‘You could have fooled me,’ Diego drawled, the warmth that had blazed in his amber eyes turning rapidly to an expression of icy arrogance. ‘I was not expecting anything,’ he snapped, furious with himself that he had come on to her like some callow youth. It was not his style. He always played it cool with women, and he had meant to stop after one brief kiss. Rachel’s passionate response had blown him away, but he wasn’t prepared to take all the blame. ‘Do you seriously expect me to believe that if I hadn’t stopped just then, you would have called a halt?’ He gave a disbelieving laugh that sparked Rachel’s temper. ‘Don’t kid yourself, Rachel. Your need was as great as mine—and still is,’ he said coolly as he trailed his hand insolently down the front of her shirt and noted how her nipples jutted to attention.
He watched her cheeks flood with colour, and with an impatient movement he stood up and strode over to the door of the caravan, snatching oxygen into his lungs as he stared over the lush green English countryside. He was only going to be here for a few weeks, and he had a job to do that promised to be interesting. Rachel played an important role at Hardwick. He had learned from talking to the other grooms that she was highly regarded for her dedication to the horses and the polo club, and he needed to establish a good working relationship with her. The attraction between them was seriously inconvenient—but if Rachel could fight it then so could he.
‘This was a mistake,’ she said huskily. For some reason the discernible tremor in her voice tugged at Diego’s insides. He turned his head and saw that she had buttoned her shirt right up to the neck. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to kiss me … and I admit I got carried away. I can’t believe I fell for the “can I come in for coffee?” line,’ she choked. Her eyes fell on the glorious yellow roses and she felt sick. ‘Is that what the flowers were for—to soften me up for a quick sex session?’
‘Of course not,’ he grated, outraged at the accusation. She was making it sound as though she was some virginal innocent and he was an utter bastard who had cynically planned to seduce her, but neither was true. ‘It was just a kiss,’ he said coldly. ‘I assure you I had no intention of asking you to jump into bed with me.’
It might have been ‘just a kiss’ to him, but for Rachel it had been the most devastatingly sensual experience of her life. Still, she would rather die than let him see how much he affected her, and she preferred to carry out a post-mortem of her behaviour away from his mocking gaze. ‘Please go,’ she said shakily. ‘I think it would be best if we both forgot this … this …’
‘Fascinating interlude?’ Diego suggested sarcastically.
‘Get out!’ The glittering amusement in his eyes was the last straw and she clenched her fists and dared him—dared him—to say another word.
‘I’m going.’ He sauntered down the caravan steps and glanced back at her, his tone no longer mocking but quietly serious as he murmured, ‘I agree we should try to forget the sexual chemistry that exists between us, Rachel. But I wonder if we can.’
CHAPTER THREE
THE heatwave, which had been unusual for early May, broke and on Monday morning Rachel walked up to the stables in the rain, dreading facing Diego again. Over the weekend she had come to the dismal conclusion that she had seriously overreacted. Of course he hadn’t kissed her as a prelude to persuading her to sleep with him. He was a gorgeous playboy and a sporting hero who was frequently photographed in the tabloids in the company of beautiful models. He was hardly likely to have felt uncontrollable lust for a scruffy stable-girl.
His scathing dismissal of their kiss emphasised how unimportant he regarded the whole episode, but she had acted like a shocked virgin from a Victorian melodrama. No doubt that was because she was a shocked virgin, she acknowledged gloomily. Diego had made her feel things she had never felt before, and now she felt restless and unfulfilled.
She did not see him until later in the afternoon, when she and a few of the other grooms had been out exercising some of the polo ponies and gave them one last gallop back to the stables. Diego was wearing a knee-length black oilskin coat and matching wide-brimmed hat that shielded his face, but his height and the width of his shoulders made him instantly recognisable, and Rachel’s heart lurched when she reined in her horse and they trotted into the yard.
‘Are you sufficiently recovered from your accident to be riding?’ he greeted her as he strode over and caught hold of her pony’s bridle.
