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Christmas Nights with the Polo Player
Susan Stephens
Sizzling mistletoe kisses…Lucy Lavender knows she should resist wickedly sexy boss, and Brazilian polo champion, Gabe Ortoya. Playboy Gabe is vet Lucy's ticket to a career in equine medicine and she's going to make full use of her valuable new contact, which means no mixing business with pleasure…as tempting as that pleasure is! But spending Christmas with Gabe—and the whole Acosta family!—opens Lucy's eyes to a whole new side of this notorious heartbreaker. After a devastating Christmas kiss under the mistletoe, Lucy finds it increasingly hard not to surrender to the temptation that is Gabe Ortoya… Especially when sinfully delicious Gabe seems to have made it his Christmas mission to get Lucy into his bed!
Sizzling mistletoe kisses…
Spending Christmas with Brazilian polo champion Gabe Ortoya—and his whole family—opens Lucy Lavender’s eyes to a whole new side of this notorious heartbreaker. Gabe is Lucy’s in to her dream career in equine medicine, but she vows to resist her wickedly sexy boss. After a devastating kiss under the mistletoe, Lucy finds it increasingly hard not to surrender to temptation…especially when sinfully delicious Gabe seems to have put it on his holiday wish list to get her into his bed!
The Acostas!
Fiery passion, intense love and rampaging barbarians with hearts of gold!
Christmas Nights with the Polo Player
Susan Stephens
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For my wonderful readers who have shown such enthusiasm for my wild polo men. This is for you. Happy Holidays!
Dear Reader,
When my daughter chose to hold her prewedding celebrations watching polo at Smith’s Lawn, Windsor, I had no idea until the teams galloped onto the field that I was about to be bewitched by men with arms like steel girders and thighs powerful enough to control the most willful horse. Nor could I have imagined that six passionate books later I would still be receiving letters from readers asking what my polo players were up to now that they had all found love.… And were there any more polo guys in the pipeline?
The answer is, of course, yes! I could never tire of writing about dark-eyed, dangerous men, so please allow me to introduce Gabe Ortoya, captain of the Brazilian polo team. Gabe made a guest appearance in The Shameless Life of Ruiz Acosta, and even as I wrote that particular scene set in Gabe’s glamorous London nightclub, I was thinking to myself, This man needs a story.
In my September newsletter I promised I would revisit the Acosta family so we could all find out how they were getting on, and this gave me the chance I had been longing for to write about Gabe. I hope you love him as much I do. Gabe was so much fun to write. And Lucy, his veterinary student heroine, is a girl after my own heart—no pushover, and full of surprises—so I hope you love Lucy, too.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me at susan@susanstephens.com (http://susan@susanstephens.com), www.facebook.com/SusanStephensAuthor (http://www.facebook.com/SusanStephensAuthor), www.twitter.com/Susan_Stephens (http://www.twitter.com/Susan_Stephens), or sign up for my newsletter at www.susanstephens.com (http://www.susanstephens.com).
And now it only remains for me to wish you the happiest of holidays. In fact, I wish you the happiest of days all year round.
With my warmest wishes to you, my friends and readers,
Susan
Susan Stephens was a professional singer before meeting her husband on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta. In true Mills & Boon Modern style they met on Monday, became engaged on Friday and were married three months after that. Almost thirty years and three children later, they are still in love. (Susan does not advise her children to return home one day with a similar story, as she may not take the news with the same fortitude as her own mother!)
Susan had written several nonfiction books when fate took a hand. At a charity costume ball there was an after-dinner auction. One of the lots, “Spend a Day with an Author,” had been donated by Mills & Boon author Penny Jordan. Susan’s husband bought this lot, and Penny was to become not just a great friend but a wonderful mentor, who encouraged Susan to write romance.
Susan loves her family, her pets, her friends and her writing. She enjoys entertaining, travel and going to the theater. She reads, cooks and plays the piano to relax, and can occasionally be found throwing herself off mountains on a pair of skis or galloping through the countryside. Visit Susan’s website, www.susanstephens.net (http://www.susanstephens.net). She loves to hear from her readers all around the world!
Recent titles by the same author:
DIAMOND IN THE DESERT*
TAMING THE LAST ACOSTA**
THE MAN FROM HER WAYWARD PAST**
A TASTE OF THE UNTAMED**
*linked to the Skavanga family. Visit their website at www.susanstephens.com/skavanga/index.html (http://www.susanstephens.com/skavanga/index.html)
**linked to the Acosta family.Visit their website at www.susanstephens.com/acostas/index.html (http://www.susanstephens.com/acostas/index.html)
Did you know these are also available as ebooks?
Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Contents
Chapter One (#u77ceef73-bed1-555f-a796-86cce84d149f)
Chapter Two (#u0e536c84-df75-50b9-8386-1eedd04005ac)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Christmas is an amazing time in London, Lucy reflected as she stared around the sleeping nightclub where she had been lucky enough to secure a short-term job as a waitress for the holidays. A warm glow of anticipation lifted everyone’s spirits, and there was the festive food, the sparkling decorations and all the big stores competing to have the most fabulous Christmas scenes in their windows. The holiday season also gave impoverished students like Lucy the chance to take advantage of all the extra work on offer, but most important of all, friendships were rekindled. And Lucy had her friend Holly to thank for this job.
Crazy Holly. Wonderful Holly. Lucy’s long-time friend since school had insisted that this was the chance they had been waiting for to get together in London. They saw each other so rarely these days, what with Lucy’s studies and Holly accompanying her husband Ruiz Acosta—one of Argentina’s infamous polo playing brothers—on the polo tour. Which was another reason Lucy was working long after her colleagues had gone out on the town. How was she supposed to sleep, knowing she had accepted Holly’s invitation to the Acostas’ Christmas Day party tomorrow?
Not that she was shy. Much. Put her with customers and she was fine. Put her with colleagues and she was fine. But put her in a room full of fast-living, jet-setting sophisticated types and she was…not fine.
Lucy lived in the country where she attended veterinary college, and London had hit her hard in the face. Admittedly, this was the busiest time of the year with crowded streets, traffic at a standstill, breath rising in icy streams from battalions of determined, red-cheeked shoppers swathed in scarves…by comparison the nightclub was a haven of calm.
And it looked beautiful. It was the hottest nightclub in town and was tastefully decorated with slim silver Christmas trees and white fairy lights. Everything was just about perfect, apart from the mistletoe hung at strategic places—like right over her head, Lucy noticed, moving away.
She avoided mistletoe like the plague. It reminded her too much of the snooty golf club where her parents had decided she would snare a wealthy husband from the unappealing specimens on offer. The golf club always had mistletoe bristling from every corner at Christmas parties so that even the most committed singleton was bound to be caught out at some point, and Lucy neither wanted nor needed a husband, let alone the palaver that went with being a golf-club wife.
She got along fine by herself, and had almost managed to convince herself that her choice of veterinary science with a specialism in roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-down-in-the-muck equine medicine was a rebellion against the cake-making classes her mother had insisted she take in preparation for becoming the ‘perfect wife’. The irony of Lucy wanting to work with horses, specifically in the polo world, renowned for being the mothership of snobbery, hadn’t escaped her. But at least she could bake a cake and eat it while she laughed.
Her thoughts were meandering, Lucy realised, which meant it was time to go home. She should try to get some rest before the Acosta Christmas party tomorrow, but the excitement would probably keep her awake all night anyway, and she did love these rare moments of quiet and solitude—
Solitude my foot! she thought. She should at least be honest with herself. She was waiting…for him. There was always a chance the unbelievably sexy owner of the nightclub and number one Brazilian polo player, Gabe Ortoya, might drop by to check everything was locked up securely for the night.
Gabe captained the Brazilian polo team and was the hottest man alive. When he wasn’t playing polo, he either lived on his fabulous ranch in Brazil, where he trained polo ponies, or in London, where he had a penthouse overlooking the Thames.
When Holly had heard Gabe was looking for holiday staff she had contacted Lucy. Lucy was always on the lookout for holiday work to supplement her non-existent income, and the chance to work close to one of the most famous polo players in the world had proved irresistible, so here she was.
The job in London was a big adventure for a small-town girl, and at first Lucy had wondered how she’d fit in with her country manners and dull clothes, but her colleagues at the nightclub had made sure that she never felt out of place, and Holly never let a day pass without a morale-boosting call.
And then there was Gabe Ortoya.
Ah, yes. Gabe Ortoya…
The man of her dreams and more importantly, Lucy’s erotic fantasies. She didn’t know what had attracted Gabe Ortoya’s attentions, but she certainly made that bad boy smile.
Whether that was good or not, Lucy had yet to work out, but it wasn’t hard to guess why Gabe intrigued her. She had never met anyone like him before—a man so ridiculously good-looking he made her eyes hurt. Gabe’s fellow polo players often swung by the club, but Gabe Ortoya was a darker shade of bad. She had started off by trying to avoid him, so she didn’t fall under his spell, but how could she avoid her boss when he signed off her paycheque every week?
Gabe’s eyes were wicked, and his smile was so engaging, nothing about him could be called safe. It hadn’t taken Lucy long to work out that it was a lost cause trying to ignore her boss. Her underused body had applauded this decision and responded with indecent eagerness to Gabe each time they met. They had been dancing round each other for a few weeks now. The Ortoya two-step, as Lucy had come to think of it. Gabe took one step forward, while she took two steps back. She had more sense than to have an affair with a man who was only toying with her as a cat toyed with a mouse. If she did have an affair, it would be with a man a whole lot easier to handle than Gabe Ortoya. Huffing a rueful smile, she picked up her bag and prepared to lock up and leave.
