Winning It All

by Catherine Mann

  She nipped his bottom lip, then traced the sting with the warm tip of her tongue. “We should stop. What if we get caught?”

  “We won’t. They’re all busy dancing, and it’s dark over here.” He tucked her deeper into the shadowy orchard, branches rustling overhead. “You said you have to leave, so let’s be together now.” He’d had a lot more in mind than a few stolen kisses tonight, but if that’s all they could have, he would remind her of just how good things could be between them.

  Vanessa panted lightly against his neck, the sweet swell of her breasts rising and falling faster against his chest. “We can’t take this all the way, Nicolas, not here. It’s too big a risk.”

  Desire pounded through his veins, throbbing fuller, harder, lower. “All the way?”

  “I didn’t mean that.” She shook her head, the slide of her hair along her shoulders shimmering in the starlight. “Damn it, Nicolas, you jumble my head.”

  “Come closer,” he pulled her hips to his, “and I’ll take care of your tension.”

  “You’re arrogant.”

  “But you haven’t walked away.” He dipped his head again, stopping just short of touching her, watching, waiting.

  Shadows skittered through her eyes, illuminated by the moonbeams filtering through the trees. She blinked fast, swallowed hard, then arched up to meet his mouth full on.

  Her frenzy intensified. Adrenaline still surged through him from the match, from the competition, the win. And most of all, from Vanessa. Kissing her equaled the rush of scoring three goals on a muddy course in the rain. The effort and exertion and almost painful tension was worth every bit of payoff. This woman seared his senses.

  She was wrong for him on all levels with her overprivileged background and her high-strung ways. She was the one person who’d ever threatened his control. He would learn, though, how to have her while keeping himself in check. He was determined. He’d pulled himself up from a poor upbringing to become one of the wealthiest and most respected athletes in the polo world. His father had been a farmer on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, their horses certainly not of polo quality, but Nicolas had felt the calling, the affinity from an early age.

  Luck had played a part in the right person seeing him in a race at eight years old. Even at that age, he was already too large to be a jockey…but polo? Argentina’s famed sport was a perfect fit for him. He’d nabbed a sponsor. Now his family lived in a mansion he’d purchased for them.

  Yet, no matter how hard he worked, he never forgot that a fluke of fate and the largesse of people like the Hughes family had lifted him out.

  Vanessa didn’t have a clue. Still, that didn’t keep him away from her, even knowing her volatile nature could land him back in hot water again with his sponsors. His hands roved lower, cupping her bottom, bringing her closer.

  “You’re addictive,” he whispered against her mouth.

  She laughed shakily. “You make me sound like crack.”

  He swept a hand through her silky hair trailing over her shoulders. “Seeing you, feeling you move, takes me higher than any drug.”

  “Quit with the outrageous compliments.” She scratched a nail along his bristly jaw line. “You haven’t seen me all day.”

  “I watched you from the field.” He pressed her closer until she couldn’t possibly miss his arousal. So close, memories of being inside her surged through him, sending his pulse galloping against his ribs.

  “You were focused on the game.”

  “I am a master at multitasking.” He ran his hand up her back to cup her face.

  She swayed toward him, then froze. She clasped his wrists. “Wait, we can’t do this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t stay. I, uh…” Shadows chased through her eyes again. “I have something to do tonight.”

  Jealousy nipped with the strength of a horse’s bite. “Then why did you come to the party?”

  “To tell you personally.”

  Reason edged through the suspicion. If she planned to move on to some other guy, she wouldn’t be here. Vanessa might be impulsive, but she’d always been honest with him. He could count on that much. If she didn’t intend to see some other man, he could think of only one other reason that would make Vanessa miss a good party.

  “Are you ill?” He searched her face in the dim moonlight.

  Her eyes widened. “Why would you ask that?”

