“For Lucifer’s sake,” he reminded her.
“Of course.” To say nothing of the full body-and-heart experience of being with Dante. He made her feel like a woman. Not just a trainer, a sister, a daughter…a woman. She liked the feeling. She liked it a lot.
Which was her hard luck, Rose concluded. Her body she could deal with. But her heart? Her heart was a willful and foolish thing that insisted on longing for things it couldn’t have. Like Dante.
“I have to get back,” she said into a suddenly awkward silence. “Routine is everything where Lucifer’s concerned, and he’s due a feed.”
“Is it really Lucifer’s routine that concerns you, or something else?”
You almost naked… You like a magnet, drawing me closer to danger with every breath. You… You… You…
If a door closed in Dante’s face, he’d find a window to climb through. Had he chosen this dramatic setting to stir her senses: crashing waves, gleaming rocks, golden beach, inhabited only by Dante and his fierce black stallion? Well, he’d succeeded, because she wanted him more than ever. She was even tempted to throw herself on his mercy and explain why she’d been crying last night.
And what type of reaction did she think she’d get?
Did it matter so long as she explored every avenue to help her father? There was only pride standing in her way.
But pride was all you had sometimes.
“I’ll see you back at the ranch.” Mounting up, she gathered the reins, but Dante stood in front of her so she couldn’t go anywhere. “I’ve still got work to do,” she insisted.
“You work for me.” Dante was equally insistent as he kept his hand on her reins. “And we’re not leaving yet. You need to warm up after your swim,” he pointed out matter-of-factly. And just when she was thinking, how nice, he cares, he added, “I don’t want you taking time off sick.”
“Thanks for the concern, but—”
“But you can help me build a fire,” Dante supplied in a voice that suggested she’d better do as he said if she wanted to keep her job.
Dismounting, she looped Lucifer’s reins over a branch, and then managed to stumble on a rock she hadn’t noticed and almost fell in to Dante’s arms. Having steadied her, he let her go disappointingly quickly. But that moment of contact was incredible. And incredibly dangerous, Rose scolded herself, because it just took her back to feelings going nowhere.
Dante made a great fire. Hunkering down in front of it, she wrapped her arms around her knees. She hadn’t realized how cold she’d become. She flinched when he dropped his shirt around her shoulders. “You’re shivering,” he observed with a shrug when she glanced up at him.
“Thanks.” The gesture warmed her more than the fire, and the shirt carried his distinctive scent. It was warm and clean and spicy, with sunshine woven into the mix.
“You’re good at building fires,” she commented as the flames rose higher. “Did you inherit that skill from your mother’s side of the family?”
Dante stillness chilled her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“I don’t think you know what you mean.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” she insisted. “I’m just interested. We all inherit something from our forebears.”
“I build fires to keep me warm,” Dante told her with a long level look.
“Well, I apologize. I know it’s not for me to ask questions.”
“Why not?” he demanded. “It’s never stopped you in the past. My best guess is that you’d like to know everything about me.”
“But not so I can gossip about you.” She matched his level stare. “I’m honestly just interested, and that’s all. I know, I know,” she said as Dante settled back on his haunches. “I shouldn’t be questioning the boss.”
“And if I weren’t your boss?”
“I wouldn’t be here.” She shrugged.
Her reward was a burn of amusement in Dante’s eyes. It called her a liar as clearly as if he’d said the words.
“So why were you crying last night?” he demanded.
Would he be dismissive if she discussed her father with him? She couldn’t bear that. If he blamed her father for his current predicament, she couldn’t bear that either and doubted she could sit quietly by and say nothing. She chose the coward’s way out. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“And I don’t want to talk about my life either,” Dante said pointedly.
Checkmate, she thought as he held her stare steady in his.
Chapter Four
“Remind me to buy you some new underwear,” Dante commented dryly as they mounted up.
“Get off my case,” Rose warned. She felt looser with him now they’d spent some time together.
“Harassment?” he suggested. He laughed. “Try telling that to the tribunal on Isla Celeste.”
“The tribunal being the Blood and Thunder team?”
“If you’re not up to life here, you can always go home.”
“Admit defeat? Not an option.”
“Why am I not surprise?”
“You’re getting to know me?”
They shared a look that warmed her. “I’m a working woman, not an ornament to be displayed.”
“Clearly,” Dante agreed as they cantered alongside each other. “But you could be both.”
“Not this side of sanity,” Rose exclaimed, urging Lucifer forward. “You’re a couple of centuries behind the times,” she called back.
“So why were you crying last night?” he demanded, catching up.
Bringing his stallion across her horse’s path, he prevented her from riding on. Forced to rein in, she exclaimed with impatience. Was Dante going to fly to Ireland to sort out her father’s problems? No. It was up to Rose to find the answers—and not at the cost of becoming one of Dante’s disposable sex toys. It was one thing flirting with him on the beach, but payment in kind was a fantasy that could only end in disaster. She couldn’t and she wouldn’t risk it.
So why was she even thinking about it?
“This is your last chance,” he warned. “I want to know why you were crying.”
“It’s not part of my job description to tell you every thought that goes through my head.” Gritting her teeth, she turned for home, and with the thought of food and a comfortable bed ahead of him, Lucifer didn’t take much urging into a gallop.
She’d need a leave of absence, at the very least, Rose had concluded by the time she rode into the yard. She would have to ask Dante to release her, and he would want to know why. All she’d achieved today was to put off the moment of reckoning. That was where pride got you. It was a destructive defense mechanism for those without the guts to get on and do or say what had to be done. And she was one hundred percent guilty on all counts.
~~o0o~~
Version two of a long, lonely night was no better than the first. In fact, it was worse, because now she had more to worry about. Ringing her father to reassure him that she was doing everything she could think of felt worse than a cop-out, it felt like a lie. What had she done so far? Precisely nothing, other than to research flights on the Internet, only to discover that there were no flights to Ireland until next week. And that was even supposing she could arrange transport from the estancia to the airport. She’d have to ask one of the gauchos to help her out with a lift—Miguel, maybe—but even if she found a flight with as few changes as possible and got herself to the airport to fly home, then what? Whatever tomorrow held, she would have to try to make more progress than she’d made today—
It was tomorrow, Rose realized in despair as she glanced at her phone. She’d never broken a promise to her father yet, and she wasn’t about to start now.
It was four in the morning when she strode toward the stable block to make plans and think. Her head always cleared around horses. They calmed her.
They needed to tonight. The fact that asking Dante for help was her only realistic chance of finding a solution hadn’t filled Rose
with confidence. She was pinning her hopes on the circles he moved in having little use for commercial airlines. There was just a faint chance he might know someone about to leave for Ireland. There’d been a lot of talk on the estancia recently about the Curragh in County Kildare, where the Irish National stud resided. She’d be the first to admit that hoping someone Dante knew might be visiting the area and could give her a lift back to Ireland was shooting for the moon, but she had nothing else.
She walked swiftly past Cesar’s fabulous beach house, where she guessed Dante was staying. The lights were out, and the only sound was the rush of the sea and an owl hooting. Crossing the yard, she put in the code for the door of the stable block and let herself in. Turned out she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep.
“Dante?” She’d know that back anywhere. Her heart leapt. Even clothed in a casual shirt with the sleeves rolled up to display his powerful forearms, the set of his shoulders and that thick mop of inky black hair was unmistakable. With his booted legs crossed and resting on the tack room table, he appeared to be dozing in the chair.
“Rose,” he murmured, making her jump. “I wondered how long it would take you to get here.”
“You were expecting me?”
“Where else would you go if you couldn’t sleep?”
“How did you know I wouldn’t be able to sleep?”
“Really?” His face was amused as he swung around.
He was a deadly seducer. The faint smile in his voice and the way he tipped his head to give her that look… “All right. I’m desperate,” she admitted. “But not for the reasons you think.”
“Tell me,” he prompted in the same lazy drawl.
Unfolding his magnificent body, he stood, and she saw the man his opponents would see on the polo field. Big. Intimidating. Menacing. Dark. He was ruthless, possibly dangerous, and almost certainly without a scintilla of feeling in him.
And this is the man I’m going to ask for help?
What alternative did she have? Dante was a vigilante in his other life. He knew how to deal with difficult situations. He had contacts in every police force in the world. He was on first-name terms with government ministers. The Blood and Thunder team was admired equally for polo, and for its other activities, which it carried out with the full backing of interested countries. He was the best—the only—chance she had.
“I need to get home to Ireland quickly,” she admitted.
His expression didn’t change. “Why?”
“My father’s got a problem. He needs me.”
“His health?”
“No. I don’t think so. I don’t know all the facts. He wouldn’t tell me over the phone. I need to go home and see him face-to-face.”
“What makes you think I can help?”
“You probably can’t—won’t,” she amended, “and I don’t blame you. I’ve hardly been a model employee, and you owe me absolutely nothing. But I’ve run out of ideas. I’ve checked, and there are no flights to Ireland until next week, and I need to be there yesterday—”
“So?” he prompted.
She lifted her chin. “So I was wondering if you might know anyone with transport going over there?”
Dante huffed softly with amusement. “That’s a long shot, isn’t it?”
“It’s all I’ve got,” she admitted. “And as this is the time of year for checking out the yearlings and foals at the Curragh, I thought, maybe—”
“I’d take you there?”
Now she’d made her plea out loud, it did sound ridiculous. Dante clearly thought so.
“What would you be prepared to pay for this trip?” he asked.
Not “how much,” she noticed, but what would she be prepared to pay. She had to give it to him, Dante got straight to the point. “Anything,” she said bluntly. “Whatever it takes.”
He gave her a long, considering look. “I can always be tempted by the prospect of new horses.”
Rose Delaney, you’ve just been put in your place.
