Runaway Mistress

by Sandra Marton

  Runaway Mistress

  By

  Sandra Marton

  * * *

  Chapter One

  Rio de Santos did not believe in fate.

  It was true that life was like a game of cards. You were dealt a hand to play but, in the end, your skill was all that mattered.

  Rio was skillful.

  When he knew something was right for him, he went after it. It was the way he'd acquired the financial empire that spanned two continents, the ranch high in the hills outside Madrid, the penthouse in New York, the beautiful women who warmed his bed — although acquiring them required no skill at all.

  They had come to him since he'd turned 16, more than a dozen years ago. He'd been working for a rancher in Barcelona. By day, he rode horses. By night, he rode the rancher's wife.

  "Gorgeous," she'd whispered, as she'd undressed him.

  Rio smiled as his silver Learjet swooped over the Texas landscape. The lady had taught him much. How to please a woman. How to make her want to please him. How to ease himself, gently, out of a relationship when it grew stale, as all relationships eventually did.

  His smile faded.

  Either she had not taught him enough, or he had not been as good a pupil as he'd imagined. Otherwise, why would Esmé Bennett have been the first woman to leave him before he'd tired of her?

  It wasn't ego that made this fact troubling. It wasn't that he wanted her back, either. Hadn't he known it was time to end things? Six months with one woman was three months too many. That had always been his rule; he still had no idea why he'd deviated from it but when he realized he had, he'd begun to wind things down. More flowers, more gifts; fewer phone calls, fewer intimate evenings. That had been the plan, anyway, but somehow, it had gone wrong.

  Rio folded his arms, his frown deepening to a glower.

  One weekend, when he was away, Esmé had vanished from his life.

  What sort of woman left a man without a word? No note. No phone call. Nothing but a recorded voice saying that her telephone number was no longer in service.

  Rio had gone to her apartment, in a part of Greenwich Village that was still a slum as far as he was concerned — she'd refused to give it up even though he'd offered to move her closer to him, on the East Side —

  "Señor de Santos?"

  — and found the place empty. He'd had to hire a private investigator; after all, she could have been ill, or hurt. It had been the right thing to do. The surprise was not that the P.I. found her but that he found her in Texas. Coolly urbane Esmé Bennett had left the city, had left him, for a ranch called Espada. As it happened, Rio knew of the place. It bred some of the finest horses in the world.

  A man who believed in fate would have found that interesting. Rio simply found it convenient.

  Among other things, he was a rancher. It was only logical he'd improve the bloodlines of his horses by adding an Espada-bred stallion or mare to his stock.

  "Sir? You said you'd want to take the controls when we neared Austin."

  Rio looked up. His pilot was standing beside him, a polite smile on his lips.

  "Sí."

  Rio cleared his throat and rose to his feet. "Thank you, Jack."

  He ducked his head as he went through the cockpit door, then buckled himself into the pilot's seat. He liked to fly, liked the combined sense of freedom and control it gave him. It was always a propitious way to start a business trip, and that was all this was.

  He'd do a little horse-trading with Jonas Baron and if, in the process, he saw Esmé, if he found himself alone with her, if he were still curious enough to give a damn…maybe then he'd ask her why she had left him.

  Not that he wanted her back.

  Hell, no, Rio thought grimly, and took the jet down toward Espada and whatever was in store for him there…had he been foolish enough to believe in fate.

  Chapter Two

  The silver jet swooped over Espada and touched down on the Barons' private airstrip. The landing was quiet and uneventful, but the black stallion in the small paddock nearest the stables snorted and danced with terror.

  Esmé, who'd been working with the horse most of the morning, barely had time to grab its bridle and hang on.

  "Dammit," she said, through her teeth.

  All this effort spent soothing the animal, talking to it, letting it grow accustomed to her, and now some idiot in a shiny toy had all but ruined her hard work. The same idiot she'd probably be stuck with for the weekend, somebody with too much money, too much machismo, and too many people to do his bidding.

