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‘I’ll live. Come here.’

He wanted to feel her close against him. He was acting out of character, but having her wrapped over him felt so damn good. He loved women—of course he did—but he knew the chemistry, the bonding, the whole emotional fallout attached to the aftermath of lovemaking could lead to expectations he was never going to fulfil. But this moment he had waited for. And he was going to savour it.

‘Makes a change from the last time, when you tried to kick me out of bed.’

‘At least one of us had our head screwed on.’

He leaned up on his elbow to look at the sleek cat that lay across him.

‘You know how crazy that was? You tested me to the
max. I’ve never been so tempted, and you were—what?—sixteen? Have you
any
idea how wrong that would have been?’

‘Didn’t feel wrong at the time, though, did it?’

She twisted her head round to look at him, pressed another whisper-kiss to his chest. Nothing about her felt wrong. Then or now.

He shook his head. ‘Your family didn’t strike me as being the most freethinking. It was a miracle that we weren’t caught.’

She turned her head, pulled herself away. Lay back on the bed beside him and stared up at the ceiling.

‘We were. Caught. Actually.’

‘What? Are you kidding me?’

He shifted up. No way.
No. Way.
He would have known—he would have been called to account. There was no chance her brother would have continued to do business with him—no way their professional or personal relationship could have withstood that type of interference.

She twisted her head. ‘Oh, don’t worry—I denied it. Until I was hoarse. And Mark doesn’t know—at least I think he doesn’t. But my dad—let’s just say he has suspicions … deep suspicions.’

Damn. He hadn’t considered that.

‘Angel—I’m sorry. I’d never have left you to handle that on your own had I known. What happened?’

She sighed, and he saw her twist at the silver ring on her finger.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know if we woke him with our noise or if he was just awake anyway. But after you’d got your stuff together and walked out I went to go back to my room and he was there—at the top of the stairs. He asked me outright what the hell I’d been doing.’

He remembered every second of that night. Stifling her cries with his mouth as she came in his hand from those few fevered touches. Pinning her down and then reality crashing round him as he’d realised what the hell had just happened—what the hell he’d been about to do. Trying to get out of bed, pulling on clothes that were icy and damp, buttoning himself up over the erection that wouldn’t go down. Heaving on his boots as she’d still tried to tempt him back to bed. Finally grabbing her shoulders and hissing at her to stop, to leave him, she was too young!

But she hadn’t given up. Naked, driving him wild. He’d hauled the sheet off the bed and wrapped her up. As he’d yanked the door open and tried to remember which way was out the farmhouse’s narrow windows and dark passages had lent him no clue.

Finally he’d stumbled down to the kitchen, past the sheepdogs lying in front of the fire’s dying embers, heard the tick of an old clock, heaved on the rusty bolts that had held the door closed.

She’d come down to stand in the doorway to the hall with a haunted look—as if the heart had been ripped out of her. He’d stopped then—aching to go to her, to make her feel better, to take away the hurt, take away his own hurt.

But he’d been young—only twenty-one! He’d spent so long getting to that point, working through his own pain. La Colorada had finally been ready. His polo career had been taking off. He hadn’t been able to stay there, to ally himself to a woman—a
girl.
He’d been only just beginning to taste the chance of a sweet future. It would have been madness to go to her.

So he’d turned back to the door, hauled it open and stepped out into the early-morning rain. She’d come right
out into the daylight, onto the huge slabbed courtyard, called his name one final time. But he’d just slung his bag onto his shoulder, taken one final look at her, wrapped up like temptation’s gift. And then gone.

‘He was just standing there—then he went into the guest bedroom, saw you were gone and the state of the room. Saw me in the sheet.’

She turned her face away.

‘He slapped me and called me a whore.’

Rocco sat up, but she’d turned onto her side. He scooped her in close, feeling the shock of those words.

‘Hermosa, lo siento mucho,’
he soothed, furious that he had not known this.

‘It’s fine,’ she said—too brightly. ‘I lied. I said you must have left ages earlier. That I’d just pulled the sheet off. I don’t know what else I said. I made it up.’