  “The season’s in full swing and you always represent your father. You look pale. Are you having trouble with your diabetes?” Not many knew about her health concerns. She hadn’t even told him last year. She’d only recently divulged it to him after he’d teased her relentlessly over her refusal to share a fudge-covered dessert with him when he’d chartered a jet to fly them to dinner in a remote Vermont town last month. The isolated locale and distance from the Bridgehampton frenzy provided the anonymity they needed to enjoy an evening together.

  She shook her head. “I know how to monitor myself. I’ve been doing it since I was nine.”

  After she’d set aside that uneaten sundae, Vanessa had told him about learning to overcome her fear of needles to administer her own injections as a teen. She’d vowed it hurt less than watching her father wince when he gave her the shots. She cared for her dad, that was patently obvious. Christian Hughes’s battle with cancer had to be hell for Vanessa. No wonder she was moody.

  Nicolas rested his forehead against hers. “You have had a stressful summer. I only want to make sure you are all right. I…care for you.”

  And he did care. He’d always wanted her, but somewhere around the time she’d sipped her diet soda to hide the tears over how much her father worried about her health, Nicolas had felt something shift inside him. He felt that same unsettling change rumbling around in his chest again now.

  Her fingers clutched the lapels of his suit, her forehead furrowing. Something obviously weighed heavily on her mind, something that had made her want to cancel their evening rendezvous.

  “Nicolas, I should tell—”

  A rustling sounded through the trees, fast, loud. Vanessa jolted, her mouth snapping closed. Nicolas pivoted fast to shield her from view, because the crunch of underbrush left him with no doubts.

  Someone was coming toward them.

  Two

  Vanessa clutched Nicolas’s arm, her heart hammering as hard as the bass throb of the distant band. Frantically she scanned the shadowy clearing, peering through the surrounding trees. The underbrush rustled louder. A scruffy dog lunged from behind a pear tree.

  Straight toward Vanessa.

  She stifled a scream and ducked behind Nicolas. Not that she was scared of dogs, but this little beast rocketed forward at lightning speed, pink leash flapping behind. Nicolas shielded her, his stance planted. Vanessa gasped in gulping breaths to steady her pulse, the clean night air fragrant with ripening pears. The wiry-haired mutt ran circles around them, yipping, but thank heavens not nipping

  “Thank heaven, it’s just a dog.” She rested her cheek against Nicolas’s back, the scent of his bay-rum soap stirring arousing memories of showering with him last summer. But the rowdy little pet had served up a hefty reminder of how easily they could be interrupted. Discussing her possible pregnancy would require total privacy. “We can talk later. I’ll just walk the dog back to the party before someone comes looking—”

  A whistle echoed in the distance. “Muffin?” a female voice shouted through the night. “Muffin, come here sweetie. Come to Mama.”

  Rhinestone collar refracting moonbeams, Muffin’s ears perked up, twitching like satellite dishes working for a better connection. She was one ugly-cute scrap of fur, and small to have made so much noise.

  “Muffin?” the female voice sounded louder, closer.

  Nicolas knelt to grab for the leash. Muffin scampered deftly out of reach. A branch swayed.

  “Damn,” Nicolas muttered. “No more time.”

  He gathered Vanessa tightly against his chest and guided her behind
a tree. Muffin trotted toward them, all but pointing a paw their way. Vanessa’s stomach clenched. They’d eluded the press, her family and Nicolas’s Black Wolves teammates all summer long. They couldn’t possibly be discovered now because of one persistent pup.

  “Shoo, shoo!” She waved the dog away with her hand.

  “Shhh,” Nicolas whispered before brushing a kiss across her cheek.

  Just a simple skim of his lips had her relaxing deeper into his arms, her legs more than a little wobbly.

  Staying still and quiet was tough enough with Nicolas clamping a possessive hand on her spine, his fingers straying to dip inside the swooped low cut back of her silk charmeuse evening gown. The air grew thick, her breathing so raspy she feared Muffin’s owner would hear. Damn Nicolas and his tormenting caresses that turned her muscles to marshmallows right when they were seconds away from possible discovery.

  Who was the impulsive one now?

