The Argentinian's Virgin Conquest

by Bella Frances

  She barely knew him, but one thing she’d picked up was that there was a storm behind all that sunshine. He could turn it on and off. On and off. Stepping up to take charge of the auction he’d been at his sunniest. Standing like a statue in the middle of the dance floor he’d been at his most thunderous. He’d looked then as if he’d like to rip someone’s head off. And then he’d slipped back into laconic, lazy lover mode. But there was something dark, something lurking behind that dimpled grin and sexy walk. She could feel it.

  But that was no reason to be so hideously inconsiderate. None.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘but I’d rather get going.’

  He pulled the towel off. Uninhibited. Totally. Dried himself and then tossed it onto the bed.

  ‘Look. If I’m angry with you it’s because you didn’t tell me about your sexual past—or lack of one.’

  Lucie was stunned. That was the last thing she’d expected to hear. He couldn’t possibly be bothered about her inexperience. Deflowering virgins was something that men boasted about. Stupid men, admittedly.

  ‘Well, gosh, I’m sorry. If I’d known it was such a big deal I would have had a T-shirt made.’

  He was walking to one of the cherrywood cabinets when he stopped and cast her a look down the side of his face.

  ‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Lucie.’

  ‘No more than contempt suits you.’

  ‘If that’s how you interpret it, then I’m sorry. But I’m serious—you should have told me about being a virgin.’

  ‘You would have stopped.’

  He started moving again. Reached into a drawer and pulled on a pair of super-tight, super-sexy black boxers. She tried so hard not to stare—but how on earth did he expect her to keep the drool in her mouth when he was standing in front of her looking as if he’d just stepped from the pages of a magazine?

  ‘I would have stopped for good reason, Lucie.’ He straightened and then reached into another drawer. He pulled out a T-shirt and slid it over his head. The shock of damp blond hair fell into place perfectly.

  ‘You’re not a silly little girl—you’re a mature woman. And you’ve chosen to sleep with your first ever sexual partner tonight? What am I supposed to think? It was clearly important for you to keep yourself chaste all these years—how old are you, anyway?’

  He was frowning. There was no trace whatsoever of Mr Sunshine.

  ‘I am twenty-five, since you ask. So charmingly.’

  She sounded awful, she knew—like some kind of snobbish harpy. And she was beginning to see his point of view. But for heaven’s sake...

  ‘My point exactly. Twenty-five-year-old princess beds Argentinian polo player in Get Rid of Virginity Quick game. Yeah? See how those headlines would read? Some people might say you used me.’

  ‘I did not use you!’

  He was now pulling on a pair of jeans, sliding a belt through the loops and buckling it. He eyed her sceptically.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, puffing herself up as much as she could while draped in a sheet. ‘Everyone knows that women don’t have equal rights in the bedroom. Men are sexual predators who take what they want, and the more that they do, the more they’re admired. What a stud! What a hero! The minute a woman goes after what she wants she’s a tart.’

  Suddenly the storm broke. Thunder spread across his brow.

  ‘You think so? You think that’s always how it works? Well, take it from me: there are a lot more female predators out there than you might imagine.’

  He blasted out the words. Fury laced every syllable. It was like being in the eye of a typhoon that had come right out of nowhere. She stood, stunned, waiting to be sure that the storm had passed before she spoke.

  ‘And your actions tonight could be interpreted as predatory...’

  Now he was barely audible, moving about, running his hands through his hair, avoiding any eye contact.

  ‘Even you don’t believe that I’m a sexual predator! How ridiculous! Listen to yourself. You know perfectly well that all that happened was that we were both in the right place at the right time. You wanted it as much as I did.’

  ‘You really expect me to believe that it was just a question of “tonight’s the night”? After twenty-five years?’

  ‘Look, I don’t expect you to believe anything.’

  ‘But you still owe me an explanation.’

  He kept his back to her, sat on the edge of the bed pulling on deck shoes.

  ‘How about this, then? Yes, I used you. I used you for sex. But you can be sure there won’t be a repeat of it.’ She sounded shrill. She sounded waspish.