He kissed her shoulder, cursed his stupidity. Of
course
they had been heard. They’d been wild for each other—then and now. And he’d thought they hadn’t been.
Stupid.

‘It’s not fine. I apologise.’ He pulled her back and turned her round, right round, until her head was tucked under his chin. He rocked her, hating the thought of her hurting. ‘What did he do? Were you punished?’

She gave a hollow little laugh.

‘If you can say being sent away to a convent for two years is punishment, then, yes, I was punished.’

He struggled to get his head around this, but knew he had no small part to play.

‘And he made sure that Mark sold Ipanema. That she went to you was coincidence, but it made it all the harder.’

Rocco squeezed his eyes closed, feeling her pain.

‘I see.
Now
I see. I didn’t think … Angel, I’m sorry. If you’d got in touch I could have sorted it—I could have spoken to him. I wish you’d let me know.’

‘You made it quite plain that the last thing you wanted was for me to get in touch, Rocco. Anyway, it’s totally in the past—it’s fine. I served my time.’ She laughed. ‘Honestly. It’s done.’

He pulled her close. He couldn’t deny that. Any more than he could deny how deep the scars of childhood could wound. How hard they were to heal. His own were like welts under his skin. No one could see them, but they were always there—always would be. Despite the ‘luxury’ of enforced therapy for five years. Five years until he’d learned to say what they wanted to hear: that he
didn’t
hold himself responsible, that it
wasn’t
his fault his baby brother had died.

Who else was to blame if not him? Who else had dragged him from doorway to doorway, scavenging, begging, stealing and worse? Who else had got caught up with the gangs, the drug runners and the killers?

He glanced past Frankie’s scooped silhouette to the tiny battered photo of Lodo that he carried with him and placed at his bedside wherever he was. Precious life snuffed out before he’d even turned four years old. Being responsible for him, letting him down, losing him—it was the hardest lesson he had ever learned. But he had learned it. And he would never ever forget it.

The knowledge that Martinez, Lodo’s killer, had never been held to account was like a knife to his ribs every day. But he would make it happen. One day.

He felt Frankie stirring, trailing hot little kisses over him and moaning with hot little sounds. She wriggled against him and he reacted instantly, his mouth seeking hers, his hands cupping her breasts and his knee shifting open her thighs. He positioned himself between her legs, so ready to slip inside her.

‘You owe me,’ she said as she rolled beneath him, ‘and I’m here to collect.’

He smiled as she slid her tongue into his mouth. He owed her, all right, and he was going to pay her what he could. But the guilt that was already unfurling from his stomach was telling him he was never going to give her what she really wanted.

He reached for another condom, turned Lodo’s picture face down and held her tight in his arms as he sheathed himself.

So if he wasn’t going to give her what she wanted, what the hell kind of game was he playing? Because he knew that with every kiss, every stroke, every whispered word, while she might be calling it payback, he was storing up a whole load of brand-new trouble.

She slipped around him, climbed on top, and his body responded hard and fast again. He might have been able to hold back the tide in her farmhouse but as he slid himself into that gorgeous sweet place he’d been dreaming of for years he felt the world reconfigure.

Trouble?

Totally.

CHAPTER FIVE

H
ER EYES WERE SUNKEN
. Her chin was grazed. Her thighs were weak and sore. Frankie hung on to the porcelain sink and stared at the wreckage.

Making love could do
this
to a person? She’d thought she might be glowing, radiant—rosy cheeked at the very least. The shadows under her eyes looked like a sleep-deprived panda’s. Was there any product on earth that could work actual miracles? Not any that she had in her bag. Nothing that Evaña sold could even come close.

She stared round the ‘hers’ bathroom in this glorious suite. It was easily the prettiest she had ever encountered. Antique silver gilt mirrors dotted the shimmery grey marble walls. Sweet little glass jars held candles and oils, and there were feather-soft white folded towels. Lush palms and filmy drapes. A huge bath like a giant white egg cracked open was set on a platform atop four gilded feet. She pondered filling it, but surely it would take hours?