What was that noise?
Stopping dead in the middle of the dance floor, Lucy listened intently, and then shrugged. Old buildings made noises at night. Water hissing through pipes, creaking floorboards, shadows—
‘Lucy Lavender?’
The harsh male voice shot Lucy to attention, and her pulse rate into orbit. There was no mistaking Gabe Ortoya’s commanding tone.
‘That’s me.’ The same Lucy Lavender who had never flinched from an angry bull in her life and who wasn’t about to start now, though judging by her boss’s face, Gabe’s evening had not worked out the way he’d planned.
‘I was in the area and saw the light on,’ he explained, bearing down on her. ‘I’m here to check what’s going on. I almost mistook you for an intruder, Lucy. You’re lucky I didn’t wrestle you to the ground.’
Lucky? She bit back a smile as she stared at Gabe towering over her, and only wished she’d brought a balaclava and a swag bag to work.
Gabe’s eyes were as dark as sin beneath ebony brows that swept up like a Tartar from the Russian Plain. His cheekbones could have been chiselled by Michelangelo, and his unapologetically sexy mouth gave this bad boy the look of a rampaging barbarian, so that even dressed in a formal tux with a crisp white shirt and a properly tied black tie, Gabe Ortoya looked more like one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse than a respectable nightclub owner and international sportsman. War on a red horse, potentially…
Gabe was fascinated by Lucy’s transformation from impeccably turned-out waitress to cuddly chick. He’d only seen her wearing the chic black work uniform, but right now she looked hot in a messy ensemble of woolly scarf, fuzzy jumper, heavy parka, worn jeans and a pair of knee-length boots that had definitely seen better days. ‘Why are you working so late, Lucy?’
‘I didn’t mind staying on to lock up when the others left.’
His brows shot up. ‘It’s Christmas Eve. Has everyone else gone out on the town and left you here on your own?’
‘I didn’t want to go out tonight.’
He thumbed his stubble, feeling the inclination to prolong the encounter. ‘London still too much for you?’
He felt bad when she blushed. ‘Relax, Lucy. You don’t have to go out if you don’t want to.’ He shrugged as he smiled. ‘And I’m sorry if I startled you when I came in.’
‘I’ll get over it.’
He felt more than a beat of interest when she smiled.
He’d liked this girl from the first moment she walked into the club. Lucy had no airs and graces. The customers loved her because she was open and helpful, friendly and funny. She was a real asset to the club.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked him softly. ‘It’s none of my business,’ she added with a shrug, her cheeks glowing a brighter shade of red.
He loved the way she pressed her lips together, as if to prevent any more words spilling out, but he didn’t explain himself to anyone.
‘I’d better get going,’ she said when he remained silent.
‘Not yet, Lucy.’
Her worried eyes flashed to his face. ‘Sorry. I should have asked. Can I get you a drink or something?’
‘You’re off-duty, so why don’t I get you a drink?’ he suggested. ‘You’ve been working all night.’ Moving behind the bar, he reached inside the fridge for a bottle of champagne.
‘Oh, no!’ she exclaimed when he brought it out.
He smiled to himself, trying to imagine any other woman refusing. ‘Won’t you share a Christmas toast with me, Lucy?’
Arranging the scarf around her neck, she shook her head. ‘I really should be getting home.’
Natural empathy was warring with her caution, he guessed. Unscrupulous to the last, he worked on her empathy. ‘Humour me. I’ve had a bad night.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry…’
‘Don’t be. I’ve had a lucky escape.’
‘If you need to talk about it…’
He laughed. He couldn’t lead her on. Lucy was fast proving herself to be unique. A woman who cared more about him than herself? ‘Are you a good listener, Lucy?’
‘Some people say I am.’
He removed the wire netting from the foil covering the cork, and started to ease it with his thumb. ‘I have – I had,’ he corrected himself with a wry look, ‘a rather grand girlfriend.’
‘Someone royal?’ she guessed.
‘I couldn’t possibly say,’ he admitted, but it amused him to think that Lucy had instantly put him in the type of high society he had no time for.
‘You’ve broken up with her?’ she pressed.
Was there more than interest in her voice? ‘I don’t do grand, Lucy.’
‘Me neither!’ she exclaimed, but this was swiftly followed by the lip-pressing routine. ‘Sorry—I didn’t mean to interrupt you.’
‘That’s okay. Come on—sit down.’ He angled his chin toward the nearest bar stool, and noticed Lucy’s gaze skimming the mistletoe overhead. The designers had really gone to town. ‘If you’re allergic to mistletoe we can sit over there.’ He indicated one of the booths, and then realised she’d hate that. Booths were far too intimate.
Gathering her jacket around her like a protective cloak, she confirmed this. ‘I’m fine standing.’
