And she had thrown it all back in his face.
The wind created by the clattering craft was flattening the grasses and playing havoc with her hair, even though she’d tied it back into a plait when she’d stumbled out of bed that morning, still jet-lagged after her long flight. Her jeans were clean but that was pretty much all you could say about them, and her T-shirt was plain and unremarkable. Briefly, she wondered why she was worrying about her appearance at a time like this. But deep down she knew why.
Because he had been her lover.
Her only lover.
The man to whom she’d given her innocence, and in doing so had sealed her empty fate for ever.
She smoothed a flapping strand of hair away from her cheek, wishing she could quell the painful thundering of her heart. She hadn’t realised he could pilot a helicopter, but that shouldn’t have come as any surprise. Hadn’t he gone from being a dirt-poor boy who possessed an extraordinary gift with horses to becoming one of the world’s richest men? Financial success stuck to his skin like stardust—but not personal success, she reminded herself. The newspapers always described him as a playboy and commitment-phobe—as a man who had left countless broken hearts in his arrogant wake.
The rotor blades slowed to a halt and as the door of the craft opened, Alejandro Sabato leapt to the ground. He landed with a light thud, giving a brief masterclass in agility and strength and reminding her of his nickname earned during his polo-playing days—el cóndor—the one which Tomas the groom had just breathed in wonder. Emily swallowed. They used to call him that because he was dark and menacing and because he used to swoop down like a graceful predator, always getting the ball he was chasing. He’d been on the winning side of three World Polo Championships—and it had always been Alejandro who was pictured holding the trophy aloft, his dark head thrown back, his face grinning with victory and vitality.
Yet he had started out from the most humble of places—the illegitimate son of her stepfather’s housekeeper who, from the age of three, had grown up on his ranch and learned to ride almost as soon as he could walk. His talent had been spotted early and he’d moved to a polo stable on the other side of the country, where he had been intensively schooled in the sport. Six years older than Emily, he returned to the ranch only infrequently and she’d met him first at the age of twelve, soon after her mother had married Paul Vickery.
Had he recognised how lonely and out of place the English city girl had felt in that sweeping great country, in the home of a man who didn’t really want a stepdaughter? Was that why he’d been so kind to her? He’d taught her to ride—and to recognise the stars. He’d given her yerba maté to drink and taught her how to light a fire and then how to put it out again safely. A friendship had grown between them, although inevitably she had grown to idolise him. And then, when she was seventeen, something had shifted and changed. Desire had entered into their easy camaraderie and nothing was ever the same again.
But that was a long time ago. They’d both lived a lot of life and were adults now. Yet Emily found herself standing watching as Alejandro raked his windswept waves back from his forehead and the clench of her heart reminded her just how much he had meant to her. Suddenly a wave of nerves was rushing through her and she felt as if she were back in the shoes of that gauche young girl who had so adored him.
He must have seen her but he completely ignored her, going instead to Tomas and gripping him in a bear hug, before slipping into a stream of velvety Spanish, which caused the aging groom to beam with delight. Emily’s command of the language was rusty these days but she understood enough to realise that Alej was making a request for refreshment and Tomas nodded and began to walk slowly towards the house, presumably to relay the message to his wife, Rosa.
And once the groom had disappeared, the two of them were alone and just at that moment the sun disappeared behind a cloud, so that all the light and warmth seemed to leave the day. Slowly, the Argentinian turned around to survey her with a look which was cold. So cold. She was shocked at how the vibrancy seemed to have left the gaze she remembered so well. How his once-warm green eyes were now like leaves which had been coated in ice and the curl of his lips bordered on contemptuous. Yet that didn’t stop her breasts from tightening beneath her cotton shirt, or a long-forgotten hint of awareness from rippling sweetly over her thighs.
‘Alej!’ she said, the word much shakier than she would have liked—but there was no answering smile in response.
‘Only my close friends and intimates call me that these days,’ he corrected coolly, the curve of his mouth flattening into a cruel, hard line. ‘Let’s stick to Alejandro, shall we?’
It hurt, as it was probably intended to do, but Emily nodded as if it didn’t. As if all those years of friendship and companionship and then love had never happened. As if the man who’d used to suck on her breasts as if they were freshly peeled grapes had just made the most reasonable of requests. She’d learnt many things over the years but one of the most important was to keep pain hidden away, where nobody could see it.
‘Of course,’ she responded, before adding a somewhat flippant amendment of her own. ‘It’s probably the shock of seeing you again, Alejandro.’
‘Would you really describe it as a shock, Emily?’ he questioned, his richly accented voice thoughtful. ‘Or a deep and abiding pleasure? From the darkening of your eyes and the tension in your body I recognise so well, I would guess it’s the latter.’
Emily worked in PR, so she knew everything there was to know about putting a positive spin on things, but never had an upbeat mindset seemed so distant as it did right then. He was talking to her with sensuality dripping from every word, yet he was staring at her with a flicker of contempt in his green eyes, as if she meant nothing. And yet that didn’t seem to have any effect on her reaction to him. All the feelings she’d thought were dead and buried started bubbling up inside her and she couldn’t seem to stem them, no matter how hard she tried. She wanted to feast her eyes on the liquorice-black waves of his just-too-long hair and the burnished bronze of his glowing skin. Just as she wanted to ogle his body in the way that someone who’d been wandering around in the desert for days might stare greedily at a cool flask of water. And most of all she wanted to hurl herself into his arms and kiss him.
Concentrating very hard, she fixed him with an expression of polite curiosity, trying to behave as if he was someone she’d just met. But her outward calm didn’t mirror what was happening inside, because suddenly it felt as if her hormones had remembered what they’d been designed for. As if his presence had the power to make her body prickle with desire and heat and expectation. Her nipples were thrusting uncomfortably against her bra and she felt a long-forgotten twist of lust low in her groin as she looked at him.
In the past he’d always worn jodhpurs or faded jeans, which hugged his hips and thighs in a way which had seemed indecently provocative. But not today. Today, clad in an immaculate lightweight suit, he was looking like the billionaire he’d become—not the rookie polo player she’d fallen in love with, who’d barely had two pesos to rub together. And love was the last thing she needed to think about if she was going to get through this, she reminded herself fiercely. She needed to find out what had prompted his unexpected appearance and then for him to leave as quickly as possible. She certainly didn’t need to respond to his provocative observations about her body. Even if they happened to be true.
‘Why are you here, Alejandro?’ she questioned, instantly becoming aware of the slight edge to her voice and trying her best to iron it out. ‘Why have you turned up out of the blue?’ Briefly, she cast her gaze towards the sky. ‘Quite literally in this case?’
‘Don’t play games, Emily,’ he said softly. ‘It’s a waste of both our time. I came because you need me.’
Emily blinked very fast. ‘I need you?’
‘Are you going to repeat everything I say?’ His voice was silky. ‘Haven’t you grown out of that kind of docile behaviour by now?’
Don’t react to that either, she told herself. You don’t need to get into a fight with him. You’re no longer that giddy teenager who used to follow him around like a tame dog and lap up everything he said to you. And you’re not the young woman who cried every night for months after she’d walked away. You left that person behind a long time ago. You became somebody else. Somebody grown-up and together.
So Emily tilted her chin in the way she’d learned from watching other women. The way which sent out a message to the world that you were super-confident, even if inside you wondered why you couldn’t ever seem to lose that little stone of sadness which was buried deep inside you.
‘I’m not here to trade insults, Alejandro,’ she said calmly. ‘I asked you a perfectly reasonable question about why you were here.’
For a moment his green eyes narrowed. ‘Tomas emailed me. I assumed with your blessing.’
She screwed up her brow in a frown. ‘What did the email say?’
He shrugged and she wished he hadn’t because it made her uncomfortably aware of the iron-hard muscle which lay beneath the fine silk of his shirt. Just as it made her aware of the rocky power of the arms which used to hold her so tightly, so that all the troubles of the world seemed to ebb away.