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‘So you’re rich now,’ he said. ‘How does that feel?’
‘Strange,’ she admitted.
Stranger still was the fact that she had never felt more impoverished in her life.
* * *
What had she done? Danny wondered as she watched Tiago cross the yard. She had to shake off this feeling of doom. She was about to join one of the finest horsemen in the world and work alongside him. What could be better than that? The wedding would happen when it happened, and in the meantime she would concentrate on everything Tiago could teach her about the ranch.
Maybe that would bring them closer. If not love, then maybe they could pick up their friendship and make the year ahead bearable for them both. That shouldn’t be too hard when they shared so many interests.
Deciding to act as if this were just a new and exciting day in Brazil, rather than the start of a new and uncertain life, she leaned over the fence of the corral where Tiago was working, telling herself that she would get through this, and would learn a lot along the way.
‘Would you like to try?’ Tiago called to her softly.
He didn’t take his attention off the young colt he was training for a moment. The pony was trembling with awareness, and it was one of the most valuable animals on the ranch, Tiago had explained.
‘You’ll let me work with him?’ Danny asked with surprise.
‘Why not? You’re good.’
She couldn’t pretend that didn’t thrill her.
Taking care to shut the gate silently, she joined one of the best horse-trainers in the world. Working alongside Tiago would be the greatest opportunity of her life.
‘Now, watch how I do this,’ he said after a few moments.
Watching Tiago was no hardship. She watched his lips move when he spoke. She watched the muscles flex in his arms as he worked with the pony. She watched his hands soothe and stroke with exquisite sensitivity—
‘Concentrate,’ he said softly.
She hated it that he knew what she was thinking.
‘That’s good, Danny.’
He came to stand behind her. She held her breath as his body brushed hers, and tensed when his hands came around her, allowing Tiago to use his hands to direct hers.
‘Bring your face closer,’ he advised in an undertone. ‘Share the same air as your pony.’
His husky voice was hypnotic, and his touch made both Danny and the pony relax.
‘He’s starting to trust you,’ Tiago murmured. ‘I’m going to move away now, while you carry on. Caress him, speak to him and build his confidence. Who knows? One day he might be yours.’
Danny smiled, knowing she would never be able to afford the young colt, and then felt a spear of surprise, knowing that with Tiago’s marriage settlement in the bank she could.
‘What would you call him?’ he asked.
‘Firefly.’ She turned, expecting to find Tiago behind her, but he was already with the gauchos on the other side of the fence.
* * *
He was on the same wavelength as Danny, Tiago reflected as he watched her work. He never allowed bystanders into the corral when he was working with young ponies fresh to training, but he trusted Danny. He’d seen her work on Chico’s ranch.
And on the personal front...?
He trusted her on the personal front too. He couldn’t say that about any other woman apart from Elena, his housekeeper. His mother had been a socialite—a butterfly who had fallen in love with the son of a rough working man who’d happened to own a valuable ranch. His mother had seen an opportunity.
Tiago had been pampered and petted as a boy—a situation he’d refused to tolerate as a teen. By that time his father had been a drunk and his mother an ageing beauty who had refused to accept that her day in the sun was over. There had to be more pills, more potions, more clothes, more visits to the beauty salon, and then eventually to the plastic surgeon. She had ruined his father, who had ended up stealing from the ranch, leaving Tiago’s grandfather with nothing.
It had taken Tiago to return—a changed man—and rescue things to the point where Fazenda Santos had become no longer a broken-down ranch that existed solely to feed the greed of his parents, but a highly successful concern he had dedicated his life to.
Did he want to get married, with a family history like that?
No. But a year with a woman as lithe and lovely as Danny might just be tolerable—especially when she was in his bed.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#uf3466473-cc7b-57e2-9e86-3bab36943bc7)
TIAGO WAS IN a good mood after working with the colt, and as they walked back to the house it seemed as good a moment as any for Danny to ask him about the details of the wedding. She might not be having the idyllic country wedding she had imagined as a girl, but arrangements would still have to be made. It might be a hastily arranged formality, or—and she desperately hoped this wouldn’t be the case—a full-blown society wedding for the type of people Tiago mixed with when he was on the polo circuit.
‘So...our wedding...’ she began.
‘Friday,’ he said.
‘Friday?’ She looked at him blankly.
‘Friday is the end of the week,’ he said impatiently. ‘I did tell you it would have to be this week.’
Yes, but talking about something was very different from facing the reality of the situation. She was already running through a checklist in her mind.
‘There’s too much to do in the time available.’
Even if a wedding could be arranged at such short notice, she had to consider the demands of the ranch, as well as the Thunderbolts’ polo fixtures.
‘Did you check on the team’s games?’
‘Of course.’ Tiago drilled a stare into her eyes, as if the choice between a polo match and their wedding was no contest. ‘All we need for this wedding is you and me and a couple of witnesses.’
‘I never expected anything more,’ she said, angry to think Tiago imagined she craved some sort of grand ceremony to accompany her pay-out.
Nothing could be further from the truth. It was bad enough knowing she had to make promises that she would only keep for a year, without attempting to fool wedding guests into believing theirs was a romantic love match.
‘We’ll get married here on the ranch,’ Tiago said, to her relief. ‘But I want everyone to share the celebrations. This won’t be a quiet wedding. I’m not ashamed of what we’re doing, and neither should you be. When Chico and Lizzie return from their honeymoon we’ll fly to Scotland and have a blessing at the kirk in the village, with a party afterwards. You can have whatever you want, then—ten dresses and a dozen bridesmaids, if you like.’
Tiago knew so little about her, she thought, chilled by his casual attitude. ‘I just want to get it over with,’ she said, speaking her thoughts out loud. She was uncomfortable discussing the charade they were about to take part in.
‘I am not trying to cheat you, but I do want you to understand this situation for what it is. It’s a short-term solution that will benefit both of us enormously.’
‘I know that. I’ve made a bargain and I’ll stick to it,’ she confirmed.
Tiago relaxed. ‘Thank you, Danny.’ And then his eyes became slumberous, and a half-smile curved his wicked mouth. ‘Our wedding must be soon. I don’t do waiting.’
For anything, she remembered, thinking about their encounter on his jet.
‘I suggest you get some rest between now and Friday, chica. It will be a big day for you.’
And an even bigger night, she thought, shivering in a very different way.
‘Will I see you before then?’ She tried to sound casual, and only succeeded in making Tiago impatient.
‘I hope you’re not trying to tie me down even before we’re married?’
‘No.’ She took him on. ‘I’m asking you a question.’
‘Will the fire of South America sit well with the frost of Scotland?’ he mocked.
She raised a brow. ‘Let’s be quite clear. I’ve got no intention of becoming your doormat.’
‘Well said,’ he approved, curving her another smile. ‘And now I have business to attend to. You’ll see me when I get back.’ His powerful shoulders eased in a careless shrug. ‘I can’t tell you how long that will be.’
‘So long as you’re back for our wedding, I imagine that will be time enough,’ she said coolly.
Tiago huffed a laugh. ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ he assured her.
Those eyes, that smile—she was glad he couldn’t feel the heat surging through her veins. To say Tiago was arrogant would be vastly understating the case, but he was also bone-meltingly hot, and she was in no way immune to his appeal.
‘Shall I spread the word about our wedding?’ she suggested mildly.
‘Tell anyone you like.’
‘Fine. Goodbye, then,’ she said coolly. ‘Enjoy your trip.’
Tiago stared at her as if he expected something more —a longing look, perhaps, or a flaccid wave. She gave him a steely look as he walked away, and then—not for the first time—wondered what on earth she had got herself into.
It wasn’t as if she couldn’t arrange a wedding, Danny reasoned, now that she was alone, but for all Tiago’s interest in the matter it was clear to her that the groom intended to carry on as usual, with no interruption to his schedule. She could challenge him all she liked, but Tiago wouldn’t change his life for anyone.
* * *
He would be back by Wednesday, thought Tiago. She could like it or not. He would be back—because the gauchos were holding a party on Wednesday night, and he would take the opportunity to introduce Danny formally as his intended bride. And then he would take her to bed.
Everyone would know by then, as she would have told them, and waiting until their wedding night on Friday was too long for him to wait to claim a woman he’d already tasted and been denied.
