at last.

  ‘To me? Yes, of course it matters,’ he exclaimed with passion. ‘I poured my heart and soul into those letters—’ He saw Lizzie’s lovely face light with indulgence. ‘Okay, my teenage heart and soul, but still...’

  ‘You were right to ask me to speak up for you,’ she said firmly. ‘And of course, I would have done—if I’d known,’ she added, looking at him now with compassion, as if she could feel the weight of
his frustration at the time that had been lost between them as keenly as he could.

  ‘Why do you always have to be so understanding, Lizzie?’

  She smiled a little at his passion. ‘Maybe I understand you,’ she said.

  He had always thought Lizzie’s childhood in the big house as deprived as his, until her grandmother had moved back in from the dower house to take over Lizzie’s care. To think what her parents had stolen from her—and he wasn’t just thinking about his letters now, but Lizzie’s innocence, and her freedom to enjoy her childhood and growing up, as every child should. It beat him up inside even now to think how easily she could have become a victim of her parents’ depravity. It didn’t bear thinking about. Neither of them would ever be able to thank Lizzie’s grandmother enough for what she’d done for them.

  ‘If you wait, I’ll come with you when you go back to Scotland.’

  Lizzie looked at him with surprise. She was right to. Sharing his feelings was new to him, but her grandmother’s illness had set him back on his heels.

  ‘I feel a bond with your grandmother,’ he explained. ‘And gratitude. I believe I owe my success to her, and to Eduardo. Your grandmother taught me how to sift the good people from the bad, and I owe it to her to be there now.’

  He could tell that Lizzie’s decision was already made.

  ‘How could you leave now?’ she said. ‘It’s almost Christmas, and when we come back in the new year, it’s our graduation, which you must attend, and then it’s the match. By that time it could be too late. I’m sorry, Chico, but I can’t wait for you. I have to go now. Could I please borrow one of the Jeeps?’

  He frowned. ‘To do what?’

  ‘To drive to the airport.’

  ‘Do you know how far that is?’

  ‘Well, no. I’m not quite sure, but—’

  ‘You’ll take my jet,’ he said flatly. ‘My pilot will fly you directly to Scotland.’