by Pamela Aares
She stacked the bags on the kitchen counter and called Petey.
Eddie hadn’t been back to the casino, Petey reported. She worried too much, he said. But when she told him about the ballgame, about the shots of her and Tyler on the Megatron, the photos in the papers and online, his tone changed. He promised to keep her informed. It was early in the season, he said. Only serious fans were tuned in this early.
She hoped Petey was right, but she couldn’t ignore the gnawing anxiety oozing in her belly. Still, Eddie didn’t know her last name. Even if he managed to bribe the casino HR manager, he’d come up with exactly zilch. She’d changed her name from the false one she’d used on her fake ID to get the casino job. Maybe returning to using her mother’s last name hadn’t been the smartest choice, but it was all she could come up with at the time. She’d been eighteen years old and scared. Clear thinking was a skill she’d learned the hard way since then.
But the online photos made her more than uneasy. If Eddie had been at the game or had even seen the photos… God, she had to stop worrying; it was making her sick. If only she’d listened to her intuition and not allowed Tyler to go to the dratted game. Or had stayed on the edges of the field, out of the limelight.
She stacked the cartons of almond milk in the fridge. Tyler’s lactose allergy had shown no signs of receding. Luckily for her, the local grocer had several alternatives. The fridge was new with gleaming shelves and great produce compartments. She’d never lived in a place with a new refrigerator. She tucked a few cucumbers from the store into the produce drawer beside greens and root vegetables from the Casa garden. There was always more than the staff and family meals required, and the bounty kept Natasha’s grocery budget in range.
Tyler’s tablet lay on the kitchen counter. She flipped it open. She hadn’t learned how to work it yet, but she’d seen him type words into the bar at the top. She typed in Adrian’s name. The screen blinked, and then rows and rows of entries popped up. If she read the number at the top right correctly, there were hundreds of thousands of entries. The lines began to blur and before they morphed into an unintelligible mass, she touched her finger to a random line of words.
A photo of Adrian in full polo gear came up.
He was smiling and had his arm around a woman in similar gear. It wasn’t his sister Zoe. He and the woman held a trophy between them. But the woman wasn’t looking at the camera or at the trophy. She was looking at Adrian—with a look in her eyes that Natasha imagined she’d have seen in her own had she looked in a mirror the night they’d made love.
She glanced up at the print Coco had given her. She’d hung it on the wall across from the kitchen. Looking at the photo of the hills she’d seen from Adrian’s window had allowed her to reconnect with the bliss she’d discovered in his arms. But his arms weren’t her future. And remembering the joy she’d felt in them didn’t ease the sadness that crept in as she scrolled through image after image of Adrian with beautiful, smiling women. Women from his world. She clicked off the tablet. And removed the print from her wall, rolling it and replacing it carefully in the tube Coco had given her. Wishful thinking would only feed the hurt licking at the edge of her heart.
Chapter Sixteen
ADRIAN’S HEART THRUMMED AS HE OPENED the door to the Casa’s back kitchen garden. But Natasha wasn’t there. He strode over to a man separating the roots of some very small plants.
“Hello. I’m Adrian Tavonesi.” He extended his hand. The man took off his glove, wiped his hand on his jeans and then shook it.
“Enrique Bailas, sir.”
“No need to call me sir. Adrian will do.” He glanced through the back gate at the new garden going in. “Natasha back there?”
“She’s gone off with your sisters for the polo game, sir—uh, Adrian.”
Great, Coco’s meddling in action. He’d been hoping for a few moments alone with Natasha. Hell, more than a few moments. He’d imagined replaying the last night they’d spent together and extending the pleasure by a couple of days. Maybe a lifetime. It was that thought that had shocked him when he’d boarded the plane in Rome. Imagining a future with Natasha had lit a fire under his enthusiasm for his plan. Timing how and when he would tell Natasha was important, but the joy he felt made waiting harder than he’d imagined.
Even Rafe had been amazed at the depth of his feelings for Natasha. And though Adrian had come up with a few particulars about why she was the one when his brother had asked—her passion for her work, her love of plants, the way she looked out for her son but didn’t hold him too close, her laugh and her giggle—none of those attributes could demonstrate the depths of Natasha, the magic of the woman. He’d even tried to explain how she’d blown Adrian away with her beauty, her spunk and her courage.
But in truth, her effect on him was a mystery to Adrian.
Rafe had laughed when Adrian had told him he’d just have to fly over and see for himself.
Adrian turned his attention back to Enrique. “You’re the new assistant gardener?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Welcome. We’ll be expanding this pollinator project and native garden soon. So whatever Ms. Raley needs, see that she gets it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Adrian.”
“Adrian,” Enrique repeated.
He turned to leave and then spun on his heel and turned back.
“And, Enrique—she’s not so good at asking for help. You might want to offer your services quite firmly. Maybe anticipate her needs.”
“I’m accustomed to meeting unspoken needs, sir. You can count on me.”
He didn’t correct the man a third time. If Enrique was more comfortable calling him sir, so be it. He did notice the duct tape holding the man’s shoes together. Likely Enrique was another of Coco’s projects. