In the Brazilian's Debt

by Susan Stephens

  ‘I’m sorry—’ She lurched out of his way, only to have him steady her and steer her back inside the cookhouse.

  She made her way distractedly back to the table.

  ‘Where’s the coffee? Never mind,’ Danny said, seeing Lizzie’s face. ‘I’ll get us some.’

  Lizzie sank into the chair, feeling extremely vulnerable and a long way from home. Her grandmother had always been the lynchpin of her life, and she loved her without qualification. The letter was preparing her for a truth that Lizzie would never be ready to face. How could she stay on here now, as her grandmother had asked her to? How could she concentrate knowing her grandmother was so ill? Why had she ever imagined she could stick it out here while all this was going on at home?

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Danny said as soon as she came back to the table. ‘Did Chico say something to upset you?’

  Lizzie shook her head.

  ‘So it’s the letter from home that’s upsetting you,’ Danny guessed.

  ‘Yes—I’m sorry, Danny—’

  ‘But your breakfast—’

  ‘I just need a minute—’

  Chico stood back as she barged out of the cookhouse. Running blindly across the yard, she didn’t stop until she reached Flame’s stall where she hunkered down in a corner to bury her head in her knees to think. She should go home. That was where she was needed most. But she had to stay to earn that diploma to hang in the office of the business she was going to rebuild. Without that accreditation, she was no use to anyone. What to do? What to do—?

  ‘Lizzie?’

  ‘Chico!’ She sprang up, pressing herself against the wall between the stalls as he slipped the latch and walked in.

  ‘If this course is too much for you—’

  ‘It isn’t,’ she said, recovering fast.

  ‘Then, what is the matter with you?’ He glanced at the letter in her hand. ‘Not bad news from home, I hope? Your grandmother?’ he prompted with concern.

  Not for the first time, he had disarmed her with his human side. It was easier to deal with the hard, unforgiving man than this. The fact that Chico still cared about her grandmother brought tears to her eyes, and she hated herself for the weakness, but, like it or not, Chico was a link between here and home. He knew her grandmother. He remembered what a special lady she was.

  She mustn’t show weakness. She had to be strong. She owed it to her grandmother to leave Chico Fernandez in no doubt that, whatever happened, she wasn’t going anywhere until she finished his course.

  ‘If you need to go home—’

  ‘I don’t,’ she said firmly. Decision made, she stuffed the letter into her pocket. ‘You may not think I’ve made the best of starts, but I can and will improve—’

  ‘Lizzie.’ The faintest of smiles tugged at one corner of his mouth. ‘You’re doing really well, but we have a waiting list if you do want to drop out?’

  ‘I don’t want to drop out. And I’m only too well aware of how many candidates would love to take my place.’

  Chico held up his hands to calm her. ‘Then, may I suggest you relax and make the most of your time here?’

  How close they’d been, she thought as a wave of wistfulness swept over her, and how far apart they were now. How fierce was her urge to hug him tightly and share her fears about her grandmother with someone who would understand, but there was a barrier between them that prevented her doing so. Perhaps the past would always stand between them.

  * * *

  Lizzie looked so vulnerable that he was tempted to soften, but then he remembered that the line of strong characters in the Fane family had skipped a generation. Had they skipped another with Lizzie?

  ‘If there’s a problem I expect you to tell me,’ he said in his firm tutor’s voice. ‘If money’s a problem, or you’re worried about your grandmother, I’ll buy you a plane ticket home.’

  ‘Thank you for the offer, but it’s not necessary.’ She tipped her chin up to stare him in the eyes.

  He stepped in her way, one hand resting on the wall of the stall to stop her. He felt vaguely nettled. Why did she always have to do things alone? ‘Just let me know if things change.’

  ‘I will,’ she assured him stiffly, not giving one inch.

  Losing patience, he put his hand on her arm to move her aside. She was warm, firm, tempting, but that stubbornness was irreversible.

  He followed her out, closing the stable door behind them, and then followed Lizzie down the line of stalls. He could see her concern for her grandmother in the tension in her back. He sensed she was holding back tears. Well, if she wouldn’t let him, he couldn’t help her. He supposed too much dirty water had flowed beneath the bridge for either of them to ever trust each other again. That thought riled him. He didn’t like being shut out.

  He was merciless with his students during that morning’s training. Pushing them to the limits of their endurance, he made them ride the trickiest horses bareback, informing them they would leave the class one of two ways: on a stretcher, or on a flight home. Frustration of all kinds was pushing him to the limit. He knew this, but didn’t let up. Lizzie didn’t falter, but she flashed him several furious glances. She knew he was punishing them; she just didn’t know why.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said at the end of the class, making a closing gesture with his hands. ‘I’ll pin up the results of my test outside the tack room. You know the drill.’

  They all knew that some of them would be leaving today, and his students were subdued as they left the indoor training ring to go and rub down their horses. Lizzie had dismounted, and having put a head collar on her pony, she was leading him with her other arm around her friend Danny, who was repeating the course, and who today seemed to have gone backwards in training, having fallen off several times. Not his problem. He had a report to write.

  He didn’t see Lizzie again until that evening when she knocked on his office door. He was in a better mood. Having put his students through the wringer, he had found his personal training to be rigorous, but productive, and he had thrashed his opponents on the pitch ten goals to six. His injured horse was well on the way to recovery, and the beer he was currently enjoying was ice cold. Sitting back in his favourite chair with his booted feet crossed, he was more than happy to receive a visit from Lizzie Fane. Until he heard what she had to say, though it began well enough, with Lizzie in the role of supplicant.

  ‘May I speak to you for a moment, please?’ she asked politely, shutting the door behind her with her usual care.

  He wondered for a moment if Lizzie ever broke out of her shell these days. She had done when she was younger, when she used to ride like a demon round the grounds of Rottingdean, but perhaps life had knocked that exuberance out of her, because all he could feel from her now was tension. He was instantly alert.

  ‘Do you have a problem?’ Everyone would have read the test results by now, and he knew Lizzie wouldn’t like them.

  ‘Yes, I’ve got a problem.’

  ‘So...?’ Spreading his arms wide, he encouraged her to begin.

  ‘It’s not me that’s got the problem,’ she began.

  ‘Let me guess—this is about Danny.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ she agreed.

  ‘There’s no one on that list you should be worrying about, except yourself. You’re here on your own behalf, not to run a nannying service.’

  He stared at her keenly. Lizzie had more than a little of her grandmother’s steel in her, but there was more to this than a plea for a fellow student, he suspected.

  ‘I’ve already given Danny a second chance. She’s repeating the course. Last year she had an excuse. This year? Better I get rid of her now than dash her hopes last minute. You need to let this go, Lizzie. And now I have work to do—’

  ‘I thought you were someone special,’ she said as he tu
rned away. ‘I thought you gave people a chance, because you had been given a chance by Eduardo—’

  ‘That would be one chance,’ he snapped in reply, incredulous that she would argue back, and furious she would bring his mentor into this. ‘No one handed me my life on a plate. And in spite of what you think of me, I do know how hard it is—’

  ‘How hard you make it,’ she countered.

  He shrugged. ‘So not everyone’s going to make the grade. That’s something you need to accept, especially if you intend to make a success of a business one day.’

  ‘I will make a success of my business, but this is different,’ she insisted. ‘This is unjust. All I’m asking is that you reinstate Danny. It will destroy her if you send her away. And she can only improve. She’d not done anything terrible—’

  ‘Or anything notable, either,’ he pointed out, determined to ignore Lizzie’s plea. ‘Am I supposed to wait around indefinitely in the hope that one day Danny will improve?’

  ‘She’s heartbroken that you’re letting her go.’

  ‘And I’m a businessman who can’t afford to have one substandard student graduate from my training course.’

  ‘Danny isn’t substandard,’ Lizzie argued hotly. ‘She lost her confidence last year, and that’s all.’

  ‘So, how long is it going to take her to find the confidence she’s lost? She’s had a year to find it.’

  ‘If you let her stay, she’ll prove herself to you. I’ll vouch for her. All I’m asking is just one more chance.’

  ‘No,’ he said flatly.

  ‘So that cosy little nugget in your brochure about wanting to give people the same chance you had is just a cynical piece of self-serving rubbish, put there to make you look good?’

  He stared at her in amazement. So little Lizzie Fane had teeth after all. ‘Have you quite finished?’ he said evenly, hiding his approval of her stand.

  ‘Not by a long chalk,’ she assured him, blazing into glorious flame. ‘You don’t just have a chip on your shoulder, you have a rock.’

  ‘And you have said more than enough, don’t you think?’ He paused. ‘What’s your real problem, Lizzie?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I think you do. So, either you tell me what’s eating you, or you go back to your room and calm down.’

  ‘Will you let Danny come back? Please.’ Lizzie’s tone softened. ‘She’ll be fine. Danny’s got as much talent as anyone else. It’s just that you intimidate everyone.’

  ‘Except you, it seems,’ he observed dryly.

  ‘I’ve known you for a long time, Chico.’

  ‘You knew me once,’ he corrected her.

  ‘Could we put that right?’ Her gaze flickered as she stared at him.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘That all depends...’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘THAT ALL DEPENDS on what?’ she queried, her gaze steady on Chico’s.

  A few potent seconds ticked by, and then he growled. ‘On this—’

  She had not expected Chico to move so fast, or to reach for her and drag her into his arms. Nor had she expected this to inflame her senses to such an extent that it blotted out everything, especially the past, leaving only the piercing reality of now.

  There was nothing tender about Chico’s kiss. It was an explosion of passion that rammed her back against the wall as he ground his body into hers. She responded with matching fire. She couldn’t have held back if she had wanted to. Chico had unleashed something in her that demanded immediate release, and it was exciting that he was so familiar, and yet a stranger to her. She hardly recognised the passionate woman kissing him back as herself. She had never behaved like this. She had never responded with such instant lust to a man, but this honed and harder Chico was so much darker than the youth she had idolised, and his kisses mirrored this. Brutal and bone melting, they were so very, very dangerous, and she was quickly lost to the point that she staggered when he let her go.

