‘No one likes to be made a fool of twice. I didn’t think anyone would believe me.’
‘Why not?’
She shrugged unhappily, forced to remember. ‘He had status. I had none.’
‘Status?’ Nero demanded as if the word had burned his tongue.
‘I was just a kid around the stables back then. I’d always thought of myself as one of the boys. I grew up with brothers, remember, and so all that girlie stuff passed me by. I wasn’t sure how to dress or to put make-up on without feeling silly, so my confidence wasn’t exactly sky-high to start with.’
‘What you’re telling me sounds more serious than make-up and clothes, or even an acute lack of self-confidence. This sounds more like a breach of trust with long-reaching consequences,’ Nero argued firmly.
‘Anyway,’ Bella continued offhandedly, ‘when he left me he spread a rumour around the polo club that I was frigid. People started laughing at me. I didn’t know why at first, but when it finally dawned on me…’
Nero cursed viciously beneath his breath. ‘Forget him. Forget all those people. They’re not worth remembering, Bella.’
‘How can I forget them when that’s my world?’
‘That’s your workplace. Your world is something different. At least,’ Nero added wryly, ‘I hope it is. What happened wasn’t your fault, Bella. You were young and naïve, but you got over it. You’re a survivor and you’re strong. You built something wonderful with the legacy your father left you. I think you can afford to give yourself some credit for that.’
‘You make it all sound so romantic—so excusable, but I must have led that man on for him to try in the first place.’
Nero interrupted her with a vicious curse. ‘How did you lead him on?’ he demanded. ‘With your youth? With your innocence? The man who did this to you isn’t worthy of being called a man. His behaviour is not excusable. And being strong isn’t romantic, Bella, it’s a necessity. Being strong is what life requires and demands of you. When you’re pushed to the limit you grow stronger and, whether you know it or not, that is what has happened to you, so instead of letting the past drag you down, take a look at what you have learned from it, and how it has lifted you up.’
‘I couldn’t fight him,’ she said, lost in the past now. ‘He was so much stronger than I was…’
‘You don’t need to tell me any more.’
‘In the end he gave up.’
‘Not for want of trying,’ Nero said angrily. Bella’s bewildered gaze had shocked him and the realisation of what she had been hiding all these years cut him like a knife. ‘You must have been terrified.’
‘Terrified? Yes,’ she said faintly as she thought back. ‘When he started laughing at me and calling me frigid and ugly, I was at my lowest point—beaten. But later, when I got over the shock of what had happened, I felt angry. When people joined in with his mocking comments—laughing about me and my father—it changed me for good, Nero. It turned me into a fighter. It made me determined that no man or woman would ever control me. And when my father’s business failed I went to work for him. I wanted to help him rebuild—not just the business, but his good name. I wanted to prove to the world that Jack Wheeler still counted for something.’
‘The Wheeler name counts for a lot,’ Nero cut in. ‘And that’s thanks to you, Bella. Whatever problems your father had in the past have been eclipsed by your work in his name.’
He took her in his arms, feeling instantly protective, along with a whole host of less worthy feelings towards the man who had assaulted her. Without a mother to advise her, or close female friends to coax her out of her defensive shell, she had battled this nightmare alone. No wonder she found it so hard to trust anyone. Bella was the most thoughtful person he knew and only her complete lack of vanity and self-absorption had allowed so much time to pass before she unburdened herself. He was touched and honoured that she had chosen him when she chose to do so. ‘Nero?’
He stared down into her wounded eyes. ‘I wish I’d known all this before, Bella.’
‘Well, you know now,’ she said with the same flippant gesture, still trying to make light of it.
Speaking gently, he captured her hand and held her close. ‘I want you to promise that you’re going listen to what I’m going to say to you, because you need to hear this.’ He waited until she relaxed. ‘While you were struggling to take control of your life, you imposed sterner rules on yourself than anyone else would have done. You’ve been unforgiving where Bella Wheeler is concerned and you need to ease up. Let the past go, Bella. Let the bad parts fall away. You’ve got too much to give to keep yourself imprisoned in this Ice Maiden cage.’