  “Muffin,” the female voice demanded, branches parting a couple of trees away, “no more playing. Come. Now!”

  Muffin sighed heavily and turned away, trotting toward her owner, leash tracing a serpentine trail in the dust back into the trees.

  “There you are,” the woman said—to her dog, thank goodness. “You’re a naughty girl…” Her voice faded as she left with her pet.

  Vanessa sagged back against the tree trunk, ragged bark biting into her back. Her heart drummed in her ears in the quiet aftermath. “That was close.”

  “Too close.”

  His fierce scowl reminded her well how dangerous a game they played. Her liaison with him now would cause a bigger scandal, given how she’d ended things before. Her brother had been angry enough last year when rumormongers had dared impugn the Hughes family’s impartiality just because she happened to be sleeping with one of the players…. Okay, her brother wasn’t at fault for her decisions. She had known going in that it would look bad.

  Yet, here she was again, with Nicolas. How was she any better now than last summer? Just better at deception.

  Nicolas looked from the clearing back to her. “They’re gone. We’re safe. Now what did you want to tell me?”

  A secret that would pour fertilizer onto the rumormongers. She should wait until she was sure. Why upset him for no reason? She still hadn’t taken the home pregnancy test. Better wait to confirm the pregnancy. She would decide what to do then.

  Vanessa smoothed his tuxedo lapels. The heat of him warmed through the fabric and tempted her to explore further. Desire crackled through her until she could have sworn her hair sparked with static, but for once she would be strong around him. “We will have to talk later. I’m not thinking clearly tonight. It was a long day in the sun. I should have skipped the party.” She should have skipped a lot of things this summer. But looking up into Nicolas’s dark eyes melting over her like the dangerous chocolate she shouldn’t have, she couldn’t delude herself into thinking she was any stronger at resisting him now than she had been before.

  He nodded curtly. “Okay then. No boathouse for tonight. But rest up, Vanessa, because by tomorrow I will have an even more enticing plan in place, one you can’t resist.” His hands slid in a seductive path from her back to her hips then back up, stopping just below her breasts. “We’re going to be together soon.”

  His confidence would have irritated her, except she knew full well her ability to resist him was in serious peril. She would not be impulsive this time the way she’d been in their last encounter, not to mention all their assignations last year. With the possibility of a surprise pregnancy looming over her, she needed to stay in control now more than ever.

  Carefully, Vanessa closed the front door of her childhood home with the barest click echoing up into the vaulted foyer. She was good at sneaking in undetected after years of practice.

  The Tudor-style mansion still radiated the same formality, with bulky antiques, thick curtains and the heavy scent of lemon furniture oil. The hallway sprawled upward into a cathedral ceiling, open to the living room. Her father hadn’t changed anything since Lynette died.

  Vanessa grasped the banister, the wooden rail cool and familiar under her hand. Even from the stairs she could see the carved fireplace mantel with a massive oil portrait of her and Sebastian as children above. The rest of the art on the walls was polo-centric—horses in action with bold players, women in long dresses and umbrellas watching from the sidelines. She’d taken a marker to one as a child, muddying up a dress with a Sharpie.

  Wow, she’d been a brat. Yet she’d never doubted her dad’s love.

  Once her father had gotten out of the residential treatment facility last month, she’d closed up her sleek little condo in New York City and moved back to the fourteen-bedroom family hub without even asking. Sure her dad had plenty of nurses, but she wanted to spend as much time with him as possible. She liked to think her presence comforted him, even if he didn’t say so. And she could still continue her new job for the season, her pet project—increasing entertainment activities for the children of spectators. She was trying to make amends, but it was hard knowing where to turn when her world was flipped upside down.

  Italian heels dangling from her fingers, she tiptoed down the hall, not wanting to wake her father. He slept so fitfully these days. Of course, he’d always been a light sleeper with an ear perked to listen for her as a teen.

  “How was the party?” her father’s voice called through his partially opened bedroom door.

  Caught again. Had she ever fooled him at all? Her heart squeezed with love for him.

