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CHAPTER TWO
TO RACHEL’S relief an X-ray showed that she had not broken any bones when Piran had thrown her, but her ribs and shoulder were badly bruised and the doctor was adamant that she should not ride for a few days.
‘I doubt you’ll be able to move tomorrow,’ he told her as he handed her a prescription for strong painkillers. ‘Take two of these twice a day, and if I were you I’d go to bed and stay there.’
It was the most ridiculous suggestion Rachel had ever heard. She had never spent a day in bed in her life, and as far as she was concerned the fact that she hadn’t suffered any fractures meant that she would be fit to work at the stables tomorrow.
But the following morning she woke in agony and the sight of her purple bruises forced her to accept that she was in no fit state to ride her bicycle up to the stables, muck out loose boxes and then spend the morning exercising the horses.
Besides, even if she managed to get to the stables, Diego Ortega was likely to send her straight home again. The Argentinian was the most arrogant individual she had ever met. Infuriatingly, he was also the sexiest man she had ever laid eyes on, she acknowledged grimly. She cringed when she remembered how she had been so mesmerised by him that she had stared at him, hoping he would kiss her, and his amused smile had told her that he had known exactly what she was thinking.
The day dragged endlessly, but fortunately the painkillers worked well and by early evening Rachel was feeling less like she had been trampled on by a herd of bulls and was bored of her enforced isolation. One of the other stable-hands sent her a text saying that Diego had returned to the Hall, where he was staying as a guest of Earl Hardwick. He was unlikely to visit the stables again tonight, Rachel decided as she cycled through the woods to the Hardwick estate, wincing every time she hit a pothole on the path.
Piran was gratifyingly pleased to see her. From his gleaming coat she guessed that someone must have groomed him, but she gave him another brush and fed him a couple of peppermints, and did not notice she had company until a figure came up silently behind her.
‘Jasper, you’ll give me a heart attack if you creep up on me like that,’ she snapped when a faint sound made her swing round and she almost collided with Earl Hardwick’s son and heir. ‘It’s a pity you weren’t so quiet on your bike yesterday,’ she muttered, feeling the same uneasy tension that always gripped her when she was alone with Jasper. The young Englishman was reputedly one of the most eligible bachelors among the landed gentry and, with his blonde hair flopping onto his brow, Rachel could see why women might be attracted to him. But he did nothing for her, and she hated the way he looked at her as though he were mentally undressing her.
‘Yeah, I heard Piran threw you when you were jumping him yesterday.’ Jasper lounged in the stable doorway, blocking Rachel’s path so that she instinctively stepped backwards away from him.
‘It was your fault, not his. The noise of your bike scared him. I wish you wouldn’t ride it near the paddock.’
Jasper gave a careless shrug. ‘It’s my land—or it will be one day. You know, it would pay you to be nice to me, Rachel,’ he said with a sly smile, reaching out and running his finger down her cheek. ‘One day I’m going to be very rich—as long as my dear papa doesn’t blow the family fortune on the polo club. God knows how much he’s had to fork out to persuade Diego Ortega to come here and share his “expertise”,’ he added petulantly. ‘Ortega is already a multimillionaire, and the money the old man’s paying him could have gone on increasing my paltry allowance.’
‘Mr Ortega is reputed to be one of the best trainers in the world,’ Rachel murmured. ‘And his appearance at the Hardwick Polo Tournament has trebled ticket sales, which must be good for the club.’
‘Ortega is a notorious playboy,’ Jasper said sulkily, clearly resenting Rachel’s defence of him. And why had she spoken up for Diego when the first thing he had done since his arrival had been to ban her from the stables? she wondered irritably. ‘My sister was all over him like a rash at dinner last night,’ Jasper added sneeringly. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for his smarmy charm too?’
‘Of course not,’ she replied quickly; perhaps too quickly because Jasper stared at her intently and she felt herself blush. She could not bear for Jasper of all people to guess the effect that Diego had on her and so she added, ‘From my brief meeting with Diego Ortega, I found him to be the most objectionable man I’ve ever met and, like you, I’ll be glad to see the back of him.’
‘Is that so, Rachel? How disappointing. I had such high hopes for our relationship,’ a familiar, heavily accented voice drawled mockingly behind her. Rachel gasped and jerked her head round to see Diego strolling in through the doors of the stable block. ‘Our working relationship, of course,’ he added, giving Jasper Hardwick a bland smile when the young Englishman glowered at him.
Diego turned his attention back to Rachel, and she felt a fluttering sensation in her stomach as her eyes clashed with his gleaming amber gaze. He had obviously changed for dinner and looked stunningly handsome in tailored black trousers and a white silk shirt. Presumably he would don a tuxedo and bow tie before dinner with the Hardwicks, but for now his shirt was open at the throat, revealing his golden skin.
‘I’m afraid you’ll be seeing a lot of me over the next few weeks—back and front,’ he said sarcastically, while she stared at the floor and wished a trapdoor would miraculously open beneath her feet. ‘Earl Hardwick has challenged me to turn Hardwick Polo Club into a top sporting venue—and I can never resist a challenge,’ he murmured silkily, his eyes focused on Rachel’s flushed face.
He glanced dismissively at Jasper. ‘I’m afraid you will no longer be able to ride your motorbike around the estate. I’ll be doing some intensive training with the polo ponies and I don’t want to waste my time calming them down after you’ve terrified them. Your thoughtless actions yesterday caused Rachel’s accident, and it was sheer luck the outcome wasn’t more serious.’
An angry flush stained Jasper’s face. ‘It’s not my fault Rachel can’t control her horse,’ he said sullenly. ‘Everyone knows Piran is too strong for her.’ He gave Diego a look of active dislike. ‘You can’t tell me what to do. My father…’
‘Your father agrees with me that the bike should be banned from anywhere near the stables and practice paddocks,’ Diego interrupted with a quiet authority in his tone that brought another wave of colour to Jasper’s face. ‘Miss Summers’s riding skills are not in question. I was watching her yesterday, and in my opinion she is an excellent horsewoman.’
Rachel blushed at the unexpected praise. Jasper glanced furiously from her to Diego and swore viciously before he swung round and stormed out of the stables. In the silence that fell after his departure Rachel felt her tension rise and she busied herself with putting Piran’s grooming brushes away.
‘He may be a member of the British aristocracy but he’s a charmless individual, isn’t he?’ Diego drawled. ‘But perhaps you don’t think so, Rachel? Did you arrange to meet Hardwick here, when you knew the other grooms would have finished work and the two of you would be alone?’
Stunned by the accusation, she spun round and saw that his amber eyes were coldly assessing her. ‘Of course not,’ she denied sharply. ‘Why would I? I’m not the slightest bit interested in Jasper.’
Diego stepped into the loose box and patted Piran. ‘Well, he’s interested in you,’ he said harshly. ‘A word of advice, querida—don’t flirt with Hardwick unless you intend to follow it through. He wants you badly, and it’s not a good idea to lead him on.’
‘I wasn’t flirting with him!’ Rachel’s eyes flashed with temper. ‘He must have seen me arrive here and followed me into the stables.’ She trailed to a halt, remembering how Diego had expressly banned her from visiting the stables. ‘I came to see Piran, not to ride him,’ she muttered and then, as her temper sparked again, added, ‘although the X-rays were clear. I didn’t break any bones yesterday, and there’s no reason why I can’t ride.’
‘Apart from the doctor’s recommendation that you take a break from riding for a few days—Arturo overheard your conversation at the hospital,’ Diego murmured dryly, feeling a mixture of amusement and impatience when she glared at him. She was infuriatingly stubborn—a trait they shared, he acknowledged. He understood her obsession for riding and her addiction to the adrenalin boost when she took her horse over the jumps. She clearly pushed herself to the limits, just as he did on the polo field, but he wondered what demons drove her and made her careless of her safety—as his demons drove him to take risks which had taken him to the top of his sport, and on several occasions within a whisker of the grave.
He was torn between wanting to shake some sense into her and kiss the mutinous line of her mouth until she parted her lips and allowed him to push his tongue between them. He was irritated by the effect she had on him. Yesterday he had thought she would be an interesting diversion while he was staying at Hardwick, but after spending a restless night when he’d been unable to dismiss her from his mind he had decided that she was a complication he could do without. He had confidently assumed that when he saw her again he would have his inconvenient attraction to her under control, but as soon as he’d walked into the stables and felt his heart jolt at the sight of her he had been forced to admit that his awareness of her had not lessened.
Her hair was the colour of spun gold, falling to halfway down her back. He wanted to run his fingers through the thick, silky mass and then pull her into his arms so that her hips cradled the hard evidence of his arousal. His body was as taut as an over-strung bow and he felt an overwhelming urge to tumble her down in the hay, but instead he called on all his willpower and stepped out of Piran’s loose box.
‘As you can see, Piran is fine, and he gave me no trouble when I groomed him earlier.’ He followed Rachel out of the loose box. ‘I’ll drive you home. I understand you live at Irving’s farm.’
‘Yes, but there’s no need for you to give me a lift—I cycled here.’ Rachel nodded towards her bike, propped up against the barn wall. ‘It’s quicker for me to ride through the woods.’
‘I want to discuss the horses I’ve brought over from Argentina for the polo tournament. If you are going to oppose everything I say, I will have to seriously question whether I can have you working here,’ Diego snapped.
Was he threatening to sack her? Rachel chewed on her lip as panic surged through her. How could she admit that her reluctance to sit next to him in the close confines of the sleek silver sports car she could see parked in the yard was due to her acute awareness of him? But he gave her no further opportunity to speak and was already striding out of the barn. She hurried after him and when he held open the car door she slid into the passenger seat and stared determinedly ahead, her senses flaring when he sat behind the wheel and she inhaled the exotic scent of his aftershave.
‘You were going to tell me about your horses,’ she murmured tentatively when he had driven almost to the boundary of the Hardwick estate in a taut silence that played havoc with her nerves. Diego exhaled deeply, as if he too was aware of the prickling tension between them, but then proceeded to give her detailed information about his polo ponies. Rachel listened intently so that it was a surprise when the car came to a halt and she realised that they had turned into the farm.
‘I’ve left notes about feeds and medical histories, et cetera in the tack room. You can read through them when you come back to work after the weekend,’ he said in a tone that brooked no argument about when he would allow her back to the stables.
‘Fine. Well, I’ll see you next week then,’ Rachel replied flatly, wondering how she was going to survive for three long days without riding. The prospect of not seeing Diego for days had nothing to do with the deflated feeling that had settled over her, she told herself firmly.
‘Before you go…these are for you.’ He reached behind his seat and handed her a huge bouquet of yellow roses, his mouth curving into a smile at her expression of stunned surprise. ‘To wish you a speedy recovery,’ he explained. ‘When I visited the florist’s the colour reminded me of your bright hair—and the sharp thorns were a painful reminder of your prickly nature,’ he added dryly, showing her several deep scratches on his hand. ‘I almost bled to death removing them.’
‘I don’t mean to be prickly; I’m just used to doing things for myself and making my own decisions, that’s all,’ Rachel mumbled, burying her face in the scented blooms because she could not bring herself to meet Diego’s gaze. Unaccountably, her eyes filled with tears and she blinked fiercely to dispel them. She wondered what he would say if she revealed that she had never been given flowers in her life—and then wondered where on earth she was going to put them when she did not possess a vase.
She sensed he was waiting for her to say something, and forced herself to speak. ‘They’re beautiful. Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ Diego paused, and wondered impatiently why he felt as edgy as a teenager on a first date. Rachel was a stable-hand, with an attitude problem and a sharp tongue—not the sort of woman he would usually be interested in. But he was intrigued by her and as he watched her tongue dart out to moisten her lips the tug of desire that had kept him awake for half the night intensified. ‘I was hoping they would persuade you to invite me in and offer me a cup of coffee.’
Rachel glanced at him, caught the unmistakable sensual gleam in his amber eyes and stared back at the golden bouquet, her heart beating very fast. It was only coffee, she reminded herself, and it seemed churlish to refuse when he had presented her with two dozen roses. ‘You’re welcome to come in for coffee. But I don’t live at the farmhouse. I live up there.’
Following her gaze, Diego restarted the engine and drove up the track that wound out of the farmyard and through a small copse of trees, his brows lowering in a frown when the track ended at a small shabby caravan nestled in the shade of a towering oak tree. ‘You don’t seriously expect me to believe you live in that?’
‘And the coffee is cheap instant,’ Rachel said sweetly. ‘Welcome to my home, Mr Ortega.’ While Diego stared out of the windscreen in patent disbelief, she jumped out of the car and unlocked the caravan, the heat that had built up inside hitting her as she pushed open the door. He had probably changed his mind about the coffee, she decided, trying to ignore her disappointment as she rummaged around in the cupboard under the sink, searching for a suitable vessel to hold the roses. She had unearthed a couple of jam jars when he climbed up the steps, ducking his head as he stepped through the door and instantly seeming to dominate the cramped space.
He glanced around the interior of the caravan and Rachel gave a silent groan when his eyes fell on the bed, which she had left down this morning because her shoulder had hurt too much to pack it away.
‘It’s what an estate agent might call a compact residence,’ she said brightly. ‘When the bed is folded away there’s actually a surprising amount of room—for me, anyway,’ she added when she glanced up and saw that Diego’s head was brushing the ceiling.
‘This can’t be your permanent home.’ He could not disguise his shock at her living conditions. ‘You just camp out here during the summer—right?’
‘No, I moved in here when I was seventeen, after my mother married for the third time and my twin half-sisters were born.’
Diego’s brows rose. ‘Family life sounds complicated.’
‘Believe me, it is. I went to live with my father for a while, but he and his new wife had also just had a baby and it was easier for everyone when Peter Irving offered me the caravan.’
Rachel’s voice was carefully controlled, giving no hint of how she had resented feeling like a spare part in her parents’ lives—unwanted, apart from being an occasional babysitter to her various half brothers and sisters. She had spent most of her childhood being passed between her mother and father, but she often thought that the bitter custody battle they had fought over her had been more about them trying to score points off each other than because either of them had actually wanted her to live with them.
It had been a far from idyllic childhood, and by the age of twelve she had been fiercely independent—getting up early every morning to do a paper round to pay for her riding lessons. She preferred horses to people and, after witnessing her parents’ various failed marriages, she was adamant that she never wanted to get married or be reliant on another human being.
‘The caravan is sound and dry, although it does shake a bit in strong wind,’ Rachel admitted as she spooned coffee granules into the two least chipped mugs she could find. ‘But it’s got all the basic amenities—a shower, and Peter rigged up a generator to provide me with electricity. I can’t afford to rent a house,’ she explained when Diego gave her a look that said he seriously questioned her sanity. ‘Property is very expensive around here, and everything I earn goes on Piran’s upkeep and competition fees.’
Diego noted that the caravan might be small and old, but it was immaculately clean. The collection of china horses arranged on the shelf above the cooker were free from dust, and on the miniature kitchen worktop stood a jar filled with wild daisies. Rachel’s home was as unconventional and dainty as its occupant, and he felt like a giant who had somehow squeezed himself into a doll’s house.
He would drink the coffee and then leave, he decided, shaking his head when she offered milk and sugar, and grimacing when he took a sip of the foul black liquid she handed him. He didn’t know why he hadn’t simply dropped her off at the farm entrance.
His eyes strayed to her slender figure and her pert derrière, moulded by her jeans, and he felt a tightening sensation in his groin. He was used to dating sophisticated socialites who wouldn’t be seen dead in anything other than designer labels, but there was something wholesome and incredibly sexy about Rachel’s scrubbed face and simple clothes. He wondered if she was aware that the sunlight streaming in through the window made her shirt semi-transparent. He could clearly see the outline of her breasts, and liquid heat surged through his veins.
He took a gulp of the hot coffee and felt it scald the back of his throat. ‘Do you live here alone?’ he asked shortly.
Rachel glanced around the cramped living space, her brows lifting expressively. ‘There’s barely enough room for me, let alone anyone else,’ she murmured.
‘So, no boyfriend sharing your bunk?’
‘No! I told you, I’m training hard in the hope of being picked for the British Equestrian team. I don’t have time for boyfriends.’ Much less the desire for one, she thought, her mouth firming. But that did not mean she was completely oblivious to men, or at least this man. She could not tear her eyes from Diego. He looked faintly incongruous, standing in her tiny caravan in his formal black trousers and beautifully tailored shirt. He reminded her of one of those impossibly gorgeous male models from a glossy magazine—and he should be somewhere exotic like Monte Carlo or Rio, not a field in rural Gloucestershire. But he was here, with her, and he was looking at her in a way that was making her heart race and her face feel hot.
She should have suggested that they drink their coffee outside, she thought frantically. But her garden furniture consisted of two upended feed buckets, and she could not picture suave Diego Ortega sprawling on the grass. The atmosphere inside the caravan suddenly seemed to be charged with electricity and she was agonisingly aware of his hard, lean body standing inches from her. She held her breath when he closed the gap between them, and her eyes darted nervously from his chest up to his face and focused helplessly on his sensual mouth. Her heart seemed to stop beating when he slid his hand beneath her chin and lowered his face so close to hers that she could see the tiny lines that fanned out from the corners of his eyes.
‘What…what do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded, dismayed that her voice sounded so weak and breathless when she wanted to give the impression that she was in complete control of the situation.
‘I think I am going to kiss you,’ Diego drawled, patently amused by the question. ‘In fact, I know it, querida—just as I know that you want me to.’
Rachel’s heart was jerking painfully beneath her ribs. ‘I don’t,’ she said desperately, her cheeks flaming as she recalled how she had silently urged him to kiss her in the stables yesterday.
‘Liar,’ he said with gentle mockery which disguised the tension that gripped him. Her skin was almost translucent, her peaches-and-cream complexion as exquisite as a work of art, and her mouth, pink and moist and slightly parted, was a temptation he could no longer resist. The sexual awareness between them was white-hot—and mutual. Rachel might try to deny it, but her eyes were huge with excitement, the invitation in their depths unmistakable. He hesitated for a second, wanting to savour the anticipation, but as he brushed his lips over hers in that first explorative caress and felt her tentative response, hunger coursed through his veins and with a muffled groan he crushed her mouth beneath his and kissed her with unrestrained passion. It did not cross Rachel’s mind to resist him—and, even if her brain clung to some last vestige of sanity, her body had a will of its own and demanded her complete and utter surrender. Diego’s lips were warm and firm, sliding over hers with such erotic skill that she simply melted against him and opened her mouth, her heart thudding in her chest at the first bold thrust of his tongue.
Nothing in her life had prepared her for the storm of sensations that swept through her. She had never experienced true desire before; not this desperate need for something she did not even understand but which raged inside her as wild and dangerous as a bush fire.
Perhaps her subconscious mind had deliberately subdued her normal sexual urges? she wondered vaguely, finding it hard to think straight when Diego slid his arms around her and drew her against the hard wall of his chest.
But now those urges had been awakened, and she could not control them. The pressure of his mouth on hers was as addictive as a drug, and she wanted more. She placed her hands on his chest and felt the heat of his body through his silk shirt. What would it be like to feel his bare skin pressed against hers?
But, before she could give in to her heated fantasy, Diego suddenly dropped down so that he was sitting on the edge of her makeshift bed and pulled her onto his lap.
‘That’s better, hmm…?’ he murmured against her mouth, before he kissed her again, moving his lips on hers with undisguised passion which sent a shiver of need down her spine. She was trembling, every nerve-ending tingling, and when he brushed his hand lightly over her breast she shivered in anticipation of a more intimate caress.
