Brazilian's Nine Months' Notice (12 page)

‘That’s fine by me. I wouldn’t mind, if I’m not going to be too much trouble for the staff?’

What did she have to lose? She had to see Luc. And as things stood, she was on her own anyway.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

H
ORSE
-
RIDING
CAME
with a far better press than it deserved, Emma thought as she stared down a stable block that boasted snorting firebrands in every stall. Did people actually enjoy sitting on top of a volcano? She’d only arrived at Luc’s ranch that lunchtime and, after being collected at the landing strip by an elderly gaucho who had introduced himself as Pedro, she had quickly settled in and then come straight here.

Her first sight of Pedro had thrilled her, and not just because seeing him had told her she was closer to Luc. With his outfit of battered leather chaps, coin belt and typical hat, garnished with old-world manners, the elderly gaucho had made her feel special from the moment she’d arrived. It was Pedro she was trying to convince now—and not that well—that she had to borrow one of these horses.

‘I’ve been riding since I could walk,’ she asserted airily, hoping he couldn’t see her shaking.

He sized her up. ‘I’ll fetch you a mount.’

‘Thank you.’ She smiled. Job done.

He brought out a mule.

‘I’m to ride that?’ she said, trying not to be unkind as she looked into the doleful eyes of the clearly ancient animal.

‘
Sim, senhorita.
Nancy is slow, but she is kind. You will be safe.’

Hmm. Biting back her apprehension, she approached the apparently docile animal and stroked her long, velvety ears. Nancy was cute, but that was her assessment while her feet were firmly planted on the ground.

‘She is grandmother here,’ Pedro explained, his weather-beaten face creasing in a smile.

‘Oh, good.’ Perhaps Nancy and she would get along after all. She had always had an affinity with older people.

‘And Nancy knows the way to the cabin.’

‘The cabin?’ Emma adopted an innocent expression. She had intended to go it alone, but any information she could garner from Pedro was all to the good.

‘Sim.’
Pedro was busily checking all the straps and buckles required before she could mount up. She didn’t want to get Pedro into trouble. ‘Wouldn’t Senhor Marcelos be angry if I interrupted his solitude?’ she asked carefully.

‘Senhor Marcelos is never angry with Pedro. I will accompany you.’

‘Oh, no—that’s not necessary.’ She quickly turned away as her cheeks burned red. She had no idea what everyone thought of her sudden arrival at the ranch house, and could only presume that Karina had called them and made some excuse or other—saying that she worked for their boss, perhaps. ‘I’ve got a phone for security.’ She brandished it to make the point that she was really together and ready for this.

‘That won’t work here,’ Pedro said flatly, reaching beneath his hat to scratch his head.

‘And I’ve got supplies from the kitchen.’ The saddlebags she was carrying were bulging with food and water. Pedro couldn’t argue with that. And then there was her trump card. ‘And I’ve got a map.’ She produced it triumphantly.

Pedro shook his head. He didn’t seem happy at all, but as he said nothing more about it she felt confident that he was going to let her ride out on her own now that she had proved to be so organised.

‘You like it here?’ Pedro asked, smiling up at her as he tightened the strap beneath the mule’s stomach.

‘It’s fabulous,’ Emma said honestly. So fabulous it was hard to take in everything Pedro had shown her.

He’d had driven her for miles from the landing strip, across Luc’s land, he told her, until they came to a towering archway that marked the boundary of the main house. It had taken them another twenty minutes before the sprawling ranch house had come into view. Things were on such a vast scale she could easily see why Luc belonged here. He was a big man from a land whose scale she was still getting used to. The stark beauty of the pampas had struck her in the heart as she’d flown over it. Perhaps because it was wild and seemingly unknowable, like him.

The kindness shown to her by Luc’s staff had told her a lot about him. They couldn’t do enough for her—even when she said she was going out on a ride just a few short hours after arriving. Excitement at the thought of seeing Luc again didn’t allow for delay. Not even her glorious guest room, with its billowing white canopy over the huge four-poster bed, could tempt her to stay.

