One Scandalous Christmas Eve

by Susan Stephens

  ‘Excellent,’ she confirmed, turning to go. ‘I look forward to seeing you in the morning.’

  * * *

  Delay was the servant of pleasure, Dante reminded himself grimly as he took note of the resolve in Jess’s expression. Next stop the pool. He glared at the loathed cane, hating that he needed it to balance as he thrust his feet into sliders.

  ‘You won’t need that soon,’ Jess called across on her way out.

  He hated that she witnessed his plight. But Jess of all people was bound to, he accepted reluctantly. That was why she was here. His siblings would hear more of this. Why had they chosen this disturbingly beautiful woman on a mission, when a troll would have suited him better? Were Jess’s soft hands even capable of delivering pleasure? He was beginning to doubt he would ever find out. And that was a first for Dante Acosta.

  * * *

  So. That went well, Jess reflected grimly.

  Instead of blanking Dante’s brazen sexual appeal, she had thought of little else throughout that entire session. And now it was a struggle not to stare at him through the floor-to-ceiling windows as he sliced through the pool like the hottest thing in black swimming shorts. Even with one leg below par, Dante’s body housed an immensely powerful engine. Massive shoulders, rippling muscles and those steel girder arms required supercharged apparatus to drive them on.

  ‘Don’t overdo it!’ she yelled out as he performed a neat turn at speed. Maybe he heard, probably not, but she doubted he was in the mood to heed advice. There was only so much instruction Dante could take before needing to paddle his own canoe.

  A wave of unaccustomed uncertainty washed over her. The prospect of curing him seemed more elusive than ever.

  ‘On your head be it,’ she muttered as she walked on. If this was the first day, it would be a long month.

  A long month of reliving what had happened between them all those years ago, and wondering if it would ever happen again. She had never forgotten the feeling of his lips on hers at the farm and that brush of his mouth on the plane had only served to intensify her longing.

  Get a hold of yourself, Jess; it’s never going to happen. And you shouldn’t want it to. The man is a nightmare. It would never work.

  Look on the bright side, Jess decided as she headed to the kitchen for a snack. In just a few weeks’ time there’d be a wedding and lots of new people to meet. She didn’t have to spend time with Dante. She could skirt around him between treatments; she’d do it. There was no excuse not to work hard and enjoy herself while she was here.

  * * *

  He felt peckish after his swim. Having checked the new ponies for the last time that day, he headed back to the house to find Maria baking in the kitchen, with Jess clearing up. Jess tensed when he walked in.

  Helping himself to a handful of Maria’s delicious churros, he watched the two women, marvelling at the speed with which they’d formed an easy friendship. He took years to get the measure of a man, and had no reason to get to know women in any depth. Since being misled about his parents’ condition at the hospital, he’d found it hard to trust anyone outside his immediate family and staff. Jess was in the group marked pending.

  He still remembered the vultures swooping at his parents’ funeral, and how he and his siblings had quite literally stood back to back to defend from their greedy demands. The general thought had been that young headstrong youths couldn’t hope to take care of themselves, let alone handle a family fortune and land. The scavengers soon learned that the Acostas might have been headstrong at one time, but duty had changed them for good. Some, like Maria, said the change was for the better. Others said not. One thing was sure. No one crossed them.

  ‘I’ll miss this woman when she leaves,’ Maria told him in Spanish, distracting him as she fondly squeezed Jess’s arm.

  He grunted a response. His leg twinged. He flexed it.

  Jess noticed.

  ‘Better or worse?’ she enquired, brushing a loose strand of hair back from her face.

  ‘I haven’t decided yet.’ If anyone could look sexier with flour on their nose he had yet to meet them.

  ‘I think you’re feeling an improvement.’

  ‘Oh, do you?’ he said, indicating her nose.

  She swiped at it. ‘Better?’

  ‘I think I liked it better before.’

  His reward was her paint-stripping look.

  ‘Didn’t I give you exercises to do?’ she prompted. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I choose to be.’