‘Do you like that, querida?’ His voice was a husky growl, but Rachel was beyond giving an answer, the feelings he was arousing in her were new and wondrous and she was swept away to a place where nothing mattered except that Diego should continue to kiss her and touch her. She heard him mutter something in his own language, and was vaguely aware of his fingers gently stroking her waist before inching up towards her ribs once more. The bright sunlight streaming through the window made her squint, and through her half closed eyes he seemed dark and forbidding—a stranger who had kissed her until she could not think straight.
As he gently increased the pressure of his caresses, Rachel suddenly drew in a sharp breath. Aware that her rapid intake of air had nothing to do with arousal, Diego quickly removed his hands before he gently pushed her shirt over her shoulder, revealing the fragile line of her collarbone—and the mass of purple bruises that contrasted starkly with her pale skin.
‘Your injuries are worse even than I imagined,’ he said harshly, the sound of his voice shattering the last of the sexual haze that had held Rachel a willing prisoner in his arms. The fire in her veins cooled as quickly as if he had thrust her beneath an ice-cold shower, leaving her feeling slightly sick. What had she been thinking, allowing a man she barely knew to kiss her, and touch her…?
Diego was staring at her bony shoulder with a look of undisguised horror, and she felt embarrassed that he was clearly repelled by her body. With a jerky movement that jolted her ribs and caused her to wince in pain, she snatched the edges of her shirt together to hide the offending bruises from his gaze. ‘I’d like you to leave,’ she said tightly. ‘You’ve had your fun.’
‘My fun?’ Diego stiffened, his eyes narrowing on her flushed face.
Rachel was aware that she sounded abrupt to the point of rudeness, but she was dying of mortification as she recalled her wanton response to him. What must he think of her? She had made no attempt to stop him kissing her. The moment he had taken her in his arms, she had melted against him and kissed him back; and her soft moans of pleasure when he had caressed her must have sent out a message that she was his for the taking.
Since she was old enough to understand adult relationships, she had proudly announced that she would never act like her mother, lurching blindly between marriages and affairs with no thought to the consequences. She would never allow any man that kind of power over her, she’d stated confidently. Yet here she was, practically making love with a stranger just because he was the most gorgeous male she’d ever met.
‘I don’t know what you were expecting,’ she snapped, taking her anger with herself out on him, ‘but I am not the kind of woman who jumps into bed with a man five minutes after meeting him.’
‘You could have fooled me,’ Diego drawled, the warmth that had blazed in his amber eyes turning rapidly to an expression of icy arrogance. ‘I was not expecting anything,’ he snapped, furious with himself that he had come on to her like some callow youth. It was not his style. He always played it cool with women, and he had meant to stop after one brief kiss. Rachel’s passionate response had blown him away, but he wasn’t prepared to take all the blame. ‘Do you seriously expect me to believe that if I hadn’t stopped just then, you would have called a halt?’ He gave a disbelieving laugh that sparked Rachel’s temper. ‘Don’t kid yourself, Rachel. Your need was as great as mine—and still is,’ he said coolly as he trailed his hand insolently down the front of her shirt and noted how her nipples jutted to attention.
He watched her cheeks flood with colour, and with an impatient movement he stood up and strode over to the door of the caravan, snatching oxygen into his lungs as he stared over the lush green English countryside. He was only going to be here for a few weeks, and he had a job to do that promised to be interesting. Rachel played an important role at Hardwick. He had learned from talking to the other grooms that she was highly regarded for her dedication to the horses and the polo club, and he needed to establish a good working relationship with her. The attraction between them was seriously inconvenient—but if Rachel could fight it then so could he.
‘This was a mistake,’ she said huskily. For some reason the discernible tremor in her voice tugged at Diego’s insides. He turned his head and saw that she had buttoned her shirt right up to the neck. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to kiss me…and I admit I got carried away. I can’t believe I fell for the “can I come in for coffee?” line,’ she choked. Her eyes fell on the glorious yellow roses and she felt sick. ‘Is that what the flowers were for—to soften me up for a quick sex session?’