Now, if she could just get her leg over the saddle...

She was supposed to be an experienced rider, remember that?

Thankfully, Pedro cupped his hands and gave her a leg up, but even on the back of a mule it felt a long way down to the ground. No handrails?

No handrails.

* * *

He was splitting logs when Pedro called him.

‘What?’
He ran to his horse while Pedro was still explaining that he was trailing Emma at a distance.

‘I won’t let any harm come to her,’ his old friend assured him.

Not good enough. Luc had to see Emma for himself. He had to know she was safe. Out here on the pampas there were miles of apparent nothingness, and if a stranger wasn’t wary they could easily get lost. Emma might panic. The mule could trip. There were countless risks for the unwary traveller. He wasn’t about to take any chances where Emma’s safety was concerned. Stowing the phone, he sprang onto his stallion’s back without wasting time saddling up. His first aim was to make her safe. The second was to come clean. Karina was right in that it had done him good, coming out here away from every distraction. It had shown him what counted and what didn’t. His pride was nowhere on that list. Emma’s peace of mind was the headline event.

As he urged his mount across land he knew intimately, he felt strong and certain. When he told Emma the truth he would be anything but. He wasn’t used to making himself vulnerable. As a youth he’d been so sure-footed and confident—until he’d got the biggest slap in the face of his life. At the time he’d been stunned. Then he’d been driven by bitterness and revenge. It had turned him cold until Emma had shown him a different way. Talking it through with her would either end things between them for good, or prove that people could change, and that he was trying.

As much as he liked to be in control, this was one occasion when Emma would be his judge and jury, and he wouldn’t be able to control or influence the outcome.

His first impulse when he spotted her was to laugh—with sheer relief, and with happiness and amusement at the sight of a very determined woman trying to coax a mule up a hill. Leaning almost flat on Nancy’s neck as the old mule took every opportunity to snatch mouthfuls of her favourite herbs, Emma was holding a carrot in front of Nancy’s muzzle. It wasn’t getting her very far. Nancy was too clever to be fooled, and was as stubborn as a mule was supposed to be. Nancy had her head in the air and was contentedly munching, with long strands of grass escaping from either side of her mouth. This forced Emma to hold the carrot higher and higher, with the end result that neither of them was going anywhere fast.

‘Luc!’

Emma sat up so abruptly when she saw him he was frightened she would spook the mule. He brought his horse to a skidding halt across Nancy’s bows, and scooping Emma up, he deposited her on the stallion in front of him.

‘Luc!’ she exclaimed, turning to face him. ‘What a surprise to see you.’

‘Yeah,’ he said drily. ‘Imagine that. What are the chances?’

‘I’m glad I found you.’ She smiled as if she really meant it.

‘Glad I found
you
, don’t you mean?’ he said, urging his stallion forward. ‘You are an extremely reckless woman.’

‘In Scotland you criticised me for not being adventurous enough,’ she argued, bouncing stiffly in front of him.

‘I didn’t expect you to take your adventuring to these lengths.’ Putting an arm around her waist, he drew her close. ‘Lean into me—move with me. We have to move as one.’

‘I’m not sure I—’

‘I know you can. That’s one thing I do know for sure.’

‘Maybe I could relax if there was something to hang on to.’

‘I won’t let you fall.’ He brought his mouth close to her ear to say this. The temptation to taste her neck was overwhelming.

‘How will you steer if you’re hanging on to me?’ Her voice was tight with tension.

‘How I always do...with my thighs.’

She stiffened and held herself away from him, but not before he’d felt the shiver of arousal that coursed through her frame. ‘Take hold of some mane and hang on to that, if it makes you feel safer,’ he suggested.

‘I’m perfectly relaxed,’ she assured him through gritted teeth. ‘But, what about the mule? We can’t just leave her here.’

‘Pedro will take her home.’

‘Pedro?’ She sounded shocked as she glanced around. ‘Has Pedro followed me all this way?’

