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He took her back to the party, skirting the band and the dancers on the lawn. She could feel people watching them. Some with interest. Some with envy. Some—heaven help her—with amusement. She stumbled on the grass and he put an arm round her.
‘Sit here. I’ll get you a plate.’
Biting her lip, she perched on the fallen tree stump he indicated.
A waiter—these people had a waiter at a barbecue?—gave her a glass of something. Abby took it but didn’t drink. She was shivering. She did not want to drink. She wanted to run.
But Emilio Diz was coming back with plates and forks, followed by a couple of men bearing the most enormous tray of meat Abby had ever seen in her life.
And quite suddenly she was the envy of every woman in the place. She could feel the air change around her. He gave her that caressing smile again, the one that started in his eyes and slid straight down her spine. And everyone looked. That slid down her spine, too.
So Abby had to smile and say thank-you and pray her dress would stay up.
She drank.
‘Choose what you want,’ he said, handing her the plate and beckoning the man bearing the tray to her side. ‘I know the English like their meat rare.’
He picked up an instrument that looked like a toy devil’s pitchfork and turned a couple of substantial steaks over. He speared a particularly red one and held it up for her inspection.
Abby shuddered. She drained the rest of the champagne and put her glass down.
‘N-no thank you. I’m not that hungry. Perhaps some chicken?’
He put back the steak and gave her what looked like half a chicken.
‘What else? Filet steak? Sirloin? Lamb?’
‘No, th-that’s fine,’ said Abby, recoiling.
A group of dancers had broken off and came over. One of them was Rosanna. She looked at Abby’s plate with concern.
‘Are you feeling all right, Abby?’
‘Abby,’ said Emilio Diz softly.
Abby felt he had speared her with that pitchfork. She looked up at him quickly, shocked. Their eyes locked.
How could a man who was married look at her like that? Look at anyone like that?
The group did not notice.
‘You need some meat,’ said the voluptuous beauty who had been painting her nails in Rosanna’s bedroom.
‘I’ve got some.’
‘No, no. Meat.’
‘On an Argentine estancia, chicken and pork do not count as meat,’ explained Emilio, amused.
‘Of course not. Beef is what you need. Wonderful Argentine steak and wonderful Argentine red wine. Strength,’ breathed Rosanna’s friend sexily, ‘and passion.’ She was looking at Emilio as if she would like to eat him, too, thought Abby.
He looked even more amused. Amused, maybe just a little wary—and appreciative.
I don’t understand these people, thought Abby in despair. How can that woman pant over him like that, quite openly, when he has a family? His poor wife must be at home waiting for him right now.
‘Do you tango, Emilio?’ murmured Rosanna’s friend.
It did not, thought Abby, sound as if she was talking about a dance. Is this what Pops means about learning to hear what people mean, not what they say? She’s not asking him anything. She’s telling him she’s available.
The realisation stabbed like a stiletto. Abby could feel herself getting stiffer by the minute. She was turning back into the English schoolgirl they all dreaded, in spite of the sexy dress. She nibbled a piece of chicken, trying to pretend she was at ease. She felt it would choke her. So she chewed hard, smiling.
‘Of course,’ Emilio said calmly.
Rosanna’s friend licked her lips. Definitely wanting to eat him, thought Abby, repelled and fascinated in equal measure.
‘But not,’ he went on softly, ‘in the open air, to a Paraguayan band, at a family barbecue.’
So he wasn’t talking about a dance, either. Abby thought her heart would break. Which was crazy.
And then he did something which really did break her heart.
He took the plate away from her. Put it down on the grass with her discarded wine and took her hand.
Smiling straight down into her eyes he said, ‘No tango. But come and hop about the Paraguayan way.’
Abby went. She could feel all the eyes burning into her exposed back. She clutched the glittery scarf round her like a security blanket.
He took her among the dancers and put his arms round her. His hands were powerful, experienced and utterly indifferent. It made no difference. Abby was as tense as a board.
‘Relax,’ he said, smiling down at her.
‘I don’t know how to do this dance,’ she muttered. She knew she sounded sulky. She couldn’t help it. Oh, would this evening never end?
‘Listen to the music and trust me. All you have to do is march in time. Just put a bit of a hop into it as you land.’
She did. It worked. She forgot her wretchedness for a moment, looking up at him with a grin of pure triumph.
His hands tightened. Suddenly she thought he was not so indifferent after all.
One of the other dancers, an older woman with kind eyes, spoke as she jigged sedately past.
‘You’ve got the bachelor of the evening there, Abby. Don’t hang on to him too long. You might get lynched. You’re too young to die.’
It was a warning. Veiled. Kindly meant. But a warning none the less. Emilio knew it. His mouth tightened as he looked down at her.
But the warning went straight past Abby. All she could think was: bachelor? And then she remembered the conversation between the Montijo women. Emilio was putting his brothers and sisters through college? Something like that?