She was hugging herself, Bella realised, releasing her arms. ‘How can I do that when it still hurts every time I remember?’
‘It will hurt less now you’ve told someone,’ Nero promised.
‘But it hurts now.’
‘These are old wounds, Bella, and you just poked them with a stick.’
She had never felt able to share the past with anyone, or to talk freely about herself before, yet Nero had made her do that, Bella realised. For all his savage masculinity, he possessed some deep curative power. He was using it now to calm Misty. The little mare was impatient to leave and was showing off in front of Nero’s stallion with head tosses and jaunty prancing, but one quiet word from Nero and she was still.
Bella was so busy admiring Nero’s horse-whispering technique, he surprised her. Instead of mounting up, he turned his back and, ripping his shirt free of his gaucho breeches, he loosened his belt and pulled the waist-band of his breeches down revealing the most terrible scars.
‘Oh, my God,’ Bella exclaimed in shock. ‘Who did that to you?’ The cruel score of whip marks was livid red and unmistakable. This was calculated cruelty on a scale that made her own long-held internal wounds pale into insignificance.
‘This is my father’s work,’ Nero said without emotion. Adjusting his clothing, he fastened his belt. ‘I was eleven years old before the beatings stopped.’
Around the time his parents had been killed and Nero’s grandmother had moved in to take care of him, Bella realised. No wonder Nero had pushed himself and the ranch to the limit. Nero was as driven as she was in his own way. ‘Your grandmother must have been horrified to discover what had been happening to you in her absence.’
‘It was something we never talked about.’
‘But it must have hurt her terribly if she loved you—’
‘Love?’ Nero murmured, appearing distracted for a moment. ‘I adored my grandmother, but love was something else we never discussed,’ he admitted wryly.
That made her sad. The way Nero dismissed love was an ominous sign, Bella thought, even if it was understandable. As a child, he had been denied love by his violent, drunken father and, with a child’s stoical acceptance of what couldn’t be changed, had learned to live without love.
‘Things happen,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I’m only showing you these scars to let you know they haven’t changed me—my father hasn’t won, and neither must you allow what happened to you to rule your life and hold you back.’
‘You can’t compare what happened to me with someone beating a child!’
‘And, bad as that was, somewhere out there will be children beyond number who have suffered far worse. That is why we are launching our schemes, Bella. You may not have thought it through as I have and come to that conclusion, but that is why you and I are so driven, and why you must use the past as a stepping stone rather than a barrier.’
The past hadn’t changed him, Bella realised as Nero turned away to check the girth on his horse, but it had formed the man he was. Would Nero ever settle down, or would he never be able to trust enough to take the risk of loving anyone?
It all made sense now, Bella thought as she calmed Misty—her chats with Ignacio and the gaucho’s closed face whenever she’d tried to ask him about Nero’s father. Estancia Caracas was a closed community where everyone knew
everything that was going on.
‘Bella?’
Refocusing, she put her foot in the stirrup and swung lightly into the saddle. ‘Nothing’s easy, is it, Nero?’
His mouth curved into a grin. ‘You want easy, you could always go back to England.’
She shot him a level stare. ‘And leave a job half-done?’
‘Follow me back to the estancia, Bella.’
‘Until we reach the straight,’ she agreed. Challenging glances met and held. They had learned a lot about each other in a very short time, Bella thought, which, if they were to work together successfully, was no bad thing. ‘Well?’ she pressed. ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘I’m giving you a head start,’ Nero told her with an ironic look. ‘It’s only fair.’
‘Fair?’ She laughed. ‘I’ll give you fair. I’ll have a cup of coffee waiting for you when you get back.’
‘Do you seriously think you’re going to arrive before me?’ Nero vaulted onto his horse. ‘Hasta la vista, Bella. I’ll be in the bath by the time you get back.’
