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Lizzie flashed a glance around.
‘I don’t know why you’re being so secretive. I saw you walking across the yard with him—everyone must have...’
‘Doesn’t this smell delicious?’ Lizzie remarked, refusing to rise to the bait. She and Danny were standing in front of the open grill where three chefs were preparing everything from vegetarian specials to man-sized steaks.
‘Your attempt to change the subject has fallen on deaf ears, Lizzie Fane,’ Danny assured her.
There were too many grooms around, as well as Chico’s fellow polo players, for Lizzie to be indiscreet, but Danny wasn’t going to let the subject drop. ‘So, what do you want to know?’ Lizzie asked.
‘You were a long time alone with Chico, and so I was wondering...’
‘He was telling me about the bandaging tutorial we have to attend at six tomorrow morning.’
As Danny groaned the polo player behind them, muddy and with his hair tousled from a game, exclaimed, ‘Wake up and move along, will you? Hungry people are waiting to be fed here.’
‘Calm down, man mountain,’ Danny flashed, rounding on him. ‘We’re hungry too.’
‘Then hurry up and choose your food, fresh meat—’
‘Watch it, nuts for brains, or it’ll be your meat on the grill,’ Danny fired back.
‘I love your ladylike way with words,’ Lizzie murmured as the good-looking guy stared down at Danny with amusement.
‘Are you all like this back home?’ he demanded, directing the question at Danny.
‘Believe it,’ Danny snapped, exchanging an appreciative look with Lizzie.
‘Tiago,’ Lizzie confirmed in a discreet murmur. ‘One of the top players. You must have seen him on the cover of Polo Times? Bad. Very bad.’
‘Excellent,’ Danny mouthed.
‘That’s your Christmas present sorted.’
‘Promise?’
‘It’s a deal,’ Lizzie confirmed.
Danny was about to say something smart back, but her words choked off abruptly when she saw the expression on Lizzie’s face. Nothing more needed to be said. Chico Fernandez had just walked into the cookhouse.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_680e9acd-6831-5415-bf06-0b6eaf8c0d48)
LIZZIE DIDN’T NEED to look at Chico to know he was there when she could feel him in every fibre of her being. Determined not be distracted by the sudden overload of testosterone, she calmly gave her order to the chef. ‘Tomatoes, eggplant, fries, and—’
‘And the biggest steak you’ve got,’ a husky male voice interrupted.
Having casually jumped the queue, Chico was handed a plate already loaded with every delicacy his uniformed chefs could provide. ‘I don’t want my new recruits fainting on the job,’ he explained. ‘Here—take this.’ He pressed his own plate of food into Lizzie’s hands. ‘Well?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘Don’t stand there staring at it. Eat before it gets cold.’
‘I’m a vegetarian.’
‘Vegan?’
‘No.’
‘Slap a hunk of cheese onto her plate,’ he ordered the chefs, swapping plates.
Lizzie passed the plate forward to the waiting chef. ‘Cheese omelette, please.’
Damn, if she didn’t sound like the prissiest food freak on the planet, but no way was she being told what she could eat. Chico Fernandez might rule what she did as a student, but her downtime was her own. Tilting her chin at a determined angle, she joined Danny at a table by the window where they could chat undisturbed—only to discover that Danny, like everyone else in the cookhouse, had been watching Lizzie’s exchange with Chico with interest. Didn’t anyone ever take him on? Lizzie wondered.
‘Do you have to provoke him?’ Danny demanded.
‘Why not? It’s fun. I had to stand up to him. Dinosaur—trying to make me eat his plate of flesh.’ She flashed a glance at Chico’s table, knowing it was more than Chico’s dietary concerns for her. These brief encounters with him were bringing it all back to her—the times they’d shared, the jokes they’d told, the gossip they’d exchanged, and the wild rides they’d enjoyed through the magical glens of Scotland. And weighted against that—very heavily weighted against that—was the pain he’d caused her, and that was like a reopened wound as if Chico deserting her had only happened yesterday. She’d gone downstairs on the morning he left to find all the other grooms in the stable yard at Rottingdean, but no sign of Chico. She could still feel the sickening blow of incredulity when they told her he’d gone back to Brazil with Eduardo. She couldn’t believe them—and now? Looking back, she had to admit her feelings all those years ago had been the overreaction of a hormonal teenage girl.
