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His smart watch buzzed, warning him he needed to head to the barn to get ready for the polo match.
He scrubbed his hand over his face and wished for once that he had more self-control. Though following his gut had led him to great success in business, this wasn’t the first time it had landed him in hot water with his personal life.
“I have about ten minutes before the match starts,” Alec said. “My family is having a brunch afterward and I’d love it if you would accompany me. So you can see I’m not a total douchebag.”
“I don’t think you’re a total douchebag.”
He almost smiled at the way she said it but he knew he was still in hot water. It reminded him of why he’d hooked up with her. She’d been so spot-on with her descriptions of some of the more pretentious people in the room the night of the awards banquet, they’d sort of started bonding over it.
“Will you please come with me?” he asked. “They all know what I did...well, at least that I kissed you while pretending to be Mo. So they will definitely understand you’re angry with me.”
“My assistant is here. Can she come, too?”
“Yes, of course. I think Bart and Zaria will be joining us, too, so there will be more familiar faces for you.”
“Fine. I’ll see you after the match,” she said, walking past him in a cloud of feminine ire and Chanel perfume. He glanced over his shoulder, watching her retreat and ignoring the spark of excitement that was spreading through him.
She kept her cool until she was sure she was out of his line of sight and then she finally stopped walking like she had all the confidence in the world.
Whom the hell had she slept with?
She’d made some dumb decisions in the course of her life. Heck, who hadn’t, right? But the truth was she was usually pretty picky when it came to bed partners. She didn’t hook up with just every cute guy who came along, despite what the tabloids liked to print about her. And that night... Well, she’d thought she was connecting with Mauricio Velasquez. As for Alejandro—Alec—she’d had no idea she was being tricked like that.
Ugh.
“You okay?” Billie asked, coming up next to her.
“Yeah. I mean no. I don’t know,” she admitted to her assistant. “This isn’t going like I planned.”
Billie laughed in that honest way of hers and Scarlet couldn’t help smiling. “When does it ever? What’s going on here? You haven’t told me a single deet except you wanted to reconnect with that guy you met in Houston.”
Scarlet took her sunglasses off and glanced at her friend, trying to find the words. But they still escaped her. This was the kind of situation Tara had always found herself in. Usually Scarlet prided herself on being smarter about her personal life.
“It’s complicated,” she said.
“I’m all ears,” Billie said.
“Well, I can’t say too much here,” Scarlet said, glancing around at all the people gathering on the observation deck to watch the match. There was a bar set up and a small buffet table. The conversation was about the Velasquez brothers; apparently one of them was married to the British jewelry heiress Phillipa Hamilton-Hoff.
“Later, then?” Billie asked.
Scarlet nodded.
“Do you need me? I thought I’d go back to the house and check on Siobahn and then go grocery shopping. I have two interviews lined up for later this evening with private chefs but I’m probably going to have to cook dinner tonight,” Billie said.
Billie was obviously busy, and a part of Scarlet knew she should just let her get on with her job. What was she going to say to Billie?
“Scar?”
She just shrugged and shoved her glasses back on her face and turned away. The quick movement made her stomach churn.
Crap.
She didn’t want to throw up here. She couldn’t.
But she felt the bile in the back of her throat and put her hand in front of her mouth.
“Bathroom?” she said to Billie.
“Shit. Too far,” Billie said, quickly realizing that Scarlet was going to throw up. Billie grabbed her hand and they started running away from the crowd as the first chukka of the polo match got under way. Billie drew her behind the side of the barn in the nick of time and Scarlet was sick while Billie squeezed her shoulder and held her hair out of the way.
When her stomach was empty, Billie handed her a water bottle and she rinsed her mouth and spit before standing up and turning to her friend. She’d lost her sunglasses somewhere and she needed them.
She liked the illusion that she was invisible hiding behind the large-framed glasses. And as she saw the surprised look Billie’s brown eyes, she knew she needed to hide. Her friend wasn’t going to buy any excuse. She knew for a fact that Scarlet had been on a detox, eating and drinking healthy.
“You’re pregnant?”
Scarlet swallowed, her throat dry and sore. “Yes. But it’s complicated.”
“The father is that Mauricio guy?” Billie asked, taking a few steps away from Scarlet and picking up her sunglasses from the ground.
She handed them to Scarlet and she put them on. “I thought so. But the guy has a twin brother. They switched places that night.”
“Okay, obviously we are mad about this. What do you want me to do? I can reach out to our press contacts and start a smear—”
“Not yet. I don’t even know this guy. He invited me to join him and his family for brunch after the match. I was hoping you’d come with me,” Scarlet said.
“Oh, hell yes, I’ll be there. What’s his name?” Billie asked, pulling her smartphone from her pocket.
“Alejandro Velasquez,” Scarlet said.
“Shit, are you kidding?”
“Do you think I’d joke about that? Why? Who is he?”
“Well, let me do a quick internet search to confirm it but I’m pretty sure he’s a tech genius who owns a billion-dollar software company.”
“So why would he do something so immature, like pretending to be his brother?” Scarlet asked. “B, what am I going to do? You know my family... I thought—”
“I’ll do some research while you watch the match. Then at this brunch thing we can see what kind of family he has, what kind of people they are. Maybe the switching-places thing was innocent. Whatever happens you’ve got me by your side,” Billie said as she hugged Scarlet.
She wasn’t alone. Why, then, did she always feel that way? Billie was the best assistant she’d ever had but, in a way, she was just like the nanny Scarlet and Tara had shared growing up. Paid family. Though she knew Billie wasn’t with her just for a paycheck.
“Thanks, B,” she said. “This has completely screwed with my head.”
“That’s saying something. Nothing ever rattles you.”
She had to smile at that. She had built up a resistance to the kinds of situations that would freak out most people. But this... Maybe it was the fact that Tara wasn’t here for her to talk to about it. Tara would be able to make her laugh about it even though a part of her was hurt.
Scarlet couldn’t help but think that maybe he hadn’t worried about lying to her because of who she was. Because she was the kind of person who’d lived her life going from one scandal to the next. She had a reputation. So lying to her hadn’t worried him.
She hoped that wasn’t the case.
But then she’d learned that hoping was a waste of time. She’d hoped her dad would stop marrying younger women and actually be a parent to her and Tara. She’d hoped that Tara would stop using and get clean. Now she was hoping that Alejandro Velasquez was a decent guy...
Alec had grown up playing polo with his brothers. The Velasquez family had been horse breeders for generations, and Alec’s dad had been playing on a team with Tio Jose and their cousins since they were children. So riding was second nature to Alec. His four-player team generally consisted of Alec, Mo, their eldest brother, Diego, and the youngest Velasquez, Inigo, with either Malcolm Ferris—Mo’s best friend—or their dad often subbing for Inigo, who was gone a lot of the time on the Formula 1 circuit. Technically Inigo wasn’t supposed to play when he was home because of insurance concerns, but the Velasquez men had a problem with following the rules.
Diego was always number one—the goal striker. He’d always had a good eye for hitting goals, so it made sense for him to play in that position. Alec and Mauricio traded off being number two, the forward, and number three, the pivotal player who switches between offense and defense. Then number four protected the goal. Malcolm was really good at that position and since they’d grown up playing with him, he knew everyone’s strengths and weaknesses.
But when the third chukka ended, Alec knew his brothers and Malcolm weren’t pleased with his performance. It didn’t help that they were playing against Bart and his friends, who’d all played polo professionally at some point in their lives.
Alec hung back from the others trying to search out Scarlet in the crowd. He finally spotted her standing with Zaria and laughing at something Bart’s sister had said. Scarlet’s head was thrown back and he felt a jolt of lust just seeing her happiness.
“You’re not going to be in a state to even talk to her if you don’t get your head in the game,” Mo said, coming over to him.
His twin was known for his hot temper, but since he and Hadley had gotten engaged, Mauricio hadn’t been giving in to it as often. For a while after Hadley and Mo had broken up he’d been getting into fights with everyone in town and drinking way too much. It had been Mo’s way of dealing with losing Hadley while not having to admit he’d pushed her away.
“I’m trying,” Alec said. “I wasn’t expecting to see her today. Why is she here? And how am I going to make up for lying about being you?” he asked his twin. She’d thrown him and he wasn’t used to being caught off guard. Part of the reason he was so successful was that he could usually envision all the possibilities in a situation. But this was completely out of left field. He’d done some research on Scarlet—she was known for moving forward and rarely going back to anything or anyone.
Mo sighed. “Dude, I have no clue but winning the game would probably go a long way to impressing her.”
Alec knew the outcome of this match didn’t matter to her at all. “I think that would make you happy, not her.”
“Maybe your right... But damn, you’re in trouble now.”
“What?” he asked, glancing over at Scarlet and noticing that his sister, who was almost six months pregnant, and his mom had joined the group Scarlet was in.
Oh crap. That was all he needed: Bianca and his mom over there talking to her. “I wonder if Dad wants to play for me for a minute.”
“No. Don’t do it. There’s nothing you can say to make anything better. Plus, Dad hasn’t played in a couple of weeks and he’s taking care of Benito,” Mo said, referring to their little nephew. “Come on, time to finish the match.”
