Читать книгу The Untamed Argentinian - Susan Stephens, Susan Stephens - Страница 8

THE corridor was silent until the sound of doors closing made them both turn. ‘Oh, dear,’ Nero observed dryly, ‘it appears we’ve missed the recital.’

‘And what will the prince have to say about that?’ Bella murmured defiantly.

Nero sighed in response but didn’t look a bit repentant. ‘It seems we’re both in trouble.’

More than he could know, Bella thought, brewing up a storm.

Nero lounged back against the wall with footmen playing silent sentry as he waited for the music to end. The moment the doors were opened again, the prince summoned them both over.

She might as well give up now, Bella thought as the prince said how happy it made him to indulge a friend. She had just smiled her thanks when the prince made it clear that friend was Nero. ‘As you know, I have agreed to be the patron of Nero’s charity,’ the prince confided in her, ‘but as I have so many calls on my time I would like you, Bella, to represent me.’

‘Me, Sir?’ Of course she was surprised but, crucially, the prince had taken the decision about going to Argentina out of her hands.

‘I can’t think of anyone better qualified,’ he continued. ‘You are the best trainer I know, Bella. And when the polo season comes to an end, what better use of your time could there be than introducing more young people to the joys of riding? See what you can do over there, Bella—what you can both do,’ the prince added, gazing at Bella and Nero in turn. ‘Though I should warn you, Bella, that when you leave the northern hemisphere behind and experience the very different world you are going to, you might want to stay there. Passions run high on the pampas—isn’t that so, Caracas?’

‘Exactly so, Your Royal Highness.’ Nero’s amused gaze switched to Bella.

‘I know you’ll enjoy the teaching, Bella,’ the prince continued, turning serious again. ‘And if you would do this one thing for me, I would feel I was still there, in some way. I’m afraid I can’t spare anyone from my own staff. But who knows the relationship between man and horse better than you?’ he added persuasively. ‘It will mean you spending quite some time in Argentina, Bella, but I feel certain you will enjoy that as much as I did.’

How could she refuse now?

By taking in the triumph in Nero’s eyes, possibly? Bella thought tensely. Or the amused tug at the corner of his mouth? How she wished she could snatch some reason out of the air why she couldn’t go, but she couldn’t afford to risk offending the prince. There was no escape, she concluded. ‘I would consider it a great honour to assist you in any way I can, Sir.’

‘Excellent. I’m glad that’s settled,’ the prince said, beaming. ‘And now… If you will both excuse me?’

‘Of course.’ At last she could look at Nero. His expression was exactly what she had expected. And she hoped hers left Nero in no doubt that she would do this, but only because the prince had asked her. Working as an adviser for Nero’s charitable scheme was a privilege; she was too polite to even think of the word to describe working alongside a man who challenged every sensible boundary she had ever put in place.

‘You’ll be my guest, of course,’ Nero explained, all business now his triumph was in the bag. ‘Working and living on the pampas will be very different to anything you are used to here, but I am confident that in time you will grow to love it.’

In time? Bella swallowed deep. There were so many undertones to that apparently innocent statement she could only be glad the well-meaning prince hadn’t stayed to hear them. ‘I wouldn’t be able to stay very long…’

‘But long enough for the project to be established. The children need you, Bella.’

‘As does my yard and my horses. I have my own scheme, Nero.’

He checked her at every turn. ‘You’d break your word to the prince?’

‘Had you already decided this plan between the two of you? Was my agreement to the prince’s proposal merely a formality?’

Nero smiled faintly. ‘You’re so suspicious, Bella.’

‘With good reason, I think,’ she flashed.

‘I will hold myself personally responsible for maintaining the high standards you have set at your yard in the UK. As I told both you and the prince, I will send my most trusted team to ensure you have nothing to worry about—financially, or otherwise.’

Was he serious? The systems she had set in place to take care of things should she be incapacitated by illness, or be taken out of the picture in some other way, would ensure the yard ran smoothly. If she chose to do this, it was Nero she was worried about, working in close proximity to him being the major problem. ‘I have made enough money to keep everything ticking over nicely, thank you. I don’t need any help from you!’

‘Your reputation does you much credit, Bella,’ Nero snapped. ‘It seems you are your father’s daughter, after all.’