He stayed just far ahead of her to know she was safe. There was no point exhausting the horses, and he had nothing to prove. Neither did Bella. She had more than proved herself, Nero thought wryly. Everything he had sensed about Bella was true—except that her hunger for fulfilment went even deeper than he had thought. That was one problem he could solve. Her hair had felt like heaven beneath his hands—and her body, neatly packaged in practical yet severe riding clothes, had given him a provocative hint of the softly yielding flesh beneath.
She had stopped him because of lack of confidence, he knew that now. Confidence could make a person, just as the lack of it could break you, he mused, easing the pace when he heard her pony falling back.
He liked her all the more for her unflinching acceptance of his scars. But Bella was as stubborn as the grandmother who had raised him. Like his grandmother, Bella would never admit to any inner weakness, believing it made her seem less in control. Unfortunately for Bella, he’d grown up with a woman like that. He knew what was going on.
He slowed the stallion to a brisk trot as they approached the yard. He didn’t want to hurt Bella, but nothing had changed. He still wanted her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SHE blamed it on the tango. Her neatly ordered life had always made sense before, but the tango made her confront her passions and accept that she was human. And it did all that—with a little help from Ignacio—in the first thirty-two bars. She wasn’t exactly a new person by that stage, but she had certainly loosened up, and by the end of the dance Ignacio had managed to prove to her that as much as control was necessary to succeed, so was passion.
As in tango, so in life? One thing was certain, she couldn’t go on the way she had been, marking time.
A number of parties had been arranged for the days following the polo match, and so she didn’t lose face completely, Ignacio had agreed to tutor her in private dance lessons. The barn had a number of uses, Bella had discovered, and not all of them contained the dangers inherent in meeting Nero alone there. Ignacio came equipped with an ancient portable machine to play their music and proceeded to train her with the same mixture of firmness and patience with which he schooled the polo ponies. She’d never be an expert, she accepted, but she was a lot better than she had been by the time Ignacio had finished with her.
‘Don’t be frightened to let yourself go, Bella,’ Ignacio advised. ‘And then the contrast when you draw yourself back will be sharper. You’ll have people trembling on the edge of their seats,’ he assured her when she laughed at her pathetic attempt. ‘Bravo!’ he exclaimed with gusto when she got it right.
Would Nero tremble on the edge of his seat? Somehow, Bella doubted it.
Nero felt her arrive at the party and his gaze followed her across the room. She looked incredible. The transformation from Ice Maiden to Tango Queen was complete, and was all the more impressive because of the contrast it drew between cool Bella and too-hot-to-handle Bella.
Too hot for any other man to handle, Nero determined, making his move. He bridled when he noticed the hungry stares of all the men present following her across the room. ‘Bella.’ He ground his jaw as one of the good-looking young stable lads got there first and led her onto the floor. He narrowed his eyes when he noticed Ignacio raise a glass to him at the far side of the room. Ruthless old rogue.
Nero grinned and then he laughed. It appeared Ignacio still had some lessons to teach him. And he’d obviously been busy with Bella too—boy, could she dance. They were queuing up to dance with her—boys who had hardly started shaving, some of them. And, of course, Bella being Bella, was only too happy to dance with all of them. She had so much joie de vivre waiting to burst out of her—something he’d only caught a glimpse of at the polo party in London. He raised a glass to Ignacio, who bowed his head in acknowledgement of the praise as Bella continued to dance with boys from the project, boys from the stable.
Men too.
He was at her side in moments.
She stared up at him. Her lips were full and red. Lipstick she never wore outlined them, enhanced them, made them gleam. ‘Nero,’ she murmured provocatively.
Her hair was severely drawn back, but he would forgive her that at a tango party, as the style was appropriate for the occasion. Her eyes were smoky and made even more lustrous by make-up. She looked and smelled fabulous—like a warm pot of passion just waiting for him to drown in. And the dress… What a dress. Lownecked and split to the thigh in shimmering silver, it was an exquisite example of the type of dress a professional tango dancer would wear.