  She stepped inside, hinges creaking softly. “Hi, Daddy.”

  Christian Hughes lay propped up by a pile of pillows in his four-poster bed. His face was chalkier than the ivory satin sheets. The thick comforter enveloped him, his body emaciated from the treatments. He seemed frail, as if the heavy bedspread could crush him like poured concrete.

  He’d completely shaved his head after the second round of chemo robbed him of his freshly grown hair. He looked just like his son, Sebastian. Of course, Seb was the biological child. She swallowed down welling tears her ailing father didn’t need to see.

  Her father had always been fit and tanned from days on his horses, full of energy whether he was cinching million-dollar deals or stomping divots with his daughter.

  Now his breathing rattled.

  And her heart broke.

  She stepped deeper into the muggy room, temperature cranked up because he was frequently cold. Setting her shoes and purse on the floor, she sat on the antique beech-wood chair beside his bed and tucked her legs underneath her. “Sorry to wake you.”

  “You didn’t. I was waiting up.” He raised a bony hand and patted her arm, his fingers so thin the wedding band he still wore almost slid off. “I know you’re an adult, but even when you’re fifty and under my roof, I will worry until I hear your feet hit the stairs.”

  His hand slid from her, skipping lightly along a framed family photo on the bedside table before falling to rest on the bedspread. The picture had been taken when she was around five, her sky-blue bow perfect for the start of polo season. She wasn’t looking at the photographer, but rather staring off into the distance. She still remembered the day and how she’d wanted to play in the barn instead of attend a match that seemed endlessly long.

  That day, she would have taken a Sharpie to the polo players’ stark-white pants if there’d been one handy. Those feelings had been the driving force behind her ideas for expanding the activities offered to entertain the children of families attending polo matches. “I’m sorry I’ve given you reason to doubt me.”

  “You’re high-spirited, but in a good way, like Sassy.” One of his prized fillies, gone now from old age. Sassy had been past her playing prime when Vanessa was a child, but the horse still had spirit.

  “Remember how I begged to ride her?”

  A reminiscent smile tugged at his parched, cracked lips. “Scared the hell out of me that day I relented.”

  “I go
t tossed on my butt.” She’d stained and torn her best riding pants, which had made her mom mad. Her dad had usually been able to tease Lynette out of her tempers. That day he’d been silent, shaken.

  She understood the feeling too well now as she faced the possibility of losing him. “Thanks for letting me ride her.”

  “I never could say no to you.”

  “I meant thanks for letting me land on my butt. I learned more that way.”

  He laughed weakly. “That’s my girl.”

  Too bad she still had to learn the hard way.

  She glanced at the family photo in the silver frame. Her father had placed it there after Lynette died to remind him of his perfect family. Perfect except for Lynette’s tantrums and how they’d kept a huge secret from their children. What had made them decide to adopt her? What had made her biological parents give her up?

  Her hand slipped to her stomach and she thought of her own increasing nerves as each day passed on the calendar. She wasn’t mother material any more than Lynette Hughes had been. Panic pounded her chest for a brief moment until she quickly realized she would never put an emotional wall up between herself and a child, no matter how different her child was from her.

  Still, Lynette had chosen to bring her into this house. Why? She wanted to ask Christian, needing answers, though she couldn’t make herself add another line of worry to his weary face tonight. But his frail frame reminded her time could be running out. Her answers could die with her father…. The last thought choked her.

  She would hold on to her questions for a while longer.

  Vanessa patted his hand, bruised from multiple IVs. “I’m glad you waited up for me so we could talk.”

  “I always wait up for my girl.”

  How many hours of worry had she caused him? Had pushing the envelope become such a habit for her she’d subconsciously chosen Nicolas to create a stir? The possibility unsettled her more than a little. Maybe, just maybe, she’d done that last year, but this year? Her attraction to him was undeniable. There was definitely no secret wish to get caught, because that would end things for him. Nicolas had been her one bright spot in a summer filled with pain.