Bella blenched. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Nero’s powerful shoulders eased in a shrug. ‘You can’t make a decision and stick to it.’

‘How dare you—’

‘How dare I speak the truth?’ Nero’s eyes drilled into her. ‘If you break your word as easily as this, Bella Wheeler, I’m not sure I want you as part of my scheme.’

For a moment she didn’t trust herself to speak. Nero had blatantly manipulated her, but if she lost her temper and blackened her father’s memory even more she would never forgive herself. Taking a deep steadying breath, she buried her pride. ‘You give me your word that my work in England wouldn’t suffer?’

‘I do,’ Nero assured her in a clipped voice.

‘And my visit to Argentina would be conditional on coming home as soon as the scheme is set up.’

‘I can’t imagine why I would want you to stay beyond that.’

Her heart beat with outrage. Nero really knew how to cut her with words, she realised, smiling prettily for the prince as Nero escorted her out of the royal presence.

‘This is a win-win situation, Bella,’ Nero insisted as they strolled across the room. ‘I’m surprised you can’t see it.’

‘How do you reach that conclusion?’

‘The prince secures you as his representative. My project secures your experience. And you get to keep your pony.’

‘In spite of your scare tactics, my ownership of Misty has never been in doubt. So what do you get out of it?’ Bella demanded suspiciously.

‘I get to keep Misty on my yard—and even ride her—if you will allow me to?’

Nero’s tongue was firmly planted in his cheek, Bella suspected. And his face was close enough to make her lips tingle. ‘Do you really need my permission?’ she countered. And would she be able to resist seeing the world’s best polo player mounted on the best pony? Nero’s laughing eyes and the curve of his sensuous mouth reflected his confidence that this would be the case.

‘Most important of all, Bella, the children benefit,’ Nero said, turning serious.

And that was the one thing she couldn’t argue with. ‘Believe me, your project is the only reason I’m saying yes to Argentina.’

‘But of course,’ Nero agreed smoothly. ‘What other reason could there be for a respectable woman to visit my estancia?’

‘I can’t imagine,’ Bella said frostily, smiling her thanks as a royal footman opened the outer doors for them.

‘And where will you go now?’ Nero asked her as a driver brought his ink-black four-wheel-drive up to the foot of the steps for him.

‘Back to the stables for one last check on the horses.’

‘As I’m going there myself, why don’t I give you a lift?’

‘I prefer to walk, thank you.’

‘In an evening dress?’

‘It’s a pleasant evening, and I need the fresh air.’

‘Well, if you’re sure?’

‘I am.’ Her mind was still whirling with the fact that she had agreed of her own free will to walk into the lion’s den—and not here on familiar turf, but Argentina, and the wild, untamed pampas, where she would be staying on Nero’s estancia. She needed some fresh air to come to terms with that alone—lots of it.

‘Then good night,’ Nero murmured, his eyes glittering with triumph. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow when we will firm up your travel arrangements.’

Life had suddenly become very interesting, Nero reflected as he gunned the engine and drove away from the castle. Word had it that Isabella Wheeler lived in an ivory tower whose walls had never been breached, but he’d caught flashes of internal fires raging out of control. She reminded him of one of his spirited mares. They took their time to trust and were always looking for trouble, but that was because they had lost the freedom of the pampas, something they would never forget. What had Bella Wheeler lost that caused her such torment? Rumour said there was some mystery surrounding her. He could confirm that. Bella said one thing and her eyes, the mirror of Bella’s soul, said something different. She was lying by omission. She was hiding something big. Bella’s outwardly contained manner intrigued him almost as much as her unnaturally well-groomed appearance irritated him. It wasn’t often he met a woman who had her own life, her own successful career and wasn’t looking for anything material from him. Far from it, Nero reflected wryly. If he had to categorise Bella after getting to know her a little better, it would still be under the heading: Ice Maiden. He had never met a woman who went all out to make herself as unobtainable and as aloof as she could and, the irony was, Bella didn’t realise what a desirable prize that made her. He’d seen the way men looked at her as they dreamed of loosening her tight-fitting breeches. He knew how he felt about her. And, judging by the way Bella responded to him, she wasn’t exactly immune to him either.