‘Of course not,’ he grated, outraged at the accusation. She was making it sound as though she was some virginal innocent and he was an utter bastard who had cynically planned to seduce her, but neither was true. ‘It was just a kiss,’ he said coldly. ‘I assure you I had no intention of asking you to jump into bed with me.’
It might have been ‘just a kiss’ to him, but for Rachel it had been the most devastatingly sensual experience of her life. Still, she would rather die than let him see how much he affected her, and she preferred to carry out a post-mortem of her behaviour away from his mocking gaze. ‘Please go,’ she said shakily. ‘I think it would be best if we both forgot this…this…’
‘Fascinating interlude?’ Diego suggested sarcastically.
‘Get out!’ The glittering amusement in his eyes was the last straw and she clenched her fists and dared him—dared him—to say another word.
‘I’m going.’ He sauntered down the caravan steps and glanced back at her, his tone no longer mocking but quietly serious as he murmured, ‘I agree we should try to forget the sexual chemistry that exists between us, Rachel. But I wonder if we can.’
CHAPTER THREE
THE heatwave, which had been unusual for early May, broke and on Monday morning Rachel walked up to the stables in the rain, dreading facing Diego again. Over the weekend she had come to the dismal conclusion that she had seriously overreacted. Of course he hadn’t kissed her as a prelude to persuading her to sleep with him. He was a gorgeous playboy and a sporting hero who was frequently photographed in the tabloids in the company of beautiful models. He was hardly likely to have felt uncontrollable lust for a scruffy stable-girl.
His scathing dismissal of their kiss emphasised how unimportant he regarded the whole episode, but she had acted like a shocked virgin from a Victorian melodrama. No doubt that was because she was a shocked virgin, she acknowledged gloomily. Diego had made her feel things she had never felt before, and now she felt restless and unfulfilled.
She did not see him until later in the afternoon, when she and a few of the other grooms had been out exercising some of the polo ponies and gave them one last gallop back to the stables. Diego was wearing a knee-length black oilskin coat and matching wide-brimmed hat that shielded his face, but his height and the width of his shoulders made him instantly recognisable, and Rachel’s heart lurched when she reined in her horse and they trotted into the yard.
‘Are you sufficiently recovered from your accident to be riding?’ he greeted her as he strode over and caught hold of her pony’s bridle.
‘I’m fine,’ she replied automatically, ignoring the nagging pain in her ribs. Her eyes were drawn to his mouth, and she blushed as she recalled the tingling pleasure of his kiss. She saw something flicker in his eyes and hastily looked away from him. ‘I’d better go and rub Charlie Boy down. He’s covered in mud.’
‘You both are,’ Diego said dryly. He did not understand how he could possibly be turned on by Rachel when she was wearing a bulky waxed jacket and mud-spattered jodhpurs. He usually liked women to look feminine and alluring—as if they’d spent their days in the beauty parlour and came to him beautifully groomed and coiffed and dressed in exquisite couture gowns. Rachel looked as though she had rolled in every muddy puddle she’d come across but, to his self-disgust, he imagined undressing her slowly, layer by layer, until he exposed her slender, pale body.
‘How are the bruises?’ he asked roughly.
‘Fading,’ she mumbled, remembering how he had unfastened her shirt and discovered the ugly purple marks on her shoulder, and how the desire in his eyes had rapidly disappeared. What would he make of her now that the bruises were turning an unattractive greenish yellow? She would never know, she told herself firmly. She was never going to allow him to touch her again, let alone undress her—and, from the cool expression in his eyes, he obviously regretted the whole episode as much as she did.
‘You could have taken another day off,’ he murmured. ‘I can see that your shoulder is still stiff.’
‘It’s fine—and I’m not used to sitting around doing nothing. I’m not the world’s most patient patient,’ she owned honestly.
Amusement glinted in his eyes at her understatement. ‘No, I don’t suppose you are. When you’ve seen to your horse I’ll give you a lift home. I have to go into the village and the farm is on my way.’
‘Oh, no, it’s okay—I’m not going home just yet.’
He frowned. ‘There’s nothing more to do here today.’
‘I want to take Piran over the jumps,’ Rachel admitted reluctantly.
