With a wistful smile, she sucked in a breath. This was Dante’s home. At one time it had been her home too, but nothing stayed the same, and now her horse was chafing at the bit, impatient to be free. She knew how that felt.
‘Okay,’ she whispered, leaning low to reach his ears. ‘Go get him!’
Her mount responded eagerly with a surge of speed that thrilled her as he set off after his stablemate.
Dante had reined in and he turned in the saddle when she trotted up alongside him. His expression was unreadable, and she tensed immediately, wondering what he was thinking now. She concluded the only thing she could do was break the ice.
‘I’d forgotten how much I love it here.’
‘The city didn’t fulfil your expectations?’ Dante queried, searching her eyes keenly.
‘I thought it had until I came back here,’ she admitted honestly. It was a struggle to keep everything except an open smile off her face. She gestured around to give herself a moment. ‘The city could never compete with this.’
She was putting on the act of her life. When Karina looked into his eyes he could see her pain, however hard she tried to hide it. He responded with a swell of emotion he had thought he was dead to. Underneath her bravado and her professional veneer Karina was the same girl he had known all those years ago, but she was wounded now.
‘Is there any of the ranch left to see after our tour yesterday?’ she asked him brightly.
Some people might have expected more grief from her after the dreadful news she’d shared, but he knew Karina. He knew her strength, and now he knew her weakness. She had been keeping secrets for so long she didn’t know how to share them. ‘There’s plenty left to see,’ he told her truthfully. ‘We’d better get on.’
He had to do something to help her, but there wasn’t time to do more than watch over her now. Her work had saved her, he guessed, just as Team Thunderbolt had saved him. The team had become his family, giving him a safe outlet for his youthful aggression.
The team had also given him back his sense of pride after his father had stripped it away, and a satisfaction in his work that his father had always denied him. Team members prided themselves on their loyalty to one another. If one of them hurt, they all hurt. If one of their loved ones hurt, there wasn’t a team member who would stand by and do nothing. And this was Karina. How much more did he want to help her to reclaim the joie de vivre she had once enjoyed and spread around? But he could do nothing for her while she was keeping secrets. And no one knew better than he that Karina Marcelos had the strength to keep those secrets for the rest of her life if she chose to do so.
‘Don’t scowl, Dante.’ She flashed him a look of concern. ‘Life is full of twists and turns, and we just have to stay on our feet.’ Closing her eyes, she demonstrated her intention to carry on with the job as if she wasn’t breaking up inside. Throwing back her head, she murmured, ‘It’s such a beautiful day.’
He nodded curtly when she opened her eyes and turned to look at him. He was capable of nothing more in the face of her strength, because that was the same strength that was destroying her. Clicking his tongue, he led the way forward, hoping Karina would find some outlet for her trapped emotions in the beauty of the pampas so she could turn her back for good on shadow and doubt.
CHAPTER TEN
THEIR NEXT STOP was a group of buildings that could best be described as rustic rather than ritzy.
‘This is the accommodation for visiting children, teachers and guardians,’ Dante explained.
Now they were getting to it. She remembered Nicky’s remark about Dante’s plan, but why hadn’t he been more forthcoming? If he needed long-term plans for the children it was going to be a much bigger job than she had bargained for—and in the time available he was stretching her to the limit.
‘I think you’d better explain,’ she said. ‘Is this more than just about the Gaucho Cup? Because, if it is, I need to work out how I’m going to splice in your plans for an ongoing programme with my plans for the polo cup.’
‘If you can’t—’
‘This isn’t about my capabilities,’ she interrupted. ‘This is about you being frank with me, so I know what I have to do.’
‘Me being frank with you?’ he queried with a sceptical look.
‘Yes.’ She firmed her jaw. ‘Either you want me to do this job or you don’t.’
She held her ground as Dante stared at her. She guessed no one, with the possible exception of his team members, stood up to Dante these days.
The standoff lasted a good few seconds, and then he grated out, ‘Your job will be to enthuse the young people, draw them into the life of a working ranch. I’ll give you all the plans I’ve drawn up so far.’
‘Thank you. Gauchos,’ she murmured, quickly summoning up in her mind the type of help she would need in the short a space of time available.
‘Good idea,’ Dante conceded, as she outlined her instinctive initial thoughts.
‘Where to now?’ she asked him briskly before he had chance to change his mind.
‘To our last stop for today.’
She’d leave her questions about his long-term project for now. When time was squeezed it paid to be organised.
The last stop turned out to be the first ugly building she’d seen on his ranch.
‘Vaults aren’t meant to be pretty,’ he said when she frowned. ‘You might change your mind when you see the jewels inside this fortified cell.’
‘Green ice,’ she murmured, feeling a thrill of anticipation as Dante punched in a code and the outer door swung open. Lights flashed on automatically, illuminating the steps leading down into the ground. Another door, another code, and they were in.