  Someone like the man she'd left almost three months ago, but why ruin the day by thinking about him?

  The horse nickered softly and nuzzled Esmé's shoulder. She smiled, dug into the pocket of her jeans, and offered him a chocolate mint.

  "Okay," she said, "you're entitled to a treat."

  The stallion took it delicately from her outstretched palm. She looked past him, to where a plume of dust rose lazily against the cloudless sky, proof that the plane had landed. It had to be that Eastern big shot, flying in to buy a stallion. Or a mare.

  "He ain't said which," Jonas had told her, with a grin. "That's your job, missy. You got to help him figure it out."

  Help him, indeed. Esmé led the horse toward the stables. Men with enough money to own planes and buy Baron-bred horses didn't need to bother themselves with the down and dirty details of life. They could snap their fingers, bark out orders, behave as if they owned the planet and everything on it, the way Rio…

  "Dammit," Esmé muttered again. The horse shied and she patted its neck. "Easy, handsome. I'm talking to me, not you."

  Why was she wasting time thinking about Rio de Santos? He was out of her life and she was out of his. That was the good news. That she'd made the first move was even better. It had been the only possible move, to save even a vestige of her pride.

  Esmé slipped the bridle from the stallion, patted his muzzle and shut the gate to his stall.

  Why think about a man who wouldn't have spent a moment thinking about her? Oh, maybe he'd have wondered about her a little, but only because she'd put a dent in his precious ego. Except for that, he'd be glad she was gone. He'd been planning to end their affair. The signs had all been there to read.

  She blinked as she stepped out into the sunlight. She knew she should never have become involved with him in the first place. The fellow models she’d worked with had warned her. He was gorgeous, they said, and sexy, and incredible, but he went through women like candy.

  "He'll break your heart," one had said, but that wasn't true. Rio hadn't broken her heart; you had to love a man for that to happen, and she'd never loved Rio. Never. She was too wise for that, and if it still hurt to think about him, if she sometimes imagined how it would feel, if he came after her…

  "Hello, Esmé."

  The earth seemed to tilt. Her heart and soul knew that deep, lightly accented voice, but it wasn't possible. Rio couldn't be here. He couldn't be.

  "Are you afraid to look at me?"

  She was trembling, but she knew better than to let him see it. "That's stupid," she said, and managed to sound as if seeing him again wasn't sending her pulse into overdrive. "Why would I be afraid?"

  Esmé took a deep breath, fixed a polite expression to her face. Then she turned around and looked at the man who had been her lover until a few months ago, the man who had awakened her to passion.

  He was wrong. She wasn't afraid of seeing him again. She was terrified.

  Chapter Three

  Esmé wasn’t terrified of Rio, physically. As big as he was, as powerfully male, she knew he would never hurt her.

  But she hadn't expected the sight of him to hurt so much. She thought she'd forgotten the rugged mascu
linity that radiated from his long, leanly muscled body; forgotten the black hair that felt like silk; the piercing emerald eyes that could see into her soul; the straight nose and wide, mobile mouth capable of such drugging kisses when he made love to her.…

  No. It hadn't been love, it had been sex. That was all he wanted to give; all she wanted from him. Hadn't she told him so? Pleasure. That was what they'd both sought. No entanglements, nothing to distract either of them from their careers.

  It was just that, sometimes, lying in his arms after he'd spent himself in her, she'd felt lonely. Unbearably lonely.

  She'd almost admitted that to him one night.

  "Querida?"

  he'd whispered. "You are so quiet. Is something troubling you?"

  "No," she'd said, and that was good because, soon after, he'd gone to Madrid without her. He'd never left her before, not in the six months they'd been together, and when she added that to the other subtle changes in their relationship, she'd realized he was getting ready to end their affair.

  "Querida,"

  he said now, in a way that made a mockery of the endearment, "I take it you're not pleased to see me."