María’s daughter, he thought immediately. Carina was a famous tango dancer in Buenos Aires and about the same size as Bella. He had already noticed that María had made sure all the girls on Bella’s scheme had the prettiest dresses to wear, and Bella’s outfit was yet another example of his staff showering approval on her. He’d heard rumours that Ignacio had been teaching Bella to dance, and knew for a fact that Ignacio had found smart clothes for all the city boys to wear. But it was Bella, and only Bella, he was interested in now. There was a new confidence in her eyes, and the outfit, with those fine black stockings with the sexy seam up the back, had changed her, like an actress walking onto a stage she owned. If he waited for Bella to be without a partner, he’d be waiting all night.
And so he cut in. ‘I’m claiming the winner’s prize,’ he told Nacho, owner of the neighbouring ranch, who just happened to be the most notorious playboy in Argentina and who was still stinging from losing the polo match to Nero. Their black stares met in a fierce, no-holds-barred challenge.
‘Would you like a partner who can show you how it’s done?’ Nero demanded when Bella hesitated.
‘Get in line, Caracas,’ she told him with a glint of humour in her seductive, smoky eyes.
‘Nero doesn’t wait for anything,’ Nacho murmured, yielding as good manners dictated he must.
Nero stared with triumph into Bella’s eyes. Remembering their last outing on the dance floor, he offered benevolently, ‘I’ll lead.’
‘Into trouble?’ she murmured.
Those lips!
Those lips were his. Firing one last stare at Nacho, he led her onto the floor.
It was like holding an electric current in his arms—dangerous, hot and impossible to contain or let go. ‘Don’t worry,’ he soothed in a soft, mocking voice as she looked up at him, ‘I’ll be gentle with you.’
‘And I with you,’ she assured him as they waited for the music to begin.
He noticed how poised she was. She was a very different woman to the one who had taken the floor so awkwardly with him in Buenos Aires. Could this be the same woman who was almost, but not quite touching her flattened palm to his?
It was only Bella’s hand, but he wanted it. He wanted her hand in his… He wanted all of her.
She evaded him as the music began and, with a provocative flash of her emerald eyes, she whipped out of his reach in a t
urn he wouldn’t have imagined her to be capable of executing. He snatched her back again and held her close, staring down, imposing his will.
Raising a brow, she thrust him away.
His eyes assured her that he accepted the challenge and, when he drew her close this time, she had no option but to move with him. She fought him at first, and then she relaxed. They were attracting attention, he noticed. Or, rather, Bella was attracting interest. She was his perfect partner. The fact that they were dancing together, and quite so intensely, was drawing a lot of attention. He noticed Ignacio watching them from the shadows. The jigsaw didn’t take much piecing together. Ignacio knew Nero had finally met his match and had enjoyed tutoring Bella so she could more than hold her own when they next met on the dance floor.
Hold her own? Bella was incredible. She set the air on fire, and everyone had gathered round to watch. Sensually and emotionally, she was transformed. It was like dancing with a different Bella—a confident woman who had found herself and knew what she wanted out of life—and she wanted more than polo. There were other gaps in Bella’s education, gaps that only he could fill.
‘Where are we going?’ Bella demanded as Nero strode with her across the yard. She dug her heels in, refusing to go another step with him until he explained why he had taken her away from the party.
‘I don’t care to play out my private life in front of an audience.’
‘I thought you didn’t care what people thought.’ She fought him, but his grip only tightened on her arm.
‘I don’t.’ Nero stopped dead, his breathing heightened as he stared down at her. ‘You look fabulous tonight, Bella.’ And just when her eyes widened at the thought that he was paying her a compliment, he added, ‘You could hardly think you were going to fade into the background in a dress like that?’
‘Are you jealous, Nero?’
‘Jealous?’ Heat rose in his eyes.
‘Do you regret dancing with me when there were so many more important women at the party?’
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