‘Did you seriously think he would allow you to ride out here on your own? You told him you didn’t want company, apparently, but thankfully he had more sense than to set you loose on thousands of acres of pampas.’

‘He needn’t have worried,’ she said, frowning as she shook her head. ‘I brought a map.’

‘That makes all the difference,’ he agreed drily.

‘Are you being sarcastic?’

‘Would I?’ A subtle twitch of his thighs was all it took to urge his stallion forward from a loping walk to a bouncing trot.

‘You did that on purpose,’ Emma accused him through chattering teeth.

He smiled as he held her close, relishing the sensation of having Emma in his arms again. He urged his horse into a smooth, rolling canter, and from being as stiff as a board, Emma was gradually learning to relax. ‘You mustn’t ride out here on your own.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because there are dangerous animals—’

‘None more dangerous that you,’ she said.

He laughed as he took his stallion forward from a canter to a gallop, wondering when he’d ever felt so free as he headed with single-minded purpose towards the cabin.

* * *

Did Luc have to be quite so provocative?
Or quite so sexy?
She wasn’t here to go to bed with him but to get things sorted out once and for all. Then, if it was over between them, her heart would break, but she’d have to get over it for the sake of their child.

Luc had slowed his stallion to an ambling walk as they approached the stretch leading to the cabin.

‘I kept my promise,’ he said. ‘I didn’t let you fall.’

‘It must have been tempting,’ she suggested, testing him.

He didn’t play. This wasn’t Lucas Marcelos, the smooth businessman from the city with his private jet. This was a man who battled nature, not a man who battled spreadsheets on a desk. And this version of Luc looked way beyond sexy with his sharp black stubble, swarthy skin and his wild, unruly hair. She loved the way he rode bareback in battered jeans and boots and just an old shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She loved everything about him...

She loved him.

‘Daydreaming again?’

‘Just enjoying the ride,’ she said quickly.

‘Now I know you’re lying.’

‘No. Seriously. I’m not.’

Could there be anything more romantic than riding on a stallion with this man across this land? The rhythm of the horse’s hooves, together with the undulation of the horse’s body was the best workout she’d ever had. And it was soothing. She almost wished that she belonged here too.

She pressed back against Luc’s chest, relishing his strength and his heat. He was so virile, so potent, and here, in this wild country, she was glad of his command. There was nothing soft or easy about the pampas. Like the man riding behind her, it was hard and challenging, but full of opportunity too—or was that her imagination running riot again?

‘I’ll teach you how to ride one day.’

One day.
The phrase remained in her head like a charm, a talisman. Could they really make it work
one day
?

Luc reined in outside the cabin. Nestled in the lee of a hill, it looked so welcoming. ‘Will you really teach me how to ride?’ she asked impulsively.

When Luc didn’t answer right away, she took that as a no. She probably wouldn’t be here long enough, Emma reasoned.

But while she was here, she would live and love and take her chances. That was how Luc’s wild land made her feel.

He sprang down first, and turning to her, he lifted her into his arms. Backing his way through the door, he lowered her onto her feet on a lovingly polished wooden floor. The whole place smelled of beeswax and coffee. Steadying her, he stepped back, but she wasn’t in the mood for half measures. Putting her arms around his neck she hugged him tight. It was too late to worry about what he thought. The way she felt about him had to find expression.

‘What was that for?’

Angling her chin, she stared up at him.

‘Why aren’t you saying anything?’ The corner of Luc’s mouth lifted in a smile. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Kiss me?’

Barely a heartbeat passed before he dragged her into his arms.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

S
HE
WAS
INSTANTLY
LOST
. Drunk on Luc’s consuming power, his strength, his familiar scent, his touch, the taste of him and, most of all, the way her heart sang when they were close. Her body ached to be one with his. There was no other man who could do that to her. He was the one, the only one. He completed her. He made her strong. But if Luc couldn’t open up and talk about the past, and his plan for the future, her visit here was a waste of time.

He pulled back to look at her. ‘What’s this?’ He caught a tear on the pad of his thumb.

‘Pain,’ she admitted, gritting her teeth.