  Their eyes met in a combative glance, accompanied by a now familiar tug in his groin. Jess’s eyes had darkened. She could act professional all she liked, but Jess was a woman too.

  ‘If you will excuse me?’ he said politely as he made for the door. There was no rush. She was here for a month, and it was no longer a question of if Jess would yield to the hunger inside her, but how long it would take.

  Stabbing his cane into the long-suffering yard, he conceded that even after one day of treatment his leg was beginning to show faint signs of improvement. He’d probably be stiff tomorrow, as Jess had predicted, but as she was around to sort it he wasn’t too concerned. Anticipating more banter between them, he smiled. There was only one problem. Celibacy didn’t suit him.

  * * *

  He took out his frustration in the gym. Boxing shorts, boots, strapped wrists, bandaged knuckles and a bandana to keep the sweat out of his eyes. He gave the bag hell. Jess had stressed no violent exercise, but Jess wasn’t here. to hell with the programme. She should have taken his frustration into account.

  And now he was aroused. He stopped, swore and resumed his vicious pounding until the heavy bag almost swung off the hook. Pausing to stare in the mirror, a monster stared back: Dante Acosta in his most primal form. He checked his leg with a scowl. It was still attached to his body. That was good enough for him.

  Muscles pumped, his body covered in ink, signalling his allegiance to team Lobos; there was nothing genteel about men who played polo at his level. Or the level at which he’d played before the accident, he grimly amended with an explosive curse. Retrieving the hated cane, he swung around to find Jess watching him. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I thought I told you not to exercise, apart from the regime I gave you. Did you forget, or do you still imagine you can go your own way?’

  ‘As I did when I left hospital?’ he suggested, easing his neck.

  ‘Look where that got you,’ Jess countered, hands on hips. ‘You shouldn’t be standing without a cane so soon, and you certainly shouldn’t be putting so much pressure on your leg.’

  ‘You put unnecessary pressure on my patience,’ he snarled.

  ‘So, get out? Leave me alone?’ she suggested with a lift of her brow.

  ‘You put the words into my mouth.’

  He glared down. Jess lifted her chin. Daggers drawn, they stared at each other until he murmured, ‘Well? Are you going to punish me?’

  She shrugged. ‘If I must, I will.’ Her words were casual, but the sexual tension between them had soared. This wasn’t Jess the therapist but Jess the sexually aware woman. Smiling faintly, he raised a brow and waited. Her blush deepened, as he knew it would, but that didn’t stop her mouthing off. ‘So the great Dante Acosta knows better than a trained professional?’

  ‘I stand by all my decisions.’

  ‘Stubbornness doesn’t seem to have worked for you,’ she observed coolly with a pointed look at his leg. Then her gaze tracked up to his half-naked torso. She studied the snarling wolf tattooed in all its dramatic splendour across his heart. ‘If you care about your team at all, you should listen.’

  ‘And obey?’ he suggested with a tug of his mouth.

  ‘If you don’t co-operate you won’t progress and I can’t extend my contract.’

  ‘Did I ask you to?’

  ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But you should k
now I’m very busy.’

  ‘And likely to be more so,’ he observed shrewdly, ‘if you succeed in curing me.’

  ‘True,’ she admitted. ‘But I do have other successes.’

  ‘Or you wouldn’t be here,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Don’t mess up, Dante,’ she warned. ‘I really think we’re getting somewhere with your leg.’

  It was good to see her tiger claws. To walk again without a limp, and play world class polo, was all he wanted, and Jess’s expression was absolutely firm.

  ‘What do you want from me, Jess?’ he asked as he swung a towel around his neck. ‘What do you really want? You could have refused to treat me—recommended someone else. I’m not easy, and that’s putting it mildly. You must have known you were taking a chance on complications after our encounter all those years ago.’

  ‘If by complications you mean that foolhardy kiss...’

  He hadn’t expected her to be so blunt.