‘I’m fine,’ she replied automatically, ignoring the nagging pain in her ribs. Her eyes were drawn to his mouth, and she blushed as she recalled the tingling pleasure of his kiss. She saw something flicker in his eyes and hastily looked away from him. ‘I’d better go and rub Charlie Boy down. He’s covered in mud.’
‘You both are,’ Diego said dryly. He did not understand how he could possibly be turned on by Rachel when she was wearing a bulky waxed jacket and mud-spattered jodhpurs. He usually liked women to look feminine and alluring—as if they’d spent their days in the beauty parlour and came to him beautifully groomed and coiffed and dressed in exquisite couture gowns. Rachel looked as though she had rolled in every muddy puddle she’d come across but, to his self-disgust, he imagined undressing her slowly, layer by layer, until he exposed her slender, pale body.
‘How are the bruises?’ he asked roughly.
‘Fading,’ she mumbled, remembering how he had unfastened her shirt and discovered the ugly purple marks on her shoulder, and how the desire in his eyes had rapidly disappeared. What would he make of her now that the bruises were turning an unattractive greenish yellow? She would never know, she told herself firmly. She was never going to allow him to touch her again, let alone undress her—and, from the cool expression in his eyes, he obviously regretted the whole episode as much as she did.
‘You could have taken another day off,’ he murmured. ‘I can see that your shoulder is still stiff.’
‘It’s fine—and I’m not used to sitting around doing nothing. I’m not the world’s most patient patient,’ she owned honestly.
Amusement glinted in his eyes at her understatement. ‘No, I don’t suppose you are. When you’ve seen to your horse I’ll give you a lift home. I have to go into the village and the farm is on my way.’
‘Oh, no, it’s okay—I’m not going home just yet.’
He frowned. ‘There’s nothing more to do here today.’
‘I want to take Piran over the jumps,’ Rachel admitted reluctantly.
He shook his head. ‘That’s not a good idea. It’s your first day back and you must be tired.’ He had watched her on several occasions during the day, when she had been unaware of him, and he was astounded at how hard she worked. She was so petite, and the life of a stable-hand was physically demanding, but from the moment she had arrived at the stables early this morning she had taken on more than her fair share of the workload.
If Rachel was honest, she was worn out and ached all over, but her innate stubbornness rebelled at Diego’s dictatorial tone. ‘Olympic champions don’t get to the top of their sport by giving in every time they’re tired,’ she said briskly. ‘Piran and I both need all the practice we can get before our next competition.’
‘Santa Madre! You are the most headstrong, argumentative …’ Diego inhaled deeply, trying to control his temper. ‘I understand your desire to succeed as a showjumper, but it’s sheer folly to take unnecessary risks.’
‘Jumping is a dangerous sport—as is polo,’ Rachel said tightly. ‘How can you warn me about taking risks when your whole career has been built on the fact that you consistently risk your safety when you play? I’ve watched footage of you competing in tournaments, and you ride with a crazy disregard for your safety—almost as if you’ve got a death-wish,’ she added, her voice faltering when the hard gleam in Diego’s eyes warned her that she had gone too far.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he snapped coldly. ‘I’ve been at the top of my sport for the past ten years and I know what I’m doing.’
Rachel shrugged. ‘Fine—le
t’s agree that I won’t give you advice on your sport, and you won’t tell me how to do mine.’
Diego glared at the mutinous line of her mouth and was seriously tempted to kiss her into submission. She was as strong-willed and reckless as … as he had been at twenty-two, he owned grimly. She thought she was infallible, just as he had a decade ago, and he wanted to warn her that she wasn’t—no one was.
Once he had been headstrong and impetuous, but it had been those traits that had caused his brother’s death. Diego closed his eyes briefly, trying to stem the wave of pain that swept through him as he pictured Eduardo’s lifeless body. Even after all this time the memories were agonising and the pain still raw. The ache in Diego’s heart had never eased—nor had the belief that he had no right to experience happiness in his life when he had unwittingly caused Eduardo’s accident.