‘Pain?’ Luc demanded, anxious at once. ‘Not the baby?’

‘Riding?’ She grimaced as she admitted this. ‘My bottom is in agony. Why on earth do people do it?’

Luc laughed softly. ‘Maybe I’ll show you someday.’ He rested his brow against hers and they shared a smile. Somehow the mundane applied to the soaring tensions they both had to face made a bridge between them. ‘You want to talk?’ he prompted.

‘Yes. About you,’ she said. ‘If we don’t, I’ll go back to Scotland.’

He led her over to the old battered sofa in front of the fire and invited her to sit. He brought coffee for them both from the pot on the stove, and set it on the table in front of them. ‘Invisible housekeeper,’ he explained.

She smiled ruefully, knowing that whatever they said about Luc liking his solitude, he liked his home comforts too, and that there would be someone, not too far away, who would make sure that he had everything he needed.

‘Pedro’s wife,’ he explained, putting her mind at rest.

Leaning back against the wall, Luc stared at her with a thoughtful expression on his face. ‘I need to get some things off my chest.’

‘I know,’ she said quietly.

‘I’ve been married before.’

She didn’t know that, and couldn’t have been more shocked. The silence lengthened, and she was glad she was sitting down. This was the last thing she had expected. Her heart seemed to have stopped beating. Her throat had dried. In spite of the blazing fire she felt chilled and uncertain. Everything she had built her belief on when it came to Luc had turned out to be wrong. Lucas Marcelos, the man she thought she knew, was just a construct of her over-fertile imagination. ‘Married.’ Now she said the word, she didn’t know why the possibility of Luc being married at one time hadn’t occurred to her before.

‘My wife is dead.’

For the second time in as many minutes, she felt the world tilt on its axis. ‘How?’

‘She was killed with her lover in a freak accident,’ Luc explained in a voice that held no emotion.

Her lover? Luc’s wife had had a lover?
That seemed incredible—unbelievable, to Emma.

‘I was very young,’ he explained. ‘She was too. We moved with the same fast set. I should have kept my baby sister away from them. That’s what crucifies me. Karina was just a little girl, wrapped up in the glamour of an aunt who was beautiful and exciting, and whose lover was careless and daring. The accident that killed my wife and my lover almost killed my sister too. He was showing off and ran his car off the road with my wife and Karina in it. Karina escaped with just cuts and bruises, but my wife and her lover were killed outright.’

The bitterness in Luc’s voice didn’t surprise her, and when he stopped telling her the story she could imagine him running it scene by scene in front of his eyes, and the true facts would only be embellished by his imagination. When the police had told her about her parents’ accident, it hadn’t been what they or the emergency services had told her, but what she’d pictured in her mind that still haunted her.

‘I will never forgive myself for exposing my sister to danger like that.’

‘But it wasn’t your fault, Luc.’

‘It was my fault,’ he insisted, pulling away from the wall. ‘I didn’t have to be at the scene of the accident for it to be my fault. I pushed my wife into the arms of her lover. If I had spent more time with her, instead of playing polo and building a business, she might not have taken a lover in the first place, but I was full of the arrogance of youth, and I neglected her. She was young and beautiful, and she wanted a life. She didn’t want to be sitting at home, waiting for me to come back. And why should she? I was in the wrong, Emma. I treated my wife like just another possession—as I treated you when we first met.’

‘But at some point you have to forgive yourself, Luc.’

‘As you have forgiven yourself for your parents’ deaths?’

She couldn’t answer that without admitting that she was always looking for something she’d missed—something that could have saved them long before they’d gone on that drug-fuelled journey to disaster.

‘Guilt isn’t easy to shift. I just don’t want to do that to anyone else, and I almost did...with you. And with you it’s worse.’ Luc’s gaze steadied on her face. ‘I thought I loved my wife, and I felt betrayed when she took a lover, but now I know that I didn’t love her, and that what I felt was an adolescent emotion so very different from what I feel for you.’

‘I’m sorry for her death,’ Emma said quietly, reeling as she tried to take in what Luc had just said.

The silence that followed was absolute.

‘We can’t decide the path that others take,’ Luc said at last, ‘But actions have consequences, as I have proved yet again. And I’m frightened, of losing you, frightened of making the same mistake again. I’ve never been frightened like this in my life before.’ His eyes searched out her gaze.

Standing, she took hold of his hands and held them firmly in hers. ‘Love is terrifying. You feel so much, and then there’s this point where you’re totally committed to that one person, but you’re not sure that they feel the same. That’s frightening. That’s walking a tightrope without a safety net. But you have to take that risk or you’ll never know.’ She paused for breath. ‘I love you with all my heart. There. I’ve said it. I can’t help myself. I can’t stop myself—’

‘Agradeço a Deus por você!’

Luc’s voice was muffled in her shoulder. Winding her fingers through his hair, she held him close, and for a few moments they stood together, breathing in harmony as they accepted that maybe they didn’t have to go on alone from here.

‘Translate,’ she whispered.

Lifting his head, Luc stared into her eyes. ‘Thank God for you, Emma.’

His heart welled with love for Emma, and for the stand she was taking. He loved her for her resilience, whatever life threw at her. This was the woman he wanted at his side. This was the woman who would fight for his children and protect them to her last breath. He had wasted too much time indulging in thoughts of revenge, when there was no revenge possible as the protagonists were dead. Was he going to allow the past to colour every decision he made? Wasn’t it time to move forward, instead of looking back?

‘What are you doing now?’ Emma demanded as he knelt at her feet.

‘I’m humbly asking you to be my wife.’

‘Humbly?’ she said, raising a brow.

‘As humbly as I can.’

A smile lit up her face. ‘Not humbly at all, then.’ She was silent for a while as they stared at each other, and then she frowned and said, ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

‘Never more so,’ he admitted.

Pressing her lips together, she smiled and shook her head. ‘Do you have to look like such a bad boy when you say such lovely things?’

He tipped his chin as he admitted ruefully, ‘Apparently so.’

‘In that case...’

Kneeling in front of him, Emma reached out and he took her hands in his.

‘I’m even more frightened now,’ she admitted.

‘You, frightened?’

‘Well...’ Her slanting smile lit up her eyes. ‘Perhaps a little apprehensive of what I’m taking on.’

‘Not half as apprehensive as I am,’ he admitted drily.

‘Love has been an alien and scary concept to me too,’ she admitted, ‘and for so long. My weird, dysfunctional past has left me wary like you, but I know that what I feel for you, and what I feel for our child is one of life’s gloriously unavoidable emotions, and it’s taken hold of me and will never let me go. It heals, it hurts, it thrills. It’s love. And I am a hostage for life.’

‘So that’s a yes?’

‘I think I’ve kept you on your knees long enough,’ she teased. ‘Yes. That’s the happiest yes you’ll ever hear.’

Bringing Emma into his arms, he kissed her, then raising her to her feet, he backed her towards the bedroom. ‘Food can wait,’ he said, nuzzling his lips against her neck. ‘You’re not going to faint with hunger, are you?’

‘Only with pleasure,’ she said, her eyes laughing into his.

* * *

She was shivering with need as Luc moved over her. She quickly helped him to take off her clothes. Sensation was everything. Heat was firing along every nerve ending she possessed. She was desperate to feel him naked, skin to skin. She seized hold of his shirt, dealing with the buttons frantically and then sliding it from his shoulders. Her hunger mounted as she felt his muscles ripple and bunch beneath her hands. Grabbing the buckle on his belt, she loosened his trousers. She felt for him and he sprang free. She clasped him, laughing softly at the fact that her hand would barely encompass him. ‘I want to taste you,’ she said.

‘Be my guest.’ Removing his jeans, Luc tossed them away. Rolling onto his back he meshed his fingers through her hair as she moved down the bed and took him. Suckling and lapping, for the sheer pleasure of hearing him groan, she stroked his powerful chest as she pleasured him, her own arousal mounting as she anticipated the moment when the tables would be turned. She didn’t have long to wait. Luc was impatient to have her. They were both greedy.