Alec’s performance was as crappy in the last two chukkas as it had been in the first four. He gave his twin a wide berth when they were in the locker room, showering and changing. He wasn’t looking forward to joining his family, who were up on the second-floor balcony of the main barn area. When Diego and Alec had started designing and developing the polo grounds, they’d known they wanted a place for the family to hang out after matches. In fact, Diego was hiring an event manager to run the space as it had become popular with many of the townspeople in Cole’s Hill.
When he left the locker room, he went to the barn instead of up to the balcony where everyone was waiting, including Scarlet O’Malley. He wished he had his laptop with him but instead he leaned against Dusty his polo pony’s stall, took out his phone, pulled up the internet and deployed the search algorithm that he’d developed to find all imprints left by a person on the web. It wouldn’t help him in time for the brunch he was having with Scarlet and his family, but afterward he’d have a better idea of who she was and why she was here.
One night in her bed had whetted his appetite for her but he’d resigned himself to never seeing her or touching her again. There was just too much explaining to do, so he’d figured that she’d just be one of those women he thought about wistfully from afar. But now she was back and he wanted her, as badly as he had the first time he’d kissed her.
Dusty lifted his head and looked toward the barn entrance. Alec turned and saw Scarlet walking through the doors toward him. He took a deep breath as he pocketed his smartphone.
“Hello.”
“Hi, Alejandro. I was waiting for you upstairs,” she said.
“Sorry. I wanted to apologize to Dusty for my poor playing today,” he said.
She tipped her head to the side and studied him. She didn’t say anything, just crossed her arms over her chest and waited.
“What?”
“Nothing. But now I know what you look like when you lie.”
He straightened away from the stall and walked toward her. “No, you don’t. That’s the truth.”
“Are you sure? Because you have the exact same look on your face as you did when you introduced yourself to me as Mauricio.”
Three (#u1e48e6fc-5813-53e6-8dd1-82b42f607bd4)
He stood there in the middle of the stables looking more at home than he’d been at the gala in Houston. She wondered if she was glimpsing the real man now. But then how would she know? Since they’d been introduced, he’d done nothing but lie to her.
“I’m sorry I lied to you, Scarlet,” he said. “If there had been a chance to tell you the truth I would have, but I got carried away and the last thing on my mind once we got to your hotel room was explaining the rather complicated fact that I had helped my twin out by pretending to be him.”
As close as he stood to her she couldn’t help but inhale the spicy, outdoorsy aftershave he wore. She closed her eyes. The scent wasn’t unpleasant, but she was pregnant and it bothered her the slightest bit.
Damn.
If she got sick in front of him, she was going to throw the biggest, ugliest fit anyone had ever witnessed. She needed the advantage here. She wanted to find out what kind of man he was before she told him about the baby.
She took a few steps back and turned toward the horse stalls that held the polo ponies. She didn’t mind horses but hadn’t really ever been a great rider. Tara had been the rider in their family. And since their father always insisted on making a competition of everything the two of them had done, they’d quickly decided not to pursue the same passions.
The queasiness subsided as soon as she stepped away from him.
She turned to look back at him over her shoulder. She’d left her sunglasses on when she’d entered the stables and now it was hard to see him. The lenses were very dark, and she couldn’t make out his expression.
Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. She skimmed her gaze down his body. He wore a pair of white jeans with a black belt that emphasized his narrow waist and the strength of his legs. He also wore a light-colored button-down shirt and gray blazer. She wished he appeared unkempt or wrinkled. But instead he looked like the sophisticated man she’d thought him to be.
“So you’re a tech guy?” she asked.
One side of his mouth lifted in a sort of half smile. “You could say that.”
“I just did,” she quipped. Something she’d learned from a lifetime of dealing with her father—a man she’d never understood and still didn’t really know—was to always stay on her toes.
“Touché.”
“What do you do?” she asked.
“I’ll be happy to tell you about it over brunch,” he said. “Should we go and join the rest of my family?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I want to know more about you, Alejandro.”
“Fair enough. I want to know more about you as well, Scarlet. I want to know the woman behind the headlines.”
She shook her head. No one knew that woman... Well, maybe Tara had, but she was dead. And Billie and Siobahn saw what she wanted them to see. She had never felt comfortable letting someone all the way in. She doubted this man who’d lied to her when they’d first met would be the one.
“That’s not how it’s going to work,” she said. “It’s not a tit-for-tat thing. You lied about who you are. I didn’t.”
He came over and reached out, taking her hand in his. When he lifted it to his mouth and kissed it, a shiver went up her arm and awareness spread throughout her body. Here was a reaction she could understand. Lust. Pure and simple.
“I did lie. I’m incredibly sorry about that. If I could do it over, I would have told you who I was right away. But everything else about that night was me. I wasn’t acting like Mo. He’s much duller than I am.”