  ‘I’ve come a long way since then. I’m a lot older, and successful in my own right. I viewed the chance to work on your leg as an interesting and challenging opportunity. Curing you remains my aim. It’s not such a coincidence that your family hired me, or that you saved my family farm by buying up the best of the breeding stock. The Acostas and Jim Slatehome have a history of trust that extends back a number of years. I’m part of that.’

  ‘So your agreeing to treat me had nothing to do with money, publicity, sex or bragging rights?’

  ‘Correct,’ she said with a huff of disbelief. ‘Wow,’ she added. ‘You really do have a high opinion of yourself. You’re not my only celebrity client. And if I wanted sex it wouldn’t be here, and it wouldn’t be with you.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Let’s get one thing straight. My focus remains returning you to full fitness. I don’t accept if, only when you are cured. You may not like my regime. You may not like me, but that’s irrelevant because if you do as I suggest you will be cured, if a cure is at all possible.’

  Jess was all heat and anger as she stared into his eyes, but then, as if she’d been clinging to the edge of a cliff with her fingertips, she exhaled and closed her eyes. The result should be inevitable. It might have been, had he been a different man.

  CHAPTER NINE

  HAD SHE REALLY been that close to falling under the notorious Acosta spell? Her body confirmed the lapse by softening and yearning.

  Dante made it easy to snap out of the slip when he murmured, ‘You think I want to kiss you now?’

  ‘I’m just hoping and praying that you see sense.’ They had to work together, and it was crucial for Dante’s injury that there were no more interruptions in his treatment.

  His harsh laugh suggested there was no warmth inside him, but they had both suffered loss and unimaginable grief, and that could so often lead to closing down feelings. She wasn’t exactly a dab hand at showing emotion herself. Since her mother’s death it had been a relief to lose herself in work, where caring for the individual was paramount, and personal feelings had no place. Dante was challenging her isolation, making Jess want things she had never believed possible, like learning to love and daring to show it, and having the courage to lay her heart on the line.

  Maybe they could help each other.

  In another universe, she concluded. One where she wasn’t a medical professional treating a patient, and Dante actually wanted to lower the barricade he’d built around his heart.

  She jerked to attention when he spoke. ‘Tired?’ she queried. ‘I guess I’m running on fumes too. Could I join you in town tomorrow, though, after our morning session?’

  ‘So you do need something from me,’ he remarked dryly.

  ‘Yes, I could do with some advice on what to buy Maria for her wedding. She’s invited me. I don’t have anything to wear, or a gift to give the bride.’

  ‘You don’t have to give her anything. You weren’t to know about this. You’ve just arrived from England. I’m sure Maria doesn’t expect a gift.’

  ‘That’s not the point. I wouldn’t dream of turning up without something nice after all her kindness to me. And I can’t go dressed like this...’ Jess ran a hand down her scrubs. ‘This is all I’ve got with me, apart from spare uniforms and gear for riding.’

  Dante dismissed her concerns with a shrug. ‘Order what you like and I’ll pay for it. The gift too.’

  ‘That’s not how it works,’ she informed him bluntly. ‘I set my own budget. The gift for Maria must come from my pocket, not yours.’

  Dante’s impatience showed itself again. ‘You wouldn’t be borrowing anything from me. Just think of it as a bonus on your charges.’

  ‘Your brothers and sister have already paid me.’ But not danger money, Jess thought as Dante speared her with an impatient stare. He was wealth-blind, and didn’t have a clue how patronising he sounded sometimes. ‘If it’s not convenient to take me into town, just say so. Maybe I can borrow a car or a bike?’

  ‘A bike?’ he queried. ‘Why not take a horse? You could tether it to the nearest lamppost while you shop.’

  ‘Is there a bus?’

  ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘We’re deep in the countryside and the nearest town is around twenty miles away. Why the rush? Must you go tomorrow?’

  ‘It seems like a good opportunity. I’d like to start looking for a gift sooner rather than later, so if I don’t find anything tomorrow I can always try again.’

  ‘Nothing daunts you, does it?’ he remarked.

  ‘You’d better hope not,’ she countered.