And how many hours were left in the day? Had she really been in bed for ten of them? A good, convent-educated girl like her? Though in the eyes of her father she was ‘just a whore’.

She shivered in the warm humid air at the memory of that slap, those words. The stinging ache on her cheek
had been nothing to the pain of Rocco’s walking away. And when he’d never come back, when all she’d been left with was a crushing sense of rejection, she’d had no fight left. Her father’s furious silence … Her mother’s hand-wringing despair … Going to the convent in Dublin had almost come as a relief.
Almost.

Then finding out that her beautiful Ipanema had been sold …

Mark had come to tell her. She’d been sitting there in her hideous grey pinafore and scratchy-collared blouse in the deathly silent drawing room that was saved for visitors. The smell of outdoors had clung to Mark’s clothes—she’d buried her face in his shoulder, scenting what she could, storing it up like treasure.

He thought she’d be happy that the handsome Argentinian she’d been so sweet on—the one who was now scooping polo prize after prize—was Ipanema’s new owner. He’d known it would be upsetting, but she had always been going to be sold—surely she’d known that? She was their best, and they needed the money now that Danny had walked out on them and Frankie’s school fees were so high. It wasn’t as if she was home anymore, riding her every day after school. And Rocco Hermida was easily the best buyer they could hope to find—notoriously good with animals, and miles ahead in equine genetics. Soon there would be more Ipanemas. Wasn’t that great?

She’d painted on her smile until he left, knowing that she had nothing now. Not even the smell of fresh air on her clothes.

Dark days had followed. She’d moved listlessly through them. She’d lost her appetite, become even thinner, lost her sparkle, lost her motivation for everything. No one had been able to believe the change in her. Herself
least of all. One minute naive, innocent, unworldly. Next moment as if she had been handed the book of life and it had fallen open at the page of unrequited love.

Because it
had
been love. She, in her sixteen-year-old heart, had known it was love. And he didn’t love her back. She had laid herself bare, body and soul, and he had played with her a little, then tossed her away.

The only ray of sunshine had been Esme. Relentlessly digging her out of her dark corners—relentless but never interfering. Just like now.

Frankie pulled out a bath towel, shuddered at her own selfishness.

What must Esme be thinking? Her best friend, whom she hadn’t seen for years, had been so excited to hear that she was coming all the way from Madrid—had sent a car to collect her, planned to show her such a good time at the Molina Lario, over the weekend in Punta …

She had managed one brief reply to Esme’s text to say she was ‘Fine! Xxx’, and then her phone had been powered off. She cringed, wondering what she must have made of Rocco’s dismissive statement that they had ‘unfinished business’. It would be news to Esme that they had any business at all!

Frankie Ryan was not a party girl—never mind a one-night stand girl. She was a no-nonsense career girl. A don’t-ever-give-them-anything-to-criticise girl. She hated anyone knowing her business, judging her or in any way getting past the wrought iron defences she had spent the past ten years erecting all around her.

Well done
, she thought as she stared at her own mess.
Well done for walking straight into the lion’s den.
She looked at it—his den. The extravagant opulence. Everything in prime fin-de-siècle glory. Silvery marble and
gilded taps, Persian rugs and domed cupolas. And Rocco Hermida … prowling.

She’d walked right in, lain right down and made sure that the whole world knew. So much for wrought iron. Everyone could see right through it.

She’d told him far too much last night. Given too much of herself away. She didn’t want this to be a pity party. She wasn’t here for his sympathy. She’d never breathed a word about that night to another living soul. Denials to her father, and her mother too shocked even to ask. Mark and Danny both oblivious. Rocco needn’t have known.

But it was done now. She couldn’t take it back. As long as he didn’t think he
owed
her or anything. That would be too much to bear.

She padded to the shower, turned on the jets and jumped back as water blasted from all angles. Then she adjusted the taps, stood determinedly under the slightly too cold spray and scoured herself. You could take the girl out of the convent …

She patted herself dry and swaddled herself in a robe. Used a brand-new toothbrush that made her think of all the other brand-new toothbrushes that would come after she’d gone.