  He stood up. Faced her. Hands on hips. Raised eyebrows.

  ‘Yeah, well, that was always a cert.’

  Lucie stared. ‘You really are just another insensitive pig.’

  And she walked in the column of her sheet, with as much grace as she could muster, to the door. She heaved it open and made her way back along the corridor. She passed the hot tub, bubbling away under dawn’s canopy, and stepped up into the salon, spotting her dress immediately in its shards of shame. She grabbed up her underwear and tried to wriggle into it.

  How the heck was she going to get ashore? She’d rather die than ask him for a lift in the speedboat. Could she swim? Call a water taxi?

  She was desperately fastening the legions of buttons when she heard him come close. Suddenly protecting her own space became the most critical thing she could do. She dropped the dress and gathered up the sheet.

  ‘Even an insensitive pig like me knows a liar when he sees one.’

  She turned to face him. He was leaning casually, one arm on the doorframe, head cocked to one side—but he looked as relaxed as a starched shirt.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You really need me to spell it out? Okay. I’ve known you less than twenty-four hours. But in that time I think I’ve seen every one of your princess-cut diamond faces. You went from the rudest, most ungrateful bitch I’ve ever met to a—a wreck.’

  Lucie stood her ground as he straightened up and began to pace towards her.

  ‘That panic attack? It nearly drew the curtains on your big night. And it was the only reason you even gave me entry to your father’s yacht. If I hadn’t stepped up you would have had me clapped in irons and thrown in the—the tower, or whatever you aristocrats do. And then something happened. Because the next thing I know you’re hunting me down and offering yourself to me on a plate.’

  He paused and stared at her with that penetrating gaze. She was determined to hold his eye—to stare right back while she fired a retort. But it was useless. He was right. She had used him. And she’d lied to him. How awful. How utterly, disgracefully awful.

  She stepped away, bowed her head.

  ‘When I rescued you the last thing you had on your mind was losing your virginity. Isn’t that right?’ he asked.

  She opened her mouth but he put up his hand to stop her.

  ‘Yes, I know you didn’t need to be rescued. And I know that I probably upset the whole of the marine biodiversity of the Caribbean—but that’s not the point. Here,’ he said, holding out her shoes. ‘Tell me I’m wrong.’

  Lucie reached for her shoes but he held them just out of reach and eyed her carefully. Through the haze of guilt she cast him a quick look and grabbed for them again. This time he shook his head and released them.

  She clutched them and moved away.

  ‘Lucie?’

  ‘Yes—okay,’ she said. ‘I hated you from the minute I saw you.’ She turned round to face him. ‘And when you came on the yacht I hated you even more.’

  She had. All that arrogance. While she’d been feeling so wretched! Thinking he might be her mother, of all people.

  Her mother—who had let her down. Who didn’t have time to fulfil her promise but had all the time in the world to order Lucie about, demand that she do this or that. To tell her to stay away from the very person who had stepped up and actually helped her.


  She turned to him. ‘But I was genuinely grateful for what you did. You did more for me than anyone has ever done before—helping me out like that.’

  He looked at her curiously. Suddenly she felt she’d gone too far. Given too much away. She tossed her head back.

  ‘I wanted to taste forbidden fruit, if you like. I didn’t intend that we would go as far as we did. I didn’t think for a minute that I would sleep with you. But then I thought, Why not? That’s all. There’s no big mystery.’

  She knew she sounded self-righteous. But wasn’t that always the way?

  She started furiously to pull the dress on. It was ripped at the shoulders and it was still a monster to get on, sticking at her hips and causing her to heave at it in an ungainly way. Her hands fumbled with the dratted buttons, missing the silk loops over and over, and suddenly it was too much.

  Fiery tears formed in her eyes. She’d held herself together all night and now some stupid buttons were going to be her undoing? No way. No. She tried again. Bent her head and tried to manoeuvre her fingers while he stood utterly silent behind her. Damn him. Damn.