He’d made a good deal with Danny and he was confident she would stick to it. It pleased him to think the people on the ranch already liked her. And the gauchos wouldn’t have crowded around to watch her training the colt if she hadn’t been good. The sketchy character he’d drawn in his mind of the wife he would be forced to take had acquired an appealing reality in Danny, and if their brief encounter on the jet had been anything to go by she would be a willing pupil outside the training ring too.
* * *
Tiago was a saint. That much she had learned while he’d been away. As she crossed the yard on Wednesday morning, heading for the house, she was still thinking about her conversation with one of the elderly gauchos, who had told her that Tiago rarely took time off. He knew every family by name, and all the names of generations past. He’d saved them from ruin, having plucked his grandfather’s property from the brink of disaster. His parents had both been fools, who hadn’t been able to spend Tiago’s grandfather’s money fast enough. They had been more interested in funding their lavish lifestyle than in saving the ranch.
The old man’s face had lit up at this point as he’d told her, ‘But Tiago is different. Tiago is one of us.’
Tiago was overly generous to everyone who worked for him, and one of the most highly regarded horse-trainers and horse-breeders of his time. He was also a world-famous polo international.
Basically, he had no flaws—though Danny suspected the world’s women might disagree, because Tiago had never recovered from his mother’s spendthrift ways and so didn’t trust women. This was what Elena, who had a far better command of English than anyone else on the ranch, had explained, after hugging Danny when she’d heard about their impending wedding.
Tiago’s mother had been the sophisticated type, Elena had confided, and she had groomed her son to be a playboy. This was a mask Tiago still wore when it suited him, but he was gaucho through and through—like his grandfather before him.
Danny took all this information and added it to what she already knew about Tiago, but whether it would give her more confidence regarding the next year or less, she wasn’t sure. Tiago was a product of his upbringing, and she was hardly a child from a stable home. Perhaps together they stood a chance of building something worthwhile?
They might, but that wasn’t why she was here. In a year’s time there would be no Tiago and Danny together. What was the point of building anything beyond an understanding between them?
Hearing rotor blades, she stopped in the middle of the yard to stare up at the sky. He was back. Her heart thundered. She tightened her grip on the parcel in her hand. She had bought him a wedding gift—had it made for him by one of the gauchos on the ranch. It was only a small gesture, but it was something. She didn’t want to go to Tiago empty-handed on Friday.
Now she began to wonder why she’d done it at all, and what he’d make of the gift—this man who could buy anything, and who travelled to town in his helicopter.
She glanced at the bulky package and at the white knuckles on her hand. Sucking in a deep, steadying breath, she firmed her resolve. Why go for half-measures?
Plucking a flower from one of the pots in the yard, she tucked it beneath the string on the parcel. Whether Tiago wanted her or not, he’d got her for a year—and she’d got him.
And he took her breath away.
Tiago’s air of purpose and energy seemed redoubled as he strode into the yard. He didn’t waste time. Dragging her close, he stared into her face for a heartbeat, and then kissed her as if he would never let her go.
‘I’ve missed you,’ he growled. ‘Where’s Elena?’
Still recovering from his sensory assault, she somehow found the breath to tell him that the housekeeper had gone home about an hour ago.
‘Excellent.’
Maintaining eye contact, Tiago backed her towards the house. Removing the parcel from her hands, he left it on the hall table along the way. He grabbed her hand when they reached the foot of the stairs.
‘No!’
He stopped abruptly and stared down at her, frowning. ‘No? What do you mean, no?’
‘I mean no.’ She had to tell him how she felt about this. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘You don’t want to what?’ Tiago demanded, his expression darkening.
‘I don’t want to make love to you. Not today. Not now.’
He seemed incredulous, and laughed. He certainly wasn’t used to rejection. ‘Explain,’ he said coldly.
Stiffening her resolve, she went ahead and told him. ‘I have decided to save myself for our wedding night.’
His frown deepened, and then he laughed again. ‘You’ve what?’
‘You heard me. I’m not going to bed with you until our wedding night. I want to make it special,’ she explained, starting to feel awkward as Tiago stared at her as if she were mad.
‘I have to keep my pride, Tiago. Surely you understand that?’
