0263249026 (R) Read online

  But she was not prepared for the huge lump that welled in her throat or the hot tears that sprang to her eyes when she saw the horses that galloped over to the fence to welcome their master home, racing alongside the car as he drove, happily displaying their unconditional love. Nor was she prepared for the uninhibited smile that lit up Rocco’s face as he watched them.

  The freedom they enjoyed shone out as they played in the fields surrounding La Colorada. It had been so long … so, so long since she had enjoyed that self-same freedom. After Ipanema had gone she’d never felt the same. She’d barely even sat on a horse—she’d thought she’d grown up, moved on from her teenage fixation with horses, moved on to her adult fixation with escape.

  But here, now, it all came flooding back. Maybe it was just because she was so tired, or maybe it was a reflection of all that had come at her these past several hours, but she struggled to hold back a sob as memories of her happy childhood slammed into her one after another after another. A childhood that had been so completely shattered with the arrival of Rocco Hermida.

  She twirled her ring and swallowed hard.

  ‘I have to find Juanchi. You can wait in the house—relax until supper. Come on, I’ll show you inside.’

  Those were the first words he had spoken to her in the best part of an hour. They’d gone back to bed, both drifted off to sleep, and when she’d woken he’d been pulling on clothes with his phone clamped to his ear. It hadn’t moved far ever since.

  Her little vinyl carry-on case had arrived, its gaudy ribbon, scuffed sides and wonky wheel incongruous beside the butter-soft leather weekend bag Rocco had been chucking things into as he spoke.

  Rattling out questions, he’d glanced at her, given a little wink, then turned his back and walked to the window, continuing to berate the poor director of some vineyard who was on the other end. His hand had circled and stabbed at the air as he’d punctuated his questions with a visual display of his frustration.

  She’d showered and dressed quickly in what she’d thought might be appropriate—denim shorts and a pink T-shirt. What else would you wear to a ranch? She’d slipped her feet into white leather tennis shoes and thrown everything else in her case. Rocco had dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. He’d paced up and down. More gestures, more rattled commands, more reminders that the Hurricane was well named.

  She’d looked around, making sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. She wouldn’t be back there after all. Spotting her watch on the floor, where she must have thrown it earlier, she’d bent to pick up. Where were her new earrings? She’d glanced all around and then had seen them at the side of the bed, there beside a little photograph. She’d walked round and reached out to scoop them up, but her hand had closed on the tiny frame that lay face down instead. She’d placed it upright.

  It had been a picture of a child. She’d lifted it up to have a closer look. A blurry picture of an infant, maybe two or three years old. Bright blond hair, kept long, but definitely a boy. Solemn dark eyes, only just turned to the camera, as if he really hadn’t wanted to look. There had been something terribly familiar in the scowling mouth. Dante? She didn’t think so.

  She’d turned to ask Rocco. He had stopped his artillery fire of instructions for a moment, had been standing framed in the hugely imposing window, an outline of the blue day all around him—so light and bright that she hadn’t quite been able to see his features.

  She had smiled, held up the picture.

  The phone had been dropped to the end of his arm, a voice babbling into the air unheard. He’d paced forward as a thunderous tension had rolled through the room. Something akin to fear had spread out from her stomach at the way he’d moved, the slash of his features and the dark stab of his eyes.

  He had taken the photo from her without so much as a glance, but she had felt the wall of his displeasure as if she had run against it, bounced off it and been left scrabbling in the rubble.

  Nothing. Not a sound, a word, a look.

  He had pulled open a zip in the leather holdall, tucked the photo inside, zipped it back up and then lifted the phone to his ear. He had taken her earrings, dropped them into her hand and then moved back to the window.

  The conversation had continued.

  She had tried not to be stunned, tried not to be bothered. It was clearly something personal. He was clearly someone intensely private. But it had hurt—of course it had. How much more private and personal could you get than what they had shared these past few hours? She’d opened up to him, told him about her father’s fury and her mother’s disappointment. He’d told her—nothing. Didn’t that just underline the fact that she’d served herself up and he’d selected the bits he wanted, then pushed back the platter, folded his napkin and was probably looking around for the next course.

  Again.

  She had to get smarter. Had to keep herself buoyant. More than anything else she had to make sure the black mood didn’t come back.

  She’d stuffed her watch and earrings inside her case with her other belongings, rolled it to the door and swatted him away when he’d attempted to lift it. She could look after herself. And then some.

  Then the two-hour car journey. The icy silence punctuated by more intense conversations on his phone. Frankie had drifted in and out, picking up snippets about equine genetics and shale gas fields, decisions about publicity opportunities he wanted reversed. Now.

  She had rummaged in her bag, pulled out a nail file. She’d filed her nails into perfect blunt arcs. The scenery had been flat—green or brown—and the company had been intently and exclusively business. Her phone was still dead and her guilt about not speaking to Esme properly still rankled.

  The car had rolled on. She had gazed out of the window, anger and upset still bubbling in her blood. Then she had felt her hand being lifted. She’d looked round sharply. He had smoothed her fingers, squeezed them in his own—the gnarled knuckles and disfigured thumb starkly brown against her paper-pale skin. Still he hadn’t looked at her, but he’d lifted them, pressed his lips to them, and she had known then that that was as much of an apology as she was likely to get.