He wanted her. She wanted him. There should have been a very easy solution, but there wasn’t, and he was going to find out why.

When she had satisfied herself that everything at the stables was as it should be, Bella’s thoughts turned to her grooms. Some of them were very young and she felt responsible for them. Hearing that a couple of the girls hadn’t returned to the small bed and breakfast where Bella had rented them rooms, she set out to look for them. She knew exactly where they would be. After the match a large, luxurious nightclub had set up camp in a marquee in the grounds. It was the place to be, the girls had assured her. Bella had seen pictures on the news and could understand their excitement. The huge white tent was decorated like something out of Arabian Nights with exotic silken drapes in a variety of jewel colours and dramatic water features shooting plumes of glittering spray into the air. A dance floor had been erected in the middle of the tent and one of the top DJs had been booked to keep the excitement of the polo match alive until dawn.

She was only halfway across the field when the bass beat started pounding through her. She was really out of her comfort zone. Even before the prince’s invitation, she had refused the young grooms’ invitation to join them. She had made all sorts of excuses—she was too old, too boring—and had laughed when they had protested she was neither. It was never easy to mix business with pleasure, even had she wanted to, but like an old mother hen, she was determined to make sure her girls were safe tonight.

She was off to a good start, having the right credentials, apparently. A member of the security staff recognised her and showed her straight in through the VIP entrance. The noise was amazing and there was such a crowd it was a while before she spotted the girls, by which time she had been sucked deep into the throng and men were speaking to her, offering her drinks and wanting to dance with her. She was here for business purposes, she told them frostily, tilting her chin at a determined angle as she headed for the girls.

The heat was overwhelming inside the tent after the chill night air. What with the press of people, the noise, the screams of laughter, the relentless beat, the flash of chandeliers and the glittering, garish splendour of it all, it was no wonder she was disorientated to begin with. Shaking off the faint sense of danger approaching, she pressed on, determined not to leave until she knew the girls had arranged to get home safely.

‘Bella!’ they exclaimed the moment they caught sight of her.

Before she knew it, she was on the dance floor.

‘Meet…’

She didn’t hear the rest—there were too many names and far too many new faces. She smiled and jigged around a bit, trying to string a few steps together on a heavily overpopulated dance floor on which there was hardly room to move, let alone dance. And she felt silly in her strait-laced dinner gown amongst so many cool young girls.

‘Are you sure you’re all okay?’ she asked, drawing one of them aside. ‘Have you made plans for later, or shall I call a taxi for you?’

‘My brother’s here,’ the girl explained, angling her chin towards a tall, good-looking youth. ‘No worries, Bella. Woo-hoo! Enjoy yourself!’ And, grabbing hold of Bella’s wrist, the girl dragged her back onto the dance floor.

And why not? Bella reasoned, glancing round. Everyone was here for a good time, and one dance wouldn’t hurt. She didn’t want to be a killjoy, and there was such an air of celebration it felt great to be part of it. There was certainly nothing to be concerned about—even if that persistent prickle down her spine refused to go away.

‘Come on—you can’t go now. You’ve only just arrived,’ the girls insisted, gathering round Bella, who was still glancing anxiously over her shoulder, hardly knowing what she was looking for. They formed a circle round her so she couldn’t escape, which made her laugh, and soon she was dancing again and everyone was shooting their arms in the air. After some persuasion, Bella did too. It was fun. It felt good to let go. Her hair tumbled down and swung around her shoulders. She tossed it back, making no attempt to tidy herself for once. She was just happy to lose her inhibitions—happy to lose herself in the music, and the moment.

Until it all came crashing down.

So this was where Miss Bluestocking hung out when she wasn’t preaching death to desire and all-natural female responses. Those responses were only curbed when he was around, it seemed. Her glorious hair was flying free, and was as spectacular as he had always imagined it would be, and she was dancing with all the abandon he had suspected she might possess—a fact that wasn’t lost on the men around her, though Bella appeared to be oblivious to the interest she was arousing.

The crowd parted like the Red Sea as he strode up to her. He stopped in the centre of the dance floor in front of the one person oblivious to his approach. Currently gyrating with her eyes closed and her hands reaching for the sky, the so-called Ice Maiden was mouthing lyrics to the raunchy track and grinding her hips in time to the beat with extremely un-maidenly relish. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he rapped for the sheer pleasure of seeing the shock in her eyes.

