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Now she tucked herself onto a mossy stone seat and leaned back, inhaling the evening scents. Content at last, she felt her tense shoulders relax. Immediately both borrowed shoulder straps fell down her arms.
‘Blast, bother and blow,’ said Abby peacefully and left them there. There was, thank God, no one to see.
She tipped her head back, dreaming…
Emilio did not like champagne. It was the first thing he discovered after he won his first big tournament. The second thing was that it was impossible to sign all the autographs they wanted and hold a glass at the same time. The third was that, like it or not, able to write or not, you took a glass and you pretended to drink because that was what made the sponsors feel comfortable. And if they felt comfortable with you, they forgot you weren’t one of them.
Not that he wanted to be one of them. But he wanted to do business with them. And this year was crucial if his ten year game plan was to work. In fact, this evening was probably crucial.
So why was he so restless that he could hardly bear to listen to Felipe Montijo’s important guests? Why did he want to vault over the balustrade and follow the crane fly girl in her escape? Opportunity did not knock twice. He had to seize it with both hands. Concentrate, he told himself.
He sipped the nasty stuff in his glass and bent his powerful attention on what his companion was saying about international wheat prices. The man was too polished to ask him for his autograph but Emilio recognised the look in his eyes, the curiosity about a celebrity. Well, he was a celebrity, for the moment. He had better be grateful and damn well make it work for him. He knew, none better, that it wouldn’t last.
So he circulated, doing oil, bank software, and the prospects for the Argentine wine industry in the process. He gave out business cards and got rather more back. He stored the information for sifting tomorrow, giving thanks for his clear head and computer-accurate memory.
Then his hostess summoned them all to sit at tables set out around the lawn. Tall flambeaux had been driven into the ground and, now that the sun was gone, they were lit. A band set up its music in front of the tennis court. There was laughter from the paddock where the barbecue meats were being cooked. Some of the younger crowd appeared on the lawn and began to dance. Not the crane fly girl, though, Emilio saw.
He wondered where she was. Not chasing one of these callous young studs, he thought, conveniently forgetting that he was only a year older than Bruno Montijo. Emilio had been head of the household since long before his international tennis career started. He had never had anyone to mop up his mistakes for him, like golden Bruno.
Now he thought: someone should make sure that the little crane fly was not deceived by Bruno or one of his cronies. These romantic summer nights, it was all too easy.
He glanced round the tables casually. Bruno was not among the dancers, he saw. Nor was Miguel Santana, another high-octane, low-conscience charmer that Isabel had been out on the town with. Or several others.
Emilio hesitated. But no one was paying any attention to him for the moment. And he had more than done his duty by his ten year plan. He stopped hesitating and escaped.
He found the creek easily enough. There was a pretty circle of trees by a small dock. He could imagine people diving off it. But this evening it was deserted. The younger Montijos were either still eating or had started to dance.
Where was she?
He could not have said why he was searching for her. He told himself that it was because she looked uncertain, another stranger in the Montijos’ magnificent midst. Being a stranger had its dangers. Maybe she didn’t know the creek. Maybe she could have fallen in and needed rescuing.
But it was not that and he knew it. Maybe it was that she looked as out of place as he was. Only in his case it did not show on the outside.
Or maybe it was because Isabel had been an uncertain stranger and nobody had rescued her.
Abby was utterly peaceful for the first time in days. She could hear the soft lap-lap of the creek, beyond the hedge of honey-tinged albas. The darkening sky was splashed with lemon and apricot at the horizon but the impatient stars were out already. In this wonderful clear air, they seemed so close, you could stretch up and touch them if you could bother to bestir yourself. And all around her was the scent of the roses.
They were not roses she knew. There was a peppery pink and a deep, deep crimson that smelled like hot wine. As for the palomino coloured climbing rose that surged around her stone seat—she reached up and buried her nose in it. What did it smell of? Abby shut her eyes. Concentrating.
Emilio found the grotto by accident. At first he thought it was just a gardener’s corner, hedged around to hide tools and a compost heap. But a perverse desire to see the decaying cabbage leaves of elegant Hacienda Montijo pushed him through the break in the hedge.
To find what he had not admitted he was looking for! He stopped dead.
She did not notice him at first, his crane fly girl. She had her nose buried in a big tatty rose. Its petals were the colour of French toast and its leaves were almost black. As he looked she raised her head and, eyes closed, inhaled luxuriously. Her oversophisticated dress was nearly falling off. But she was oblivious to everything but her rose.
‘Paper,’ she said aloud. ‘No—parchment. And something else. Cloves?’
She opened her eyes and bent to take another connoisseur’s sniff. She never got there. She saw him. Her eyes widened in dismay.