The large underground room took her breath away. Glass cabinets, lit discreetly, lined the walls. It was a billionaire’s showroom, alight with fabulous jewels. Diamonds and emeralds flashed fire on every side. She guessed the diamonds would be from the Skavanga mines Dante had talked about, and the combination of ice and fire was extraordinary. ‘I’m lost for words,’ she admitted, when Dante looked for a reaction from her.
‘Well, that’s inconvenient,’ he said, locking the door behind them, ‘because you’re here to talk.’
She tensed as he leaned back against the wall.
Karina was smart. She knew why she was here, and it wasn’t just to look at his priceless collection of jewels. She had never leaned on anyone in her life, not even her wealthy brother. She had no history of confiding in anyone, but he had a plan.
Unlocking one of the display cases, he reached for a rough diamond. ‘This is me...’ He placed the lump of unpromising-looking stone in her hand. ‘And this is you.’ He selected what looked like another pebble. ‘Both these lumps of rock hold secrets at their core.’
‘And you have to know how to release the secrets?’ She gave him a jaundiced look. ‘First you have to know what you’re looking for,’ she pointed out.
Never underestimate Karina, he reflected, slanting a smile as he replaced the stones in the cabinet. He explained the stages the stones went through before they were ready to be set in precious metal, but she knew what he was really saying. He had never brought anyone this close. He had never allowed himself the indulgence of a personal life. He didn’t confide in anyone.
‘Would it be possible to arrange tours here, as well as to the mine?’ she asked on a practical note. ‘Or would security be a headache for you? I wasn’t just thinking about the VIPs who might place an order, but the young people for whom this could open up a whole new range of possibilities—careers,’ she explained.
His eyes lit at the thought that she had engaged with his project. He’d barely told her anything, just a hint, but she’d taken that hint and had obviously been thinking about it. ‘Your brother told me that you pay for a young girl to go to school.’
She was instantly defensive. ‘Out of my own money—and Luc shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘No, but Jada wouldn’t like anyone to know—that’s the girl I help,’ she explained awkwardly.
‘How long have you been doing charity work?’
‘Since I—’ Her mouth snapped shut.
Since she’d lost the baby, he guessed, and had needed something to focus on and set her life back on track.
‘It’s not reaching out on your scale or my brother’s,’ she said after a few tense moments. ‘I just do what I can afford. When I can do more, I will.’
Shaking his head, he disagreed. ‘What you do is personal. I don’t know the names of half the people helped by my foundation.’
She mulled that over for a moment, and then she said, ‘So can I add tours here to the youth programme?’
‘Over to you,’ he agreed with a shrug.
It was a great idea. Opening young minds to careers connected to gemstones was original and pure Karina. It was maybe the first step to finding that fairy dust of hers. He held out a chair, leaving her in no doubt that he wasn’t so distracted by her brainwave that he had forgotten why he’d brought her here. Her gaze darted to the door. He folded his arms and leaned back against the wall. Seeing there was no escape, she perched on the edge of the chair in fight or flight mode.
‘Dante—’
Chair legs scraping across the floor silenced her. He pulled up another seat and sat so their knees were almost touching.
Tension soared between them.
He let the silence hang until she said, ‘Okay. What more do you want to know?’
‘Everything,’ he suggested. ‘And, as you pointed out, the clock is ticking, and there’s a lot of work to do to get this cup organised.’
‘It isn’t that easy,’ she admitted. ‘Some things can’t be said quickly.’
‘What can’t you tell me? I can’t believe there’s anything worse than you’ve already told me.’ Leaning close, he took hold of her hands.
She drew them back and balled them tightly in her lap. ‘I can’t. You chose your path. I chose mine—’
‘That’s not enough.’ He stood.
She stood too, facing him defiantly. Anything was preferable, as far as he was concerned, to Karina in shutdown mode. ‘Tell me,’ he insisted fiercely.
The flash of pain behind her eyes said he was delving too deep, too fast, into places even she didn’t go, but he couldn’t let her go back into her shell now.
Emotion burned starkly in her white face. She knew there was nowhere to hide. She also knew he was the biggest client she’d ever have, and that her brother, not to mention the rest of the team, was depending on her to get this event right. She’d clawed her way to success, which was why people trusted her. He had to believe she wouldn’t let that trust go now.
‘Will you, please, let me out of here?’
He sensed she was holding herself tightly in check. ‘You can leave at any time.’ He recited the code for the door.
She sucked in a few tense breaths, and then she made the decision he had fully expected. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Dante, because you’re right, that would be far too easy for me—for both of us.’
If this were the time she finally unburdened herself, he’d take anything she had to throw at him. His pride, his concerns, his life counted for nothing while Karina was in torment. And she was in torment. When she lifted her chin he could see the pain in her eyes and he felt it as his own. He had to tamp down the urge to drag her close and tell her that everything would be all right, and that he would make it so, because that would be a lie. This was something Karina had to do for herself.
He clenched his hands into fists as she drew in a long shaking breath. The urge to reach out was overwhelming him. But he mustn’t touch her. He mustn’t speak. If he did anything to distract her, this moment would be lost, and then she would be lost.