‘Nero!’

‘Yes, Nero,’ he confirmed. ‘So this is why you refused my offer of a lift.’

She pretended not to understand him, and was pleasingly flushed and unsettled as she smoothed back her hair. He showed her no mercy. Instead, he tugged her into his arms.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded, struggling to find her severe face as their bodies brushed and finally connected.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he mocked as she let out a shocked breath. ‘I didn’t realise you had come here to lead a temperance rally. I thought you were dancing…’

She manoeuvred herself so their lower bodies were no longer touching. ‘You don’t understand—’

‘Oh, I think I do,’ Nero argued, drawing her close again as the uptempo track segued into a slower number. ‘I understand things such as this very well.’

‘I mean you don’t understand me,’ she said, going as stiff as a board. ‘This isn’t what it seems—’

‘This is exactly what it seems,’ he argued.

‘I’m only here to…’

‘Check out the ponies?’ he reminded her in a deceptively mild tone.

‘I’m here to check up on my girls,’ Bella argued hotly. ‘Not that it’s any business of yours what I choose to do with my free time.’

‘Not yet it isn’t.’

Nero’s powerful hands were on her arm and on her waist, making it hard to think straight. And he was radically changed. No more the suave aristocrat in an impeccably tailored suit, Nero had found time to change his clothes and in a tight-fitting top and well-worn jeans that sculpted his hard, toned muscles it was no wonder the crowds had parted for him. He looked like an invading warrior. His shoulders were massive. His biceps were ripped. His thick, inky-black hair tumbled over his brow, while his sharp black stubble seemed more piratical than ever, giving him the appearance of some brigand on a raid. Worse—he had caught her off guard, obliterating her carefully constructed image for the sake of one reckless dance.

‘So why are you here?’ she demanded, determined to turn the tables on him. ‘Looking for entertainment, Nero?’

‘I was looking for you,’ he fired back. ‘I expected to find you at the stables so we could discuss your travel plans for tomorrow. Imagine my surprise when one of the stable lads told me where you’d gone.’ As one inky brow rose it coincided with a move that brought them into even closer contact. ‘I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,’ he murmured as she gasped. ‘Imagine my surprise at finding Miss Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt in Sodom and Gomorrah.’

‘I was dancing with my friends!’

Nero shot a glance around at the men staring open-mouthed at Bella. ‘Really?’ He guessed none of them had seen Bella Wheeler breaking free before. The flickering light played into his hands, giving everything a hellish glow. Flashing and reflecting off the glitter balls hanging from the ceiling, the coloured lights made the mass of dancing figures seem contorted as if they were taking part in some primitive orgiastic rite. This was as far removed from the hushed sanctuary of the stable yard as it was possible to imagine. ‘I would never have guessed this was your scene,’ he murmured, twisting the knife. ‘I understood you preferred an innocent stroll in the clean night air.’

He loved the way she writhed in his arms. She even balled her tiny hand into a fist, but thought better of using it on him, and gradually, in spite of all her best efforts, the stiffness seeped out of her and she softened in his arms.

‘That’s better,’ he commented as she responded to the persuasive beat.

‘Don’t think I’m dancing with you because I want to.’

‘Of course you aren’t,’ he agreed, soothing her as they moved to the music. There were only two things a man and woman could do to a rhythm when they were as close as this, and dancing was step one.

She couldn’t have been more humiliated. Of all the things to happen, Nero discovering her midbellow in the middle of a raunchy song… How often did she let herself go?

Try never.

And that cringing feeling she got when some man she didn’t know touched her—where was that? Nero felt amazing, not that she was touching him unnecessarily. And then the music quietened and faded, and she waited for him to release her…

Was he going to kiss her?

Nero was staring down as if he might. They were alone in the middle of a packed dance floor. Closing her eyes, she drew in a shaking breath. Nero dipped his head…

The wait went on too long.

‘See you tomorrow, Bella.’

She was left standing in confusion. Nero had walked off. People were staring at her.

With as little fuss as possible, she left the floor, making sure she took a different route. He was playing games with her, and she had no one to blame but herself. She could have brought that encounter to an end at any time. Why on earth hadn’t she?