  ‘I’ll take you into town. Get some sleep. We leave first thing.’

  ‘After your treatment,’ she reminded him.

  ‘At seven we leave.’

  ‘Deal,’ she said happily. It would be tight, but she’d make it work.

  * * *

  The next morning’s physio went without a hitch—when you were on the clock there was no time for banter. There would be chance for plenty of that on their journey into town, Jess anticipated as they set off, but she would confine herself to bland remarks and try not to look too hard at Dante.

  The sparring didn’t take long to start.

  ‘You shop, and then I’ll take you to lunch,’ he stated.

  ‘There’s no need. I imagined you’d drop me—’

  ‘Over a cliff?’ he suggested.

  ‘In town, close to the shops,’ she said evenly, refusing to rise to the bait. ‘And don’t worry. I’ll make my own way back. A taxi or something.’

  ‘Am I driving too fast? Are you frightened?’

  Not of his driving, though Dante’s skilful handling of the low-slung muscle car as it blazed a trail down the tarmac was surely at the limit of what was possible. ‘I’m not frightened of anything.’

  ‘Except yourself,’ Dante suggested as she remembered to release her fingers from the edge of the seat. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t hold you to my schedule.’

  ‘I’m not worried, but you really don’t have to buy lunch. I’m not dressed for somewhere fancy.’

  ‘Am I?’

  She had vowed not to look at him, study him, drink him in, but Dante had just made that pledge impossible. Even in jeans and a form-fitting top, he could go anywhere and be treated royally. With a body made for sin and a face to launch a thousand fantasies, Dante’s piratical good looks would open any door.

  ‘Can I trust you not to get lost?’ he said when they arrived in town. ‘Or had I better show you around first?’

  ‘I’m sure I can manage,’ she said, holding up her phone. It was time to escape from temptation.

  Unfolding his formidable frame with annoying ease from the confines of the vehicle, Dante swore, retrieved his cane and swore again. Then, with a jerk of his chin, he led the way. She maintained space between them, but the streets were crowded. There seemed to be some so
rt of festival going on.

  ‘It’s market day,’ Dante explained. ‘Anything goes. Any excuse for a party.’

  Jess glanced down at herself self-consciously. She certainly wasn’t dressed for a fiesta. She’d had a quick shower and changed her clothes after Dante’s treatment session, but her hair remained tied back and she was still make-up-free. She yelped as he held her back as a motorbike with a youth on board roared past within inches of her toes. Dante’s touch was like an incendiary device to her senses.

  ‘Careful,’ he advised. ‘You must remember what it was like to be a teenager—wild, reckless, risk-taking?’ Her cheeks burned up as he added, ‘There’ll be a lot of them around today.’

  ‘They grow up,’ she said tensely.

  ‘Some of them very well,’ he agreed with a long, steady look. ‘What made you decide to be a physiotherapist?’

  It was a relief to have a question to answer. ‘I promised my mother I’d finish my studies, whatever happened. I always had an interest in sports-related injuries, and equine sports in particular. When she died it made sense to have regular money coming in. My father went to pieces. I could help him.’

  ‘So you tore yourself in two, working in London and spending your spare time on the farm.’

  ‘I was lucky to land such a prestigious job,’ she argued. ‘I didn’t want to leave my father, but my friends in the village promised to keep an eye on him. We needed the money, and I’d promised my mother. We all do what we must.’

  ‘Your father’s very lucky.’

  ‘And so am I,’ Jess insisted. ‘My father was the first to encourage me to take the post. He reminded me of my mother’s wishes, saying they were as one in that, and he’d never forgive himself if I stayed in the village because of him.’

  ‘He struggled that much alone that you would have needed to?’

  Jess hesitated, but then drew herself up tall. She was so lovely, Dante reflected, and so very proud. ‘He loved my mother very much. It was...hard. I guessed he was lonely, so I returned home permanently. If it hadn’t been for the help of the local village, I don’t know what we’d have done. While I was freelancing, one of our neighbours would make sure to keep him company, and somehow we made it work.’