Closing her eyes tightly shut in a failed attempt to hold back her tears, she said, ‘You do know if there’d been a child I would have told you?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘I was fine,’ she lied, hurrying to reassure him. ‘Life doesn’t grind to a halt when a tragedy happens, and it’s amazing how we find ways to cope.’
He clamped his lips shut as he raged against his inability to say anything that could make the slightest difference, and he felt even worse when she touched his arm as if it were he who needed comfort and reassurance.
‘I’m sorry, Dante. I’ve had longer to adjust than you have.’
But she hadn’t moved forward.
‘I promise you this won’t affect my work. I’ll give you everything I’ve got to make this the best polo cup there’s ever been.’
His brain was racing as he searched for a way to shake her back on track. He needed something that would shock her into leaving the business between them to one side for now. She was hiding something bad, and this was his best—maybe his only—chance to help her. He barely heard the rest, and there was no way he could dress this up. A shock was needed, and a shock was what he’d give her.
‘Did you take a lover after you lost the baby?’
Dante’s question was like a slap in the face. Her mind blanked for a moment. She was still taking tiny steps. They had warned her in the hospital that it would take a long time to recover fully, and that in the meantime she would find coping strategies, but that no stage of her recovery could be rushed.
She had rushed. She would have done anything to ease the pain. At the time her actions had seemed to be the one thing that might help her to forget Dante. It had turned out to be her worst mistake, and had left her feeling more of a failure than ever.
‘Well?’ Dante pressed now, staring fiercely into her eyes. ‘Are you going to answer my question?’
Desperate to close down this line of questioning, she shook her head. ‘You can’t ask me that.’
‘I am asking,’ he insisted grimly. ‘I’ve listened carefully to everything you’ve said. I haven’t missed a single nuance or hesitation in your speech, which is why I know there’s more, and if it’s something you can’t talk about after what you’ve told me—if someone’s hurt you physically, mentally, I want to know. And if you expect me to accept some lame excuse, you’re dealing with the wrong man.’
‘I’ve told you everything,’ she insisted in a shaking voice. ‘You can’t hold yourself responsible for everything in my life. And you don’t have a hold on me, so let me go.’
Breath gushed from her lungs as Dante dragged her close. ‘If I live ten lives and devote them all to you, I will never make up for what happened to you, so if you think I’m going to let you go, let this go, you’re mistaken.’
Guilt was careering through her when he dragged her close. She was shocked by his passion and should have remembered Dante had always channelled his emotion into action. A few blank seconds passed and then, like a dam breaking, her emotions flooded in as he drove his mouth down on hers. His kiss was like oxygen to her starved senses. The reassurance of his arms was like water in the desert to a dying man. It was too precious to squander, too welcome to ignore. For everything that had gone before and couldn’t be changed, Dante was so instantly familiar. All fear of kissing him, of becoming close to him again seemed irrelevant suddenly. She was close to him. She had always been close to him—always would be close to him.
Lifting his head, he stared down. His black eyes were ablaze with inner torment as he grated out, ‘I should have been there for you.’
Lifting herself up on her toes, she laced her fingers through his hair, and then she cupped his face, loving the scratch of his sharp black stubble against her palms. She wasn’t a teenage temptress without a care in the world now, but a woman who knew her o
wn mind. ‘You’re here now,’ she whispered.
Dante’s kisses changed and became lighter and more reassuring, and then he did something that only he could. He started whispering things that no one else knew about them—small things, confidences they’d shared when they’d been younger, personal moments of triumph and defeat, times that hadn’t been so good, and those that had been better, and times when a look between them had been enough to share the burden of what they had both been experiencing at home.
What he was trying to tell her was that nothing had changed between them, not really. He was reminding her of what they’d shared in the past, and reminding her that she’d never had cause to doubt him before that night when passion had run so high between them that neither of them had been thinking clearly.
She smiled into his eyes. She loved everything about him. She loved the way he made her feel, and the way he made her remember. She loved the way he soothed her, and the way he reminded her that they had faced tough times before and had always come through them. She loved the way he could make her smile when her heart was breaking, and she loved knowing that there was nowhere else on earth she wanted to be than here, with him.
The need to be closer still overwhelmed her and, tugging his top from his jeans, she exclaimed with pleasure when her hands found his hot skin. Dante had started work on the buttons of her shirt, but he soon lost patience and ripped it off her, scattering buttons everywhere.
‘What is this?’
Dante frowned as he stared at the scar on her shoulder.
‘It’s nothing.’ Her head had cleared immediately as she shrugged it off.
Dante wasn’t convinced. ‘You didn’t have a scar on your shoulder when you were eighteen. I would have remembered something like that.’
She shook her head and laughed, hoping to give the impression that he was making too much of it. ‘If you must know, some insect bit me.’ She huffed another laugh in the hope that he’d forget.
Dante didn’t forget anything, and his frown deepened as he traced the scar with the pad of one finger.
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