  Esmé looked into Rio's eyes, saw the coldness in them and her heart hardened. He had been her lover. Now, he was a stranger. He had only come after her because she was the first woman who'd walked out on him.

  "What are you doing here, Rio?"

  A tight smile lifted the corner of his mouth. "As always, direct and to the point."

  "I would appreciate the same courtesy from you."

  "Of course." He looked around him with studied ease. "This is Espada, isn't it?" he said politely.

  "Yes."

  "Well, then, I've come to see Jonas Baron."

  "For what reason?"

  Rio folded his arms. "Are you his secretary?"

  "No."

  "Then it's none of your business."

  "It's very much my business," Esmé snapped. "I'm not a fool. I know why you're really here."

  A slow smile curved his mouth. "Do you," he said flatly.

  "Yes. I do. And I'm not interested."

  "In what?" His dark brows lifted. "Ah. You think I've come for you."

  She felt a flush tinge her cheeks. "I didn't say that."

  "You didn't have to. It's there, in those eyes of yours." She started to turn away and he reached out, caught her wrist. "I hate to disappoint you, querida, but I haven't come to take you back."

  The heat in her face burned like flame. "That's good, because I have no intention of going back."

  "Such self-assurance." His hand tightened on hers; he drew her closer. She could see the gold flecks in his eyes, the flicker of a muscle in his jaw. "Such righteous indignation, querida. As if you were the injured party, not I."

  "You? Injured?" She laughed. "It's your ego that's injured, Rio. Look, if it makes you feel better, you can tell people you left me."

  "Damn you!" His eyes burned with green fire. "Do you think I care what people think?"

  "Let go of me!" Her mouth thinned as she tried to twist free of his hand. "I left you because I was tired of you."

  "Liar."

  "I know you can't believe it but that's how it is. I never wanted to see you again. I don't want to see you now. Just — just get back on that plane and —"

  "Well, now, missy, what kind of hospitality is this?"

  Esmé swung around. Jonas Baron was strolling toward them, his bushy white eyebrows raised.

  "De Santos," he said, and held out his hand, "good to meet you."

  Rio let go of her wrist. "And you, sir."

  "I take it you and the little lady here are old friends." Jonas grinned. "Makes it even better that she's goin' to spend the weekend showin' you around."

  "No," Esmé said, "no!"

  "Yes," Rio said, and from the quick flash in his eyes, she knew there was no way out.…

  Chapter Four

  Esmé sat stiffly on her horse, her back as rigid as an iron rod.

  Rio, riding just behind her, wondered — for probably the 1000th time — why in hell he had come after her.

  What did it matter, who had left whom? It had been time, past time, to end their affair. And he was certainly not going to demand she tell him the reasons she'd left him.

  Did a man really want to hear a woman enumerate such things?

  Rio narrowed his eyes. The trail curved like a snake as it wound up into the trees; there was a long drop to the right but Esmé paid it no attention. She sat in the saddle as if she'd been born to it.

  His mouth twisted.

  This was the woman he'd met at a charity ball at the Plaza and dined with at the Four Seasons. He'd taken her to Monaco, where she'd chatted easily with royalty; he'd watched her charm officials at a Washington gala. He knew her to be elegant, beautiful, and sophisticated.

  Now, she was wearing a cotton shirt, faded jeans, and scuffed boots. She had answered all his questions about the Baron stock with intriguing familiarity while handling a horse the size of Texas with little more than soft words and softer touches — and handling him with icy disdain.

  He felt as if she were two different women. How was that possible? More to the point, how could he have only known one?

  Rio's horse picked its way delicately across a cottonwood deadfall. Esmé had moved out far ahead, where the trail opened onto a flat, wide plateau. He urged his mount forward and caught up to her just as she drew back on the reins.

  "You wanted to see the mares." She spoke tonelessly, not looking at him but at the

  meadow at the foot of the plateau. "Well, there they are."