So the family he had spoken of did not include the wife she had imagined sitting at home waiting for him.
‘Thank you,’ she said. To the woman, who had danced away. To Emilio, guiding her through the dance, with a hold that even unsophisticated Abby knew was a little too tight.
She tipped her head back and looked straight into his eyes. And smiled, dazzlingly.
It was quite dark now. The flambeaux illuminated the party but there were plenty of shadows if you wanted them. Emilio, it seemed, wanted them. He danced her out of the light.
‘Careful,’ he murmured. ‘There are a lot of people out there watching.’
He was trying to sound cool but his breathing was uneven. Abby could have hugged herself.
‘So?’ she said naughtily.
What she did then was utterly out of character. Maybe it was the unaccustomed champagne she had drunk too fast, suddenly catching up with her. Maybe it was the night, the stars, the music. Maybe it was because she had danced for a good ten minutes with a man who actually wanted to dance with her. She hadn’t actually felled anyone or fallen off her high heels, either. Both were firsts.
Or maybe it was, quite simply, the man himself.
But in the darkness Abby leaned into him.
He went very still.
Oh, Lord, he had brought this on himself, thought Emilio. Why had he not seen what he was doing? She was so young, his little crane fly. So innocent. He had not thought—
It was going to be like Paris, all over again. Only with the daughter of one of Felipe Montijo’s influential business contacts.
Great stuff, Emilio! He congratulated himself silently. Just what you need to start the new career off with a bang.
More important, it was just what little Abby did not need, with the Montijo girl and her cronies circling like vultures. His sister had taught him just how cruel teenage girls could be.
He had thought he was doing her a favour by dancing her out of the spotlight. But it seemed he was leading her into something worse. Now, how was he going to stop her making a fool of herself? She would never forgive herself.
Abby stood on tiptoe, and brought his head down to meet her kiss.
Hell, thought Emilio.
Her mouth tasted of the wine but her skin smelled of flowers; those roses she had talked about, perhaps. She did not know how to kiss and she was quivering like a newborn colt. His heart turned over. This was dangerous!
He caught hold of her hands and held them away from him, not gently.
‘I think not.’
Abby could not believe it. He sounded so casual, so indifferent. Yet for a moment—surely?—his mouth had moved under hers. Or had she imagined it?
It was as if he had driven that little silver pitchfork right in under the third rib. For a moment Abby literally could not breathe.
Wanted to dance with her? Who was she fooling? Men did not want to dance with plain, awkward schoolgirls who broke things and fell over their own high heels, not for pleasure. He was being kind. Kind like Rosanna and Señora Montijo. Kind like her father.
They all knew she was a disaster. They all tried to help. They all failed.
She wrenched her hands out of his hold. And then, of course, the inevitable happened. The thing that had been threatening all evening. The danger she had skirted so closely ever since Emilio found her among the roses.
The borrowed dress fell off.
Well, it fell to her waist. For a moment she was so busy flapping her hands free that she did not notice.
He muttered something which her Spanish was not advanced enough to interpret.
And then she realised that the cool breeze was cooler than it should have been. She looked down.
Emilio was fighting his baser self with every weapon he knew. In the starlight her skin looked silvery. The small breasts were exquisite, so gently rounded, so softly firm. She looked like a cool water nymph. But she was warm and her flesh smelled of roses. His head swam.
‘This is not fair,’ he said under his breath, half laughing, half in despair.
He wanted her so badly it hurt.
Abby did not see it. In fact Abby was not seeing anything very clearly through her fog of shame and rejection.
She grabbed at the dress. At the same time, she took an unwary step. There was nothing she could do. She was already off balance. Those killer shoes only completed her downfall.
She tried to recover, to step back from him. But it was too late. Her ankle went over. She lurched, arms flailing.
And fell into his arms.
For an electrifying moment, she was crushed against him. She felt the heat of his body against her shivering; the smooth slide of the shirt against her aroused skin.
And then—
And then—
Somehow he found the strength.
‘Careful,’ Emilio said.
He steadied her with easy competence. His hands were utterly kind. Utterly impersonal. He did not know how he managed. His heart felt as if it was in a vice and his whole body was on a knife edge. But he did it.
For Abby, it was the final humiliation.
She kicked the hateful sandals viciously. The impetus sent the second one spiralling up high, high, so high that for a crazy moment it was outlined against the starry sky.
And he laughed. He laughed.
‘Great shot,’ Emilio said, with amused admiration. Sophisticated admiration.
It was more than she could bear.
Abby fled.
CHAPTER THREE
THERE were three girls in the trendy ladies’ room of Culp and Christopher Public Relations. The tall brunette was painting on eyeliner carefully, pulling a horrible face as she did so. The tall blonde was observing the operation critically.