Well, at least she wasn’t going to ask him for his autograph, thought Emilio, trying to be amused. But he was not. That look piqued him. His time had not yet passed. People were still eager to welcome this celebrity. He did not like being toadied to, of course he didn’t, but he wasn’t used to people glaring at him as if he was an evil destroyer from another planet, either.
He nearly said so. But at the last moment he changed tack and decided to use the legendary charm instead. If it worked on journalists and crowned heads, who saw a lot of world-class charm, it ought to work on this odd creature in her ill-fitting dress.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ he said with the crooked, rueful smile that the photographers loved.
It did not appear to work. Emilio was taken aback.
The girl frowned mightily. It looked fierce. But of course she must be having to translate in her head, he thought, suddenly understanding the significance of the words he had overheard. Now was she American? Canadian? Australian? English?
He said forgivingly, ‘I’ll go,’ and waited for her to tell him to stay.
She stood up and said with great care, ‘I thought I am—sorry, I thought I was alone.’
All right, she wasn’t going to tell him to stay. But she probably did not have the vocabulary for it. He recognised the wooden accent.
‘English?’ said Emilio in that language, strolling in to the centre of the bower.
She looked annoyed. ‘Yes. But I try to speak Spanish. I did a course before I came out here specially. Only no one will let me.’
He selected another rose from the torrent and lifted it on one long finger.
‘That’s probably because your ideas are too interesting to get lost in first-grade vocabulary.’ He tried another smile. ‘What was it you said this thing smelled of? Parchment?’
She nodded seriously.
‘And what does parchment smell like?’
To his amusement she closed her eyes to answer him with total attention. ‘Linen. Dust. Afternoon sunshine through tall windows onto a stone floor. Maybe a touch of beeswax.’
He blinked, startled.
She opened her eyes and saw it. It was her turn to be amused.
‘I know my smells. And I know my roses.’
‘So I see.’ He let the rose fall back among its brothers and looked at her curiously. ‘Isn’t that an odd hobby for someone your age? How old are you, as a matter of interest?’
Abby sighed. ‘Sixteen. And age has nothing to do with it. It’s not a hobby, it’s necessity.’
He sank onto the grass at her feet and looped his arms round his knees.
‘Explain,’ he commanded.
Abby looked down at him, taken aback. No man had ever sat at her feet before. Oh, her brothers sprawled all over the place. But they never actually sat and studied her, dark eyes intent, as if they had nothing in the world that interested them except her and what she had to say.
In spite of the evening breeze that stirred the roses, she suddenly felt uncomfortably hot.
He laughed softly. Abby pulled herself together.
‘Our garden,’ she said practically, ignoring the heat she could feel behind her ears. ‘It’s planted with all the old roses. But there’s no one but me to look after it. I learned which was which because people wrote letters about them and someone had to answer.’
His eyes were very dark brown, like the mahogany table in the big dining room at home, only when it was buffed so that it shone like glass. That had only happened a couple of times in Abby’s memory but she remembered it vividly. It turned the table halfway to a mirror, so that everything looked different. It was the same effect of this man’s strange eyes. Even in the twilight she could see the way they glittered. It was not comfortable.
The long, curling eyelashes did nothing to soften their expression, either. He looked as if he knew exactly what effect that melting expression had. As their eyes met, his mouth lifted in a half smile.
That made it worse. Abby raised her chin.
‘So tell me—’ His voice was like a lion’s purr, deep and languorous. Deceptively languorous. This was not, thought Abby, a creature you would want to lull you to sleep. ‘If I wrote to you about your roses, what would you tell me?’
Abby met his eyes and found they were like a caress. The warmth was palpable. Instinctively she turned towards it, like a flower to the sun. She could almost feel her skin being stroked.
She brought herself up short. Caress? Stroked? What was it her father had said? She thought that people always meant what they said and she had to learn that they didn’t?
Learn, she told herself feverishly. Learn. Whatever it feels like, it’s not real. No glamorous man wastes caressing glances on a scrubby teenager unless he has some ulterior and probably unkind motive.
No, she definitely didn’t want him lulling her into anything. She took refuge in briskness.
‘That we don’t sell plants. You can have a leaflet about the old roses. You can go on the waiting list to come to one of the summer open days. That’s it.’
‘Where does the leaflet come from?’
Abby grinned. The grin lit up her face, making her briefly beautiful. She did not know that, of course. ‘Me mainly.’
He stared at her for an unnerving moment. But in the end all he said was, ‘What’s it about?’