  ‘You wait twenty-five years and then you think, Why not? I’ve had better compliments in my life.’

  Her mind flashed with images of him worshipping her, mounting her, leaning down on her, glorying in her femininity and making her feel proud of her body for the first time she could remember.

  ‘I’m sure you have.’

  ‘So I was right the first time. You used me. I was just some kind of problem-solver—first with the auction and then with the virginity.’

  How horrid. How utterly cold and calculating. Was that what he really thought of her? She could barely see her fingers through the thick, wobbling veil of unspilled tears in her eyes.

  ‘If that’s how you want to put it.’ Her voice was choked and thin but she wouldn’t turn her head, wouldn’t let a single tear fall as the buttons—finally done—held the two torn sides of her dress together.

  ‘I can’t think of a better way.’

  The hot tub bubbled back into life. Like some Greek chorus filling in every awkward pause.

  ‘And the reason you had to lose your virginity tonight was...? Because, believe me, this is the part that really interests me.’

  He really had her like a worm on a stick, turning it and making her squirm.

  ‘Because of my mother,’ she blurted, shocking herself with the words that had actually poured from her mouth.

  ‘Your mother?’

  Saying more would make her sound absolutely ridiculous. Saying less would be crazy. ‘Yes. My mother has warned me my whole life to stay away from men like my father. Men like you.’

  ‘Like me? You think I am like your father?’

  ‘Yes—and when she found out you had replaced her at the auction she was furious.’

  He narrowed one eye. ‘Your mother was furious because she thinks I am like your father and that I replaced her. And that’s why you slept with me?’

  Lucie sat down heavily on a sofa and tried to stuff her toes under the narrow straps across her evening shoes.

  ‘My mother is a bitch. That’s why I slept with you.’

  ‘Oh, that makes so much more sense.’

  Lucie looked around for some kind of distraction. Her shoes were tied, her dress was on—she needed something to occupy her hands. There was nothing—except this great hunk of man in front of her, demanding answers.

  ‘Okay. You really want to know? My mother was supposed to do this whole event with me. It’s why the CCC approached me in the first place. I might raise two quid on my own, but Lady Viv could easily raise two million. I asked her. She knows how bad my social anxiety is, and she promised she would do it. I would never in a million years have got involved in any of this if she hadn’t agreed. She said she would do it if I accepted her conditions—Oh, good grief. I don’t even know why I’m telling you any of this.’

  Suddenly his hands were round her upper arms, warm and steady. And his eyes were trained on hers.

  ‘What conditions?’

  Lucie pulled away—but he strengthened his grip.

  ‘What conditions?’

  ‘Look, none of that matters. She wants me to be more like her—and I’m nothing like her—and she doesn’t care for the things I care for. That’s all.’

  ‘Like turtles?’

  She turned on him.

  ‘Hey! I’m serious—I’m not mocking! But you said “conditions”. What conditions?’

  How did she explain?

  ‘Lose weight. Other things too, but mostly the weight.’

  She couldn’t look at him. Saying the words out loud made her feel ashamed.

  She heard two things then—the beginning of a long whistle and the ringing pulse of a phone. She looked round for hers, then remembered she didn’t have so much as a pocket handkerchief with her—and that her phone was drowning in an ice bucket somewhere.

  Lucie followed Dante’s gaze to where a phone was lighting up.

  ‘It’s fine. It’s my mother. No one else would phone this early.’

  Its ringing filled the air.

  ‘Aren’t you going to get it?’

  He half-smiled, shook his head. ‘No, I’m going to listen to the end of your story.’

  ‘My story?’

  He nodded his head. ‘Everyone has their story. And it sounds like yours is quite a complicated one.’

  ‘I’m really not in the habit of telling people my “story” or anything about me. So let’s leave it at that.’

  ‘Fine—except that your story now involves me. And it will for ever.’

  She felt that stick poke her a little more keenly, and the worm squirmed a little more painfully. Normally when people got this interested she had no difficulty whatsoever in putting them in their place—or exiting. It was part of who she was—her essence. Nobody must know anything—ever.