  It was a relief when he released her, she told herself firmly. What if he hadn’t? She wouldn’t have trusted herself to break away first.

  She was not so glad that Chico was staring down at her now with an expression in his eyes that could only be described as the conquering hero viewing his conquest. Nothing could have made her recover faster.

  She wouldn’t be making that mistake again.

  ‘What shall I tell Danny?’ she asked coolly.

  ‘Tell her you bought her one last chance.’

  * * *

  The next few weeks passed in a blur of activity. The weather was cooling down and it was chilly in the mornings. Brazil was such a big country, it was located in the Southern, Western, and even the Northern Hemisphere, Lizzie had learned, but it would be cold in Scotland, of that much she was sure. Cold, like Chico’s heart, she reflected on her way to class. His kisses were smouldering, but the look in his eyes when he’d let her go that time in his office had chilled her.

  Trying to put personal thoughts out of her mind wasn’t easy when she joined the rest of the grooms as they gathered round Chico on horseback. He was such a mesmerising presence, he held everyone’s attention, especially hers. She found herself touching her lips, and had to pull her hand away, but it was too late to blank that stormy encounter in his office.

  ‘I have something to say to you all,’ he announced.

  The students craned forward. All they craved was a word of praise, or a glimmer of approval from the infamous hard man of polo. She had learned to watch his eyes, Lizzie realised as Chico waited for his students to settle. Those eyes could turn cold in an instant if something displeased him, or hot, as she knew only too well.

  She kept her horse a little way back from the others, wanting to put as much distance as she could between herself and Chico. Even when she was concentrating fiercely on her training, she was always aware of him, watching her, judging her—thinking who knew what about her? She could never shut him out. That did have one good result in that it made her doubly determined to excel. She would never give Chico a chance to criticise her work, and she maintained a consistently cool professional front—which wasn’t easy when she couldn’t drag her gaze away from his mouth as he spoke, or from his powerful hands as he gestured. When he sweet-talked a pony in that husky, faintly accented voice, she was lost, and each time he rode around the ring to demonstrate a particular technique, she was transfixed. Watching Chico in the saddle was like watching sex with clothes on. There was just too much thrusting going on with those lean, powerful hips—

  ‘Do I have your attention today, Ms Fane?’

  ‘Absolutely, Senhor Fernandez,’ she confirmed, infuriated to feel her cheeks heating up beneath Chico’s unwavering stare.

  ‘Come closer, Lizzie.’ His voice was soft for the sake of the highly strung ponies. ‘I shouldn’t have to raise my voice to attract your attention,’ he reprimanded her at the same low volume, his stern tone setting up all sorts of unwanted attention in her body. ‘You know how sensitive these ponies are to the tone of our voice, and to the volume at which we speak.’

  What were those dark eyes trying to tell her? It didn’t help that everyone was staring at her as she edged her horse forward. Chico had relaxed in the saddle and had allowed his reins to hang loose. He was so much in command in the saddle it was ridiculous. And what was even more ridiculous was imagining those powerful thighs controlling her in the same effortless way—

  ‘I’ve got a reward for you,’ he murmured, meeting her wary gaze with an amused stare. And just when she was transfixed and responding in entirely the wrong way to a simple statement, he turned to address the rest of the class. ‘You have all worked very hard, and deserve a reward.’ His mouth had curved in the way that could always send shivers of anticipation streaking down her spine. ‘There will be a guest polo matc
h—a friendly between you and the professional players. The players will of course be appropriately handicapped—’

  ‘They’ll be on foot?’ one of the male trainees suggested, making everyone laugh.

  Everyone laughed except Chico.

  ‘And there will be a party to follow the match,’ he continued, ‘when you can all let your hair down.’

  ‘That is for those of us who survive the match, I presume?’ Lizzie suggested mildly.

  The look Chico gave her sent heat rushing through her. ‘Survival is mandatory, Ms Fane. The names are up in the usual place for the grooms’ team,’ he said to the group. ‘You’ll find the name of your captain at the top of that list. I will be captaining the players’ team to ensure fair play all round—’

  As a groan went up Lizzie asked, ‘How is this fair when we won’t stand a chance?’

  ‘Goodnight, everyone,’ Chico said pleasantly, ignoring her, and, without any obvious effort or movement at all, he wheeled his horse around and cantered out of the ring.

  Lizzie refused to hurry like the other students who couldn’t wait to read the list.

  ‘Come on,’ Danny urged as she hung over the open half-door of the stall where Lizzie was currently making a huge deal out of picking out her pony’s already immaculate hooves. ‘Aren’t you interested in who’s been chosen to play? Or who’s been chosen to be our team captain?’

  ‘If Chico’s playing, that’s enough for me.’ She straightened up. ‘It’s hardly an even playing field when the trainees are going up against internationals.’

  ‘I thought you had more guts than that, Lizzie Fane. What happened to your native cunning? Or is this a sulk because Chico hasn’t taught you absolutely everything he knows?’ Danny suggested mischievously.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I certainly don’t want Chico to teach me anything, apart from equine craft.’

  ‘Liar.’

  Ignoring this, Lizzie focused on the match. ‘I suppose, if we put our heads together we could come up with some useful tactics...’