She laughed with excitement as he brought her beneath him. Lifting her so her head was on the pillows, he moved slowly down the bed. Taking hold of her wrists, he held them above her head. Closing her eyes as he kissed his way around her body, she smiled as sensation flooded her, and her heart throbbed with love.

‘I should have remembered how greedy you were,’ Luc said, his voice tight with lust as she raised her hips, demanding more contact. Resting her legs over the wide spread of his shoulders, so that she was completely exposed, completely vulnerable, he kissed her. Luc was a master of seduction, an expert at temptation, and he knew exactly which buttons to press. ‘No,’ he warned softly. ‘Not yet.’

He made her wait, which made her hungrier still for him, and it seemed for ever before he eased back, and then very slowly moved forward again. Taking her, he stretched her and filled her as he claimed her. He was so careful with her, so controlled. She trusted him completely, and the feeling had never been more extreme as he took her deeply. Pausing a moment to allow her to grow used to the sensation, he only had to roll his hips to make it impossible for her to hold on. Crying out wildly and repeatedly, she ceded control of everything gladly, to pleasure and to oneness with Luc.

‘More?’ he suggested with amusement when, after the longest time, she finally grew quiet.

Her answer was a look as she bore down firmly, taking him.

Luc answered this by pinning her hands above her head. He loomed over her, and then he took her fast and hard. Her world exploded. His did too.

She wasn’t sure how long exactly they stayed in bed. The time they spent together couldn’t be measured in hours, only in pleasure, and that was extreme. She went for water in the kitchen and when he found her there, they made love again. Luc lifted her onto the counter and nudged his way between her thighs. Then he carried her back to bed and made love to her again. His stamina was inexhaustible, and when she woke the sun was streaming strongly into the room and Luc was working some magic with his hands.

‘Your needs match mine,’ he whispered as she stared at him sleepily.

‘What a great way to wake up.’

Eventually they fell asleep again, entwined in each other’s arms, and when she woke dusk had fallen, and Luc was behind her, one hand pressing her down so he could watch as he pleasured her. ‘Maybe this is the best way to wake up,’ she gasped into the pillow, crying out as he tipped her over the edge. Reaching back, she moved fiercely with him, gripping his buttocks with fingers like iron, working him mercilessly until Luc fell too. They slept some more and then they bathed together. She sat between his legs in the tub, resting back against his chest as Luc kissed her neck and lazily soaped her.

‘You’re so relaxed after sex,’ he commented, nuzzling her hair back so he could expose her sensitive skin.

‘I’m exhausted,’ she admitted, smiling.

‘At last.’ He laughed.

Leaving the water, he pulled a towel down from the heated rail and held it out for her. She was practically purring as he cocooned her in its fluffy warmth. Resting her head against his shoulder, she smiled as he wrapped his arms around her. There was nothing else on earth like this. Just being with Luc was enough.

She’d left his ranch in such a rush she hadn’t thought to bring any spare clothes with her. She borrowed his shirt—a shirt for a giant. She wore it like a dress. Her feet were bare and her hair was gathered back in a ponytail. There was no artifice between them, no tension, no pride. They made a meal together in the kitchen, laughing as they shared the tasks. It seemed like the most natural thing on earth to her. She had never been more relaxed.

‘So, soon-to-be Senhora Marcelos,’ Luc murmured, standing behind her so he could wrap his arms around her waist. ‘When you live with me and be my love, and we have a football team of children, will you still find time to work and help me build up my business?’

‘Don’t worry about my commitment to my work. I will be energised. I have every intention of adding a human touch to your increasingly efficient machine.’

‘And you’ll still find time to make love with me?’

‘If we’re going to have a team of children, I think I’ll have to,’ she pointed out pragmatically.

‘I’ll have it written into your contract, just to be sure,’ Luc said, acting stern. ‘Along with my promise to love and cherish you, even when I teach you to ride—’