  And, yes, although that came more from her father than her mother, even Lady Viv ‘managed’ things. She only put out what she wanted. And she certainly wouldn’t want anything like this. Wash dirty linen in public? Never. Though wasn’t that exactly what she’d done to Lucie last night? She didn’t care one iota about Lucie’s public image, or rather public humiliation.

  Yes, she had totally stepped over the line yesterday. Leaped over it. Way over.

  ‘My mother courts attention. Craves attention. Needs it. I abhor it. She likes to look pretty. I don’t. Look pretty. So I don’t try.’

  ‘Yes, you said that already. I have to say I’m not sure where all that ugly duckling delusion comes from.’

  ‘Dante...’ She sighed, almost exasperated. ‘I’m what you’d call “the outdoors type”. In England that means I’m at home in muddy fields—well, you have horses...you know what I mean. And over here it means that I swim, I tag animals, I run on the beach. I like what I like. And I don’t try to be anyone else or please anyone else.’

  ‘That’s obvious.’

  ‘Lady Viv is all about things being pretty.’

  ‘And she finds it hard to accept that you’re more than just pretty? You have depth.’

  Lucie’s eyes widened.

  ‘And she’s jealous of you.’

  At that she laughed out loud. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. She’s not jealous! She’s embarrassed by me!’

  The words hung in the air. Unsaid for all these years. Yet there they were—bold and ugly. But resonating with truth.

  ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘Do you?’

  Lucie turned away from his gaze. It was too humiliating. She realised she must sound as if she wanted reassurance.

  ‘Look, I don’t care. I don’t need anyone to tell me what I’ve spent my life witnessing. It’s fine. It is what it is.’

  ‘You’ve really no idea.’ He seemed to say it almost to himself. ‘I really do have to spell it out to you.’

  ‘No, you really don’t. Trust me—the last thing I want is anyone’s pity.’

 
; ‘The last thing I’d give you is pity. But it seems to me that you’re living under some grave misapprehensions. Anyway...’ He smiled and rubbed his hands up and down her arms. ‘You used me. For sex. The least you can do is indulge me.’

  ‘Indulge you in what?’

  Why did the smile that slid across his handsome face make her feel so warm and woozy? It was just a smile...a parting of the lips. Okay, his eyes crinkled and twinkled, but so what if the teeth he flashed were heart-stoppingly perfect? And, oh, those dimples—it was like being shot at close range, she would imagine, hit with both barrels.

  His hands cupped her jaw. He pulled her closer.

  ‘You are beautiful. You are sexy. And you care. Not just about what you’re wearing. You care about important things. And you’ll fight for them. Even if it means putting yourself out there.’

  He kissed her, and she felt that something open and deep and raw was suddenly a little more exposed. And it frightened her. Who did he think he was, analysing her? She pulled away.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, but let’s not start making stuff up to gild this particular lily. As I said, I really don’t need it.’

  ‘No—you need this.’

  And as quickly as she’d pulled out of his grasp he’d pulled her back, turned her round and kissed her. Hard. And deep. And long.

  She could fight or she could go with the flow. But after a single moment she knew that there was no real choice. A sigh as wild as the ocean breeze slid from mouth as she realised she could do nothing but answer his demands. He paced backwards, kissing her all the while, his mouth mastering her, his body hard and uncompromising and exactly what she’d never even known she needed.

  ‘Don’t you, Princess?’

  He didn’t wait for a reply. He slid his hand over her breast and then hoisted up her skirt. She groaned into his mouth.

  ‘Payback begins now.’

  With frenzied hands they ripped at each other’s clothes. Her mouth covered every inch of his body, greedily grabbing and kissing and licking, and then she was lying down on one of the banquettes, and he was inside her, thrusting with all his might as he brought her with him to the very edge of passion and beyond.

  This time when he rolled over she rolled with him. Her head lay on his chest and he wrapped her in his arms. Neither spoke. Through the windows the lilac dawn turned pink and then blue and the day awoke properly.