  Rio dragged his eyes from Esmé, followed her gaze. Horses grazed far below them, muzzles deep in the summer grass. The animals were delicate and beautiful, but not as beautiful as the woman who sat on her horse beside him.

  "They're all Arabians," she said.

  He smiled, knowing her polite statement meant she didn't trust him to know very much about horses.

  "Yes. I prefer them. That aura of fragility, belying an inbred strength and stamina, especially in the mares…I find it most appealing."

  Her eyes met his. A faint pink color rose in her cheeks. "Yes," she said, "it is. It's one of the characteristics the Baron line has built upon."

  "You aren't a Baron."

  "We're talking about horses."

  "How do you know the family?"

  "Didn't whoever you paid to find me give you a complete dossier?"

  "Such hostility, querida."

  "Such curiosity, Rio."

  "I simply find it odd you should go from modeling in New York to riding the range on Espada."

  Esmé sighed. "I grew up here." She flashed him a look filled with challenge. "My mother is the Barons' housekeeper."

  His elegant mistress, the housekeeper's daughter. It seemed so incongruous that Rio smiled.

  "I'm glad you find that amusing," she said coldly.

  "I don't. I find it interesting."

  "Going slumming is always interesting."

  He looked at her, his dark brows raised. "Have I ever so much as inferred I am a man who would do such a thing?"

  She flushed. He hadn't. She had no idea why she'd said it. It was only that he confused her.

  His horse whinnied, tossed its head. Rio leaned forward, stroked the arched neck and the mare responded as any female would to that gentle, yet possessive, touch.

  Their eyes met, and what she saw set her blood on fire, just as it had the first time. She looked away, dismounted, and looped the reins over a low-hanging branch.

  "There are 100 horses in that herd," she said briskly. Leather creaked behind her. "I can point out some of the ones Jonas would be willing to —"

  "Esmé," Rio said huskily, and without thinking about the consequences, she turned and went into his arms.

  Chapter Five

  This was what Esmé had really feared. That Rio would kiss her…

  That she would respond.

  She didn
't want to, but how could she resist him? It had been like this from the beginning. The cool, silken brush of his lips turning hot, then hotter still as the kiss deepened. The taste of him, a rich, clean sweetness, like cold winter days and hot summer nights blended into one.

  She heard herself whimper, heard Rio's answering groan. He swept his arms around her, drew her close. His heart pounded against hers; his body hardened and she felt her own softening in response, felt the flowering dampness between her thighs.

  "Querida," he whispered, and she rose to him, looped her arms around his neck and gave herself up to the kiss, to what she had dreamed of each night since she'd left him because yes, she dreamed of him, yes, she still wanted him, yes, she loved…

  Esmé stiffened and tried to tear her mouth from Rio's, but he wouldn't let her.

  "No," he said thickly, and kissed her again, framing her face, holding her sweetly captive. Boneless, she let herself melt into him one last time before she pulled away again. When he tried to stop her, she pressed her hands against his chest, turned her face to the side and, at last, he let her go.

  She was trembling. How could he still have this effect on her? She had left him; she had eliminated him from her life. He was bad for her, he was everything her mother had warned her about, probably what all mothers warned their daughters about, and yet, oh, and yet…

  "Why did you run away from me?" He reached for her again, his hands bracketing her shoulders, his eyes hot and dark. "I returned from Madrid, and you were gone. No note. No message. How could you do such a thing?"

  "It was — it was time. To — to end things. We'd both said —"

  He kissed her before she could stop him, his mouth crushing hers, silencing the lie, because it was a lie; she couldn't deny it any longer, not to herself.

  "Don't," she whispered. She pulled back, clasped his wrists. "It's over. Just accept that, and go back to New York. We said —"

  "What we said was that our relationship would end, when it was time. But that time hasn't come yet, querida. Surely, you know that now."