‘Fun?’ Danny queried, breaking into her thoughts. ‘If that’s what you look like when you’re having fun, I’d hate to see you when you’re angry.’
‘Sorry.’ Shaking her head as if that could disperse the memories, she set about distracting Danny. ‘You weren’t exactly all sweetness and light with Tiago, I seem to recall.’
‘And where’s the similarity in that?’ Danny asked, pausing with her fork halfway to her mouth. ‘One polo player owns this facility and can throw us both out on a whim, while the other is a guest player. Chico is a whole different deal. You know that as well as I do, Lizzie, and you shouldn’t take him on. Just behave,’ Danny coaxed as Lizzie pretended nothing was wrong as she tucked into her omelette.
‘I promise,’ Lizzie agreed.
‘For how long?’ Danny groaned as she followed Lizzie’s gaze.
‘Hateful man,’ Lizzie muttered as Chico raised his glass to her.
‘I can see how much you hate him,’ Danny remarked as Lizzie’s cheeks flamed red.
* * *
Bandaging. Something Lizzie had believed she could do really well, but maybe not at six o’ clock in the morning. The class had gathered round Chico to pay attention as he worked, while all she could register was that his touch was so deft, that watching those long, lean fingers was a thought-stealing distraction—
‘Lizzie?’ Chico glanced up. ‘Would you care to demonstrate my technique to the class, please?’
This would be all right if she could concentrate, and if her cheeks didn’t burn red from Chico being so close to her. She actually gasped when their stares met and held. ‘Sorry—I’m being fumble-fingered this morning.’
‘No problem,’ Chico growled. ‘We can wait.’
And she did make a good job of it. ‘Same time tomorrow, everyone,’ Chico said when she’d finished.
Straightening up, she turned to leave with the other grooms, but Chico stopped her with his hand on her arm. Relax, she told herself firmly as heat zigzagged through her.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he began.
She sincerely hoped not. Her thoughts were the wrong side of X-rated.
‘You think I’m being hard on you, for no good reason, but either you want to succeed or you don’t.’
‘I want to be the best,’ she said frankly.
‘Good.’ Chico’s level stare held her gaze, and she got the uncomfortable feeling that somehow he could read her thoughts. ‘I know you from way back, Lizzie, and if you build on the talent you showed then, you could be the best.’
‘Thank you.’
She left the stall thoughtfully, half hoping he would call her back. It would have been good to talk as they had used to, but that was another one of her daydreams, and Chico had no trouble separating their personal and professional lives. If only she could do the same. The air had been electric between them with so much left unsaid. Perhaps it was better that way, though she had a suspicion that at some point they would have to clear the air between them, and that it might be explosive when it happened, with years of bottled-up emotions on both sides pouring out.
* * *
He leaned back against the dividing wall of the stall, thinking about Lizzie, and wondering why fate had seen fit to reunite them. Lizzie’s wildflower scent was in his head, but what did she feel about him? Guilt? Regret? She wasn’t easy to read. What did she remember about all those years ago? Why hadn’t she responded to his letters? He could accept that her parents would tell her lies about him, but Lizzie knew him—or she had used to.
No child would willingly believe a stranger above her own parents, he reasoned, but Lizzie was a woman now, and surely she had worked out what type of people they were?
Yes, life should be simple, and fate should stay out of it, but, whatever happened while Lizzie was on his course, the next few months should prove instructive—for both of them.
* * *
Chico Fernandez, Lizzie fumed as she crossed the yard on her way to the cookhouse for breakfast. How was she ever going to get that man out of her head? She couldn’t think of anything else. She hadn’t slept a wink last night, because her head was full of him—full of sex. She had come here with one goal in mind, and now she had another, more pressing preoccupation—sex. Danny hadn’t helped, saying there was nothing wrong with being a healthy female with healthy female urges.
If only it were that simple! If only she could get through the day without being in what could only be described as a heightened state of sexual arousal, which precluded having a sensible thought in her head. So, what did this mean? Was she going to be incapable of functioning until she’d had sex with Chico Fernandez? Couldn’t she be stronger than that?
And, if she did have sex with him, what then?
Her heart would be broken. Her nights would be even more troubled, and she would probably be thrown off the course.
Great. Were Chico’s nights troubled? Somehow, she doubted it.
‘There’s a letter for you, Lizzie,’ Danny said as soon as Lizzie had settled into her chair at what had become their regular table by the window.
It was a letter from home. All thoughts of Chico temporarily suspended, her heart raced as she opened the envelope. She hated having to leave her grandmother to face their many creditors alone, and dreaded what the letter contained.
‘So?’ Danny prompted.
‘So...?’ Lizzie repeated distractedly as she scanned the letter quickly.
‘So yet again, you were hanging out with the man of the moment for a long time, so I just wondered—’
‘Well, stop wondering, because nothing happened.’ Lizzie looked up and then read through the letter again, slowly this time.
‘Not bad news, I hope?’ Danny prompted.
Lizzie shook her head. ‘I’ll get us both some coffee, shall I?’
Danny stared after her with concern as she got up from her chair and walked out of the cookhouse. She needed a moment to think—time alone to gather her thoughts. Her grandmother had become gradually weaker; the doctor thought it advisable for her to spend a little time in hospital. The house would be locked up, and everything would be safe, so there was nothing for Lizzie to worry about—which made Lizzie wonder if there was anything she could have read to worry her more. Whatever happened, nothing must be allowed to get in the way of the course, her grandmother had written in her shaking script. Lizzie had to save the family firm. ‘There’s no one else, Lizzie. There’s only you left now.’
‘Can you move away from the door, please? You’re holding up some hungry men.’
She looked up with a start, straight into Chico’s cool, assessing stare.
‘I’m sorry—’ She lurched out of his way, only to have him steady her and steer her back inside the cookhouse.
She made her way distractedly back to the table.
‘Where’s the coffee? Never mind,’ Danny said, seeing Lizzie’s face. ‘I’ll get us some.’
Lizzie sank into the chair, feeling extremely vulnerable and a long way from home. Her grandmother had always been the lynchpin of her life, and she loved her without qualification. The letter was preparing her for a truth that Lizzie would never be ready to face. How could she stay on here now, as her grandmother had asked her to? How could she concentrate knowing her grandmother was so ill? Why had she ever imagined she could stick it out here while all this was going on at home?
‘What’s the matter?’ Danny said as soon as she came back to the table. ‘Did Chico say something to upset you?’
Lizzie shook her head.
‘So it’s the letter from home that’s upsetting you,’ Danny guessed.
‘Yes—I’m sorry, Danny—’
‘But your breakfast—’
‘I just need a minute—’
Chico stood back as she barged out of the cookhouse. Running blindly across the yard, she didn’t stop until she reached Flame’s stall where she hunkered down in a corner to bury her head in her knees to think. She should go home. That was where she was needed most. But she had to stay to earn that diploma to hang in the office of the business she was going to rebuild. Without that accreditation, she was no use to anyone. What to do? What to do—?
‘Lizzie?’
‘Chico!’ She sprang up, pressing herself against the wall between the stalls as he slipped the latch and walked in.
‘If this course is too much for you—’
‘It isn’t,’ she said, recovering fast.
‘Then, what is the matter with you?’ He glanced at the letter in her hand. ‘Not bad news from home, I hope? Your grandmother?’ he prompted with concern.
Not for the first time, he had disarmed her with his human side. It was easier to deal with the hard, unforgiving man than this. The fact that Chico still cared about her grandmother brought tears to her eyes, and she hated herself for the weakness, but, like it or not, Chico was a link between here and home. He knew her grandmother. He remembered what a special lady she was.
She mustn’t show weakness. She had to be strong. She owed it to her grandmother to leave Chico Fernandez in no doubt that, whatever happened, she wasn’t going anywhere until she finished his course.
‘If you need to go home—’
‘I don’t,’ she said firmly. Decision made, she stuffed the letter into her pocket. ‘You may not think I’ve made the best of starts, but I can and will improve—’
‘Lizzie.’ The faintest of smiles tugged at one corner of his mouth. ‘You’re doing really well, but we have a waiting list if you do want to drop out?’
‘I don’t want to drop out. And I’m only too well aware of how many candidates would love to take my place.’
Chico held up his hands to calm her. ‘Then, may I suggest you relax and make the most of your time here?’
How close they’d been, she thought as a wave of wistfulness swept over her, and how far apart they were now. How fierce was her urge to hug him tightly and share her fears about her grandmother with someone who would understand, but there was a barrier between them that prevented her doing so. Perhaps the past would always stand between them.
* * *
Lizzie looked so vulnerable that he was tempted to soften, but then he remembered that the line of strong characters in the Fane family had skipped a generation. Had they skipped another with Lizzie?