  Damn him. Fire and heat. Ice and iron. She shouldn’t allow him to win her over as easily as that, but there was something utterly magnetic about this man. She needed to play much more defensively—protect herself as much as she could. Because every time she thought she’d figured this—them—out he shifted the goal posts again.

  She could have been on a helicopter to Punta right now. He had offered to send her. Not to take her, of course—there was the subtle difference. And she had declined. She’d still have plenty of time to catch up with Esme when she got there. Her buying trip to the Pampas was not for days yet. She would make it to Punta tomorrow, the party was tomorrow night—it would be no time at all until this thing burned out between them. No time until she was off doing her own thing again.

  If she kept her head it should all work out fine.

  There had been more calls, more decisions. She’d sat wrapped in her own thoughts, no room for soft squeezes or stolen kisses. Had closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, finally opening them as they’d arrived at this heart-stopping ranch.

  ‘It’s fine,’ she said now, stepping out of the car, and feeling every one of her senses come alive with this place. ‘You go and find Juanchi and I’ll have a wander.’

  For the first time since Dante had left Rocco seemed to look at her properly. He finally tucked his phone away in the pocket of his jeans, flipped his hair back from his eyes and scowled.

  ‘Problem?’ she said, with as bored an expression as she could muster. Diplomacy wasn’t her biggest skill, and she knew if she really spoke her mind it might not be the best move. Not yet anyway.

  ‘I’ve been neglecting you.’ He looked at her over the roof of the car. ‘So much to deal with—my apologies.’

  Frankie shrugged. ‘You’re a busy guy,’ she said. ‘I really don’t want to be in the way.’

  He was looking aroun
d, as if Juanchi was going to spring out from behind a bush. He looked back. Looked totally distracted.

  ‘I’ll catch you up,’ she said, walking off, waving her hand.

  ‘Where are you going to go?’

  ‘I’m a big girl,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘I’m sure I’ll find something to occupy myself.’

  ‘Wait by the pool. Round the back. I won’t be too long.’

  She answered that with another wave and kept walking.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FRANKIE STEPPED TOWARDS the house. Up close it was imposing, presidential. The drive swept before it in a deferential arc. Pillars loomed up, supporting the domed roof of the entrance and the terrace that wrapped itself like a luxury belt all around it.

  She could imagine Rocco roaring up in a sports car, braking hard and jumping out, striding up to the doors, owning the whole scene. In fact, she didn’t need to imagine it—she’d seen it all before, in that television report of Rocco. This was where he had been photographed with one of his blondes. Carmel Somebody … the one who’d been reported to be ‘very close’ to him.

  She walked towards the door, noted the long, low steps, the waxed furniture and exotic climbers. Frankie stopped. She didn’t particularly want to go wandering about in his house—she didn’t particularly want to get wrapped up in any more of his life. Not when she was only passing through. Was it really going to help her to have another page in her Hurricane scrapbook? She already had a million different mental images of Rocco: making love, showering, sipping coffee at the breakfast table. She had hoarded more than enough to keep her going for another ten years. What she really needed to do was start erasing them—one by one. Otherwise …? Otherwise history was going to repeat itself.

  Rocco wasn’t looking for a life partner. He was looking for a bed partner and some arm candy. And so was she.

  She turned on her heel. She’d go to the stables. She’d feel much more at home there.

  It was strange how unlike her expectations this part of the estancia was. She’d grown up with so many stories of heartless South American animal husbandry. Horses whipped and starved and punished. But Mark had been vehement in his defence of Rocco. He had confirmed the rumours that had rolled through their own stables—of the Hurricane in the early days, sleeping with his horses rather than in his own home, spending more time and money on them than he did anything else. He’d been notoriously close to his animals, and notoriously distant with people.

  It didn’t look as if much had changed.

  She picked her way along the side of the house, past the high-maintenance gardens and round to the even more highly maintained stables.

  They were immaculate. Nothing out of place. All around grooms—some young, some old, Argentines and Europeans, men and girls—seemed lazily purposeful. Here and there horses were being walked back and forth to the ring, or beret-capped gauchos were arriving back from the fields with five or six ponies in lightly held reins. No one seemed to notice that she was there, or if they did they left her well alone.

  Rocco was nowhere to be seen.

  She walked past high fences, their white-painted wood starkly perfect against the spread of grass behind. The sun’s heat was losing its hold on the day, but some horses and dogs still sought shade under the bushes and trees that lined various edges of the fields.

  Rounding the corner of a low stable block, she saw him. Off in the distance, deep in conversation with an old, bent man. Juanchi, she supposed.

  Even from here he was striking, breathtaking. His stride was so intense, yet it held the effortless grace of a sportsman. Every part of him was in harmony, undercut with power. Everything he did with his body was an art. Kissing, dancing, riding, making love. Being so close to him for these few hours she had learned his ways, his unashamed confidence, control and drive. He was everything she had spent the past ten years expecting him to be. Everything her broken teenage heart had built him up to be. More was the pity.