“We have the best horses you’ll find anywhere in Ireland on our farm back home,” she insisted.
Dante gave a slight inclination of his head. “Ireland’s always been a rich hunting ground for me in the past.”
If there hadn’t been such heat in his eyes, she might have taken him at face value, but she got the sense that he was playing her as a tiger might toy with a mouse.
Undeterred, she continued, “I can show you better horses than they have on the Curragh. One we’ve got in particular: Stargazer. He’s not fast enough to be a racehorse, but he’s agile and intelligent, and I know that with the right training, he’d make a great polo pony—” The words froze in her mouth as she remembered her father telling her that if he couldn’t repay his debts, all the horses would be taken from the farm. She had nothing to offer Dante.
“This horse called Stargazer,” Dante prompted. “Any good for stud?”
“No balls,” she murmured distractedly.
The sound of Dante’s laughter shook her round. “I hope you’re referring to the horse.”
She studied his face. It wasn’t so black and thunderous now. If she could take advantage of this brief break in the storm, maybe she could persuade him to help.
“Is that why you were crying?” he pressed, frowning. “Over a horse?”
She could be very emotional when it came to her pa or the horses. She could be very emotional full stop. She hid her feelings because it was unprofessional not to do so, but she had a fiery Celtic spirit and all that went with it, including the supreme highs and the desperate lows. If Dante couldn’t or wouldn’t help, she’d be heading for one of those lows, and that was a real time suck, and one she couldn’t afford. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Throwing herself on his mercy, she whispered, “Please help me.”
She should have known that playing the helpless female would cut no ice with Dante. “You were happy enough to leave your father in Ireland,” he pointed out. “Did it never occur to you that he could run into problems? And what about your brothers?”
“Away. And Daddy was all right when I left him.”
“You left the horses, including this precious Stargazer, without a second thought.”
“In the care of my father,” she explained. “But I didn’t leave them to be slaughtered,” she blurted before she could stop herself.
“Slaughtered?” Dante repeated quietly.
“The man who’s threatening my pa said if he doesn’t get his money, he’ll take the horses to the knacker’s yard.” She shrugged unhappily. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t think he’s even interested in horses. This is just a form of blackmail.”
“Who is this man?”
“I don’t know—some local thug who’s throwing his weight about while my brothers and I are out of the country. Will you help me or not? I’ll do anything—”
“Yes. I can see that,” Dante said calmly.
Why was he hesitating? Why wasn’t Dante taking her up on the offer? She’d just flung herself at his feet, but he didn’t seem interested.
Good! Rose’s prim inner self insisted. Sex with Dante Formosa was a fast road to disaster. Yes, it might be all her erotic dreams come true, but while dreams could be dismissed, reality had a habit of sticking around.
That said, the sexual heat radiating from him was incredible. He was like a wild creature that needed to feed. She could feel his heat embracing her, yet he still made no move. “I know you want to help me,” she pressed. “You care about injustice as much as I do—”
Dante’s hand sliced through the air, silencing her. “You know nothing about me.” Lifting his head, he stared down with all the arrogance of centuries of breeding from his father’s side, and warrior-like command from his mother’s people.
Which was just the cue she’d been waiting for, Rose realized. “Your father wouldn’t stand by and see this happen—”
Dante moved so quickly, she would have fallen if he hadn’t taken her in s
uch a firm grip. “Are you suggesting I’m a coward?”
“No. This is a call to action,” she fired back. “Your father fell in love and followed his heart, in spite of the risks involved. Your mother did the same, inviting ridicule and cruelty. You fight injustice across the world, and yet you’d have me believe you can turn your back on an old man?” She flared a look of fury into his face. “I don’t believe it.”
“You have no idea what you’re asking,” Dante countered, his face within a hairsbreadth of hers. “I can’t just drop everything and fly to Ireland. You can’t even tell me what’s happening over there.”
“I’ve just got a really bad feeling,” Rose admitted.
“So I’m supposed to act on the evidence of your sixth sense?”
“Yes.”
“No,” Dante argued firmly. “I need a lot more than that.”
“And I’ll give it to you,” she said, softening beneath the cruel grip of his hands.
“You have only one currency to bargain with.”
“Don’t you think I know that?”
~~o0o~~
She was breathless with tension, and magnificent as she blazed a look of determination into his eyes. She would do anything to save her father, and he admired that. It was Rose who fired him, not the fact that she was offering herself to him.
“Please, Dante…”
“Don’t beg. I don’t want to hear you beg.”
“Then do as I ask,” she insisted.
He raised a brow. Her eyes were luminous in the darkness. Her appeal was fresh on her lips. Was she attempting to seduce him? The novelty of the situation stirred him. Removing his hands from her body, he waited to see what she’d do next.
“Will you help me?” she asked him quietly, staring up into his eyes.
Were they still talking about the problems in Ireland?
“What do you want me to do?” he murmured, holding her darkening stare in his.
“Take what’s freely offered and give me what I ask in return,” she said.
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