Rachel was wrong about one thing; he brooded grimly as he watched her dismount and lead her pony into the stable. He did not have a death-wish—it was simply that his survival or otherwise was something that did not interest him unduly. He had spent the last ten years pushing himself to the limits and daring death to take him as it had taken his brother, and it was ironic that his recklessness had made him a national sporting hero in Argentina and a world renowned polo champion.
Hardwick Polo Tournament was always a popular event, but this year more tickets had been sold than usual because Diego Ortega would be playing for the home team. For the past two weeks Rachel had arrived at the stables at dawn and worked until dusk, helping to prepare the estate for the influx of twenty thousand visitors. Somehow she managed to fit in riding Piran. She’d felt apprehensive the first time she had taken him over the jumps after he had thrown her, and Diego’s brooding presence at the edge of the paddock had only made things worse. But she forced herself to control her nerves—aware that Piran would pick up on her tension, and she was euphoric when he jumped the six foot fence with no problems.
She was less happy that Diego seemed to have appointed himself as her minder and turned up without fail every evening when she took Piran down to the practice paddock. His presence unsettled her. He unsettled her, she admitted when she watched him stride into the yard on the morning of the polo tournament. He looked breathtakingly handsome in the Hardwick team colours—a gold shirt, taupe jodhpurs and black leather boots. As usual the sight of him made her pulse-rate quicken and she blushed when he looked over at her, the slight smile on his lips telling her that he was aware that she had been staring at him.
She had developed a monumental crush on him, she acknowledged ruefully, feeling a shiver of excitement run the length of her spine when his gaze lingered on her. She worked with him closely every day and was finding it increasingly hard to hide her attraction to him. And it was not just her physical awareness of him. Watching him train the polo ponies, she had been impressed by his skill and patience, and his amazing affinity with horses. He was an outstanding horseman, and she knew she could learn a lot from him. She wished she could relax and chat to him as easily as the other stable-hands did, but she felt tongue-tied whenever he spoke to her, and was terrified he would guess how much she longed for him to kiss her again.
Diego had been chatting with the other members of the Hardwick team, but now he detached himself from the group and walked over to collect the first of the four horses he would ride during the match. ‘Do you have a partner to escort you to the after-tournament party, Rachel?’ he queried casually as he swung himself into the saddle.
He hadn’t yet donned his hard hat and in the sunlight his hair gleamed like raw silk on his shoulders, blown back from his face by the breeze. Rachel’s heart jolted beneath her ribs and her voice emerged as a strangled sound. ‘Alex asked me to go with him,’ she mumbled. Alex was another groom and one of her closest friends. She saw Diego glance across the yard to where the copper-haired young man was leading out a polo pony, and he gave a slight shrug.
‘What a pity. I was hoping I could persuade you to partner me tonight.’ He gave her a bland smile, but the expression in his eyes stole her breath. It was gone before she could define it—yet she was sure she had not mistaken the look of feral hunger in his gaze, and she felt a surge of gut-churning disappointment that she had missed her chance to attend the party with him.
But what chance did she realistically have with Diego? she brooded later as she watched him tear around the polo pitch, controlling his horse with awesome skill. He dominated the field, and she doubted there was a woman present among the spectators who was not bowled over by his stunning looks and blatant virility.
At the end of the tournament he was presented with the winner’s trophy by Felicity Hardwick, who looked pink cheeked and flustered as she gave him a congratulatory kiss. Afterwards he posed for photos with the promotional glamour models, and as Rachel stared at the bevy of beautiful blondes crowded around him, and then glanced down at her mud-stained jodhpurs, she wondered why she had thought he could ever be interested in her. He was going back to Hardwick Hall for a champagne reception, but she still had hours of work to do at the stables. They were worlds apart, she accepted with a heavy heart, and for her own good she had to stop mooning over him like a lovesick teenager.
Dusk was falling by the time she returned to her caravan, and she could summon little enthusiasm for the party which Earl Hardwick gave every year for guests and staff of the polo club. But she had promised Alex she would go, and so she stripped out of her filthy clothes and squeezed into the tiny shower cubicle.