  She stood back, watched, willed herself not to care. So he was Rocco Hermida? She was Frankie Ryan. He didn’t have the monopoly on everything. She could kiss, she could ride and, now that she’d spent the past fourteen hours with him, she could claim to be quite an accomplished lover, too.

  She supposed …

  She didn’t have much to compare him to—a few disappointing fumbles at university parties, a dreary relationship with a co-worker when she had first arrived in Madrid. But that was because she hadn’t known her own body back then. It wasn’t because Rocco and only Rocco could light her up with a single touch. Other men could do that—she just hadn’t learned to let go yet. Now she would. She was sure.

  But even watching him standing on the threshold of his immaculately appointed barn, a structure more at home in a plaza than a field, she couldn’t deny he was captivating. He listened to the old man, gave him his full attention, nodded, then pulled the bolt closed on the barn and moved off with him. She watched them walk back out from the shadows cast by the building’s sides into bright sunlight.

  Respect. That was what he was showing. He respected this old man.

  That intrigued her. Of all the qualities she’d seen in him—leadership, confidence, passion, determination, even brotherly affection to Dante—respect hadn’t been visible. It showed something about him now, though. It showed that he was even deeper and harder to read than she’d thought.

  They turned another corner and vanished from view. Her eye was drawn back to the barn.

  Wouldn’t it be fabulous if one of Ipanema’s ponies was inside? No high-powered polo match to recuperate from, just waiting for a little handful of polo nuts and a hug. Wouldn’t it feel fabulous to sit on one of Ipanema’s ponies? Wouldn’t that be worth a phone call back home?

  She started across the yard, but the low groan of a helicopter coming in to land made her look to her left. And there, off in the distance, she saw them. All shiny chestnut coats and forelock-to-muzzle white stars. Her face burst into a smile that she could feel reach her ears—she would know them anywhere. Like a homing device, she made her way forward.

  They were playing in the field with four other classic caramel Argentinian ponies. For a moment she wondered what it would be like to be able to see them, be with them every day. Hadn’t that been her dream job once? What had happened to that girl? So desperate to get away from the choking darkness of depression and the oppressive judgement of her father, she’d moved away from everything else she held dear, too. She barely had any time with her mother or her brother Mark. She was in regular contact with Danny, thousands of miles away in Dubai, but that was probably because they’d recognised in each other the same desperate need to escape.

  Two of the ponies noticed her leaning on the fence and began to trot over. She looked about. Maybe the grooms and gauchos were all crowded together inside somewhere, drinking maté, because the whole place seemed to have become deserted.

  Would it be too awful to help herself to a saddle? To tack up one of the ponies? To climb on its back and trot a little? What would be the harm in that? It wasn’t as if Rocco would even know. It wasn’t as if he particularly cared what she was doing. Then or now.

  He’d never made the slightest effort to find out anything about her after that night. It was all very easy to say now that he felt terrible, but really—how much effort would it have taken to ask after her while he was negotiating the sale of Ipanema? She’d never blamed him for her getting sent to the convent—she held herself personally responsible for that … had made herself personally responsible for everything! And maybe it was that—the tendency to be so hard on herself—that had made her slide so quickly into depression.

  Well, not anymore. She would never go back there.

  She spotted the tack room and sneaked inside.

  Five minutes later she was up and over the wide, white-slatted fence. Five minutes after that she was hoisting herself lightly onto a pony. In a heartbeat she had covered the entire length of the field—just in a walk
, then a trot. Then, with a look around her, to make sure there was still nobody caring, she tapped her heels into the sides of the adorable little pony and cantered to the farthest side.

  In the distance she could see seas of green and yellow grass. Brown paths cut through them here and there, and running east to west the blue trail of a stream. Gunmetal clouds had rolled across the sky. And that was it. She was alone, she was as free as a bird and she was loving every last moment.

  The pony was a dream—the lightest squeeze with her thighs and it picked up speed, the lightest tug with the reins and it turned or stopped. Most of their horses before Ipanema had been show jumpers rather than polo ponies. Ipanema’s grandmother had been a champion show jumper, her mother had carried royalty at Olympia and then Ipanema herself had been spotted as a potential polo pony. When her father had taken her to County Meath she had just won best playing pony at the Gold Cup at Cowdray.

  Frankie had been put on horses since she could walk. At age four she’d been able to balance on one leg on the sleepiest pony as it circled the yard—until she’d got yelled at to get down. At age ten Danny had dared her to try fences as high as the ones she had seen at the show trials. Of course she had fallen, tried to hide her broken arm for fear of her father’s wrath and then been taken by her long-suffering mother to get it put in plaster. Yes, she’d pushed every boundary growing up—and she was going to push another one now.

  Nobody was around. She walked the little pony out of one field and into another. A long clear path lay ahead. She squeezed lightly and started to gallop. On through the pampas, with the seas of green on either side of her as high as the pony’s withers. Dust blew up around her, clouding her path, but she trusted the pony and gave her her head.