Abby laughed aloud. ‘Rose of Castile, introduced by the Crusaders in the twelfth century, red, pink or white with occasional stripes. Very strong fragrance. I think it smells like Turkish Delight but some people think that’s unkind. The White Rose of York, of course. White with golden stamens. Another strong pong, less headachy than the Rose of Castile. Sweetbriar. Pink. True rose scent. The leaves smell like apples.’ She ran out of breath and sent him a naughty challenging look. ‘Shall I go on?’
‘You’re clearly an expert.’ He sounded slightly put out.
Well, at least he had stopped looking languorous. Though that was a two-edged sword, because he stood up and she saw how the muscles bunched and relaxed in the graceful movement. Abby could not remember ever noticing the way a man’s muscles rippled before and she lived in a house in which it was virtually impossible to avoid them. She flushed again, hating her transparent skin.
He said abruptly, ‘Who did you come with? I didn’t see you earlier, did I?’
‘I’m staying here. This afternoon I was with Señora Montijo watching the tennis…’ She made a discovery. ‘You’re that tennis player,’ she said, without thinking. ‘The one who beat Bruno.’
Briefly his eyes flashed. ‘Oh, you’re a friend of Bruno’s, are you?’
‘No. I’ve only seen him from a distance. In fact his grandmother was annoyed with me for not recognizing him when you were playing him, I think. The house is full of photographs of him and I should have known which was which. Especially as—’ Realisation hit her. ‘You’re Emilio Diz. You’re famous.’
How right she had been to resist that caressing look. Not just a glamorous man but the guest of honour! An international tennis star who according to Felipe Montijo had been dating movie stars for years! And she had nearly let him lull her into—well, into—she was not quite sure what. She knew she was blushing furiously.
Emilio saw the fierce colour rise and said goodbye to any more untainted conversation.
So this was where the little crane fly asked for his autograph, after all. He sighed inwardly. Well, as long as it was only his autograph. Too many teenage groupies wanted a kiss. Or more. The incident in Paris had left a scar. He braced himself to be kind but firm.
He misjudged her.
‘You shouldn’t be here talking to me,’ said Abby, so agitated that she leaped to her feet, to the imminent danger of decency, as the straps of her dress fell further. ‘You should be mingling. They wanted you to meet—I mean, you’re important.’
Emilio laughed aloud. ‘Not that important.’
He reached out and twitched her straps back into place, one after the other. It was a passionless gesture, almost absent. He might have been tidying a younger sister. But Abby was suddenly breathless.
His hand fell. His eyes grew intent.
She said hurriedly, at random, before he said anything she couldn’t deal with, ‘I know that Señor Montijo wants you to meet some people.’
He took a step forward. ‘Met them.’ He did not sound as if he could be bothered to think about it further.
‘But you’re the guest of honour, aren’t you?’
He flung back his head and gave a great laugh at that. It revealed a long tanned throat. He was as strong and beautiful as the horses in the Montijo stables. And about as tame, thought Abby, shivering with a nervousness she only half understood.
‘Guest of honour?’ said Emilio Diz scornfully. ‘Is that what you think I am?’
‘Th-that’s what they said,’ said Abby faintly. She did not want to remember what else Rosanna and her friend had said about him, in case she started blushing again.
‘Then let me put you straight. As far as the Montijos and their kind are concerned, I’m a commodity.’
She didn’t understand.
His eyes glittered. ‘I’m a guy from the wrong side of town and I always will be. I have no advantages except an ability to hit a ball over a net at a hundred miles an hour plus. That gets my photograph in the papers. That’s what they like. When the papers find someone else, the Montijos won’t even remember my name.’
It was what the Montijo matriarch had said, too, so it must be right.
‘Oh.’
Abby knew she ought to feel sympathy for him. Maybe even indignation. But she was shaken by these new little tremors and she could not think about anything except that golden skin under his crisp white shirt. About how his muscles moved like some great cat’s, lithe and powerful and potentially deadly. About how easy it would be to slip her hands inside—
Fortunately he was not a mind reader.
‘I shall do business with Felipe Montijo. Maybe even with some of the other men here tonight. Eventually. I’m on my way up and they can be useful. I have a family to educate.’
A family? A family? This golden puma of a man was married?
Quite suddenly Abby’s trembling stopped as if she had been unplugged from a power source.
‘But I am not a performing monkey,’ said Emilio Diz, not noticing. ‘I’ll talk to who I want.’
‘Well, don’t waste your time with me.’ It came out much more rudely than she meant. She didn’t mean to be rude at all. But quite suddenly she was desperate to get away from this scented nightmare. ‘I haven’t had anything to eat. I ought to go to the barbecue.’
His eyes narrowed.
‘You circulate,’ said Abby. She was fighting a desire to cry, which was ludicrous. She hadn’t cried once in all this horrible week. ‘I’ll get some dinner.’
But he wasn’t letting her go so easily.
‘We’ll both get some.’