‘You look fantastic,’ Alex greeted her when he arrived to drive her to the party. ‘You should dress up more often, Rache. I can’t remember the last time I saw you in something other than jodhpurs.’
‘I can hardly trip around the stables in a skirt and heels,’ she pointed out. She felt ridiculously girly in her pink floral skirt and a silky chemise with delicate shoestring straps that left her shoulders bare. She had swept her hair up into a loose knot on top of her head, but it was so fine and silky that stray tendrils had already worked loose and framed her face. On an impulse, which she assured herself had nothing to do with the knowledge that Diego would be at the party, she was even wearing make-up—just a touch of mascara to darken her lashes and a pale pink gloss on her lips.
A huge marquee had been erected in the grounds of the Hardwick estate and the party was already in full swing when they arrived. Rachel’s eyes were immediately drawn to Diego. Taller than everyone else in the room, his black tailored trousers and matching silk shirt emphasised his height and the breadth of his shoulders. With his dark hair falling onto his shoulders, and his gleaming olive skin, he was exotic and different, and other men paled into insignificance beside him.
She was not the only woman watching him, she noted moodily when she glanced around the marquee and saw that Felicity Hardwick and a gaggle of her aristocratic friends, all dressed in haute couture, were openly ogling him. Rachel instantly felt underdressed in her cheap skirt, which she’d bought from a market stall. Her arms ached from grooming fifteen polo ponies, and the evening suddenly seemed very flat. She was on her way over to the bar to tell Alex she was going home when Diego stepped into her path.
‘Do you think your red-haired friend will object if I ask you to dance?’ he murmured, his eyes gleaming with amusement and something else when Rachel’s face flooded with colour.
‘Alex and I are simply friends, and I’ll dance with whoever I like,’ she replied breathlessly, her heart racing as Diego caught her hand in his and slid his other arm around her waist.
‘Then dance with me, querida,’ he invited with a sultry smile that made her heart thud. ‘You value your independence, don’t you?’ he commented, trying to focus on their conversation rather than the fire coursing through his veins when he drew Rachel’s slender body against his thighs.
‘More than anything,’ she told him seriously. ‘The most important lesson I learned from my mother’s tangled love-life is that I don’t want to be beholden to any man.’
She sounded so fierce that Diego’s brows rose. ‘Perhaps you have not yet found a man who excites you sufficiently that you would want to be beholden to him?’
‘That’s not likely to happen.’ Rachel wondered what Diego would say if she admitted that he excited her unbearably. Since he had kissed her in her caravan they seemed to have been playing a waiting game where the sexual chemistry between them had simmered beneath the surface and they had both tried to ignore it. But the look in his eyes tonight told her that he was bored of the game. She could feel the tension in his body, and when he held her close so that her head rested on his chest she could hear the erratic beat of his heart and knew that it matched her own.
‘What about marriage and children?’ he queried curiously. ‘Don’t you want those?’ Every woman he’d ever met had seemed to regard him as suitable husband material, and their first demand for commitment was invariably the point at which he ended a relationship. Rachel was a novelty in more ways than one, he brooded as he glanced down at her simple skirt and top and acknowledged that she looked sexier than any of the women at the party who were wearing designer outfits.
Rachel shrugged. ‘I believe children deserve to have two parents who are committed to each other and, as I don’t want to get married, I guess I won’t have them. Perhaps I’ll feel different in the future, but right now I don’t have any maternal urges. I’d rather concentrate on my riding career.’
Diego’s mouth curved into a smile that stole her breath. ‘So, you are a free spirit and you can do whatever pleases you?’
‘Yes.’ The word escaped as a little gasp as he stroked his hand down to the base of her spine and exerted gentle pressure so that he brought her pelvis into direct contact with his. The hungry gleam in his eyes filled her with a feverish anticipation. Did he know how much he was pleasing her, holding her like this? How much she longed for him to lower his mouth to hers and kiss her as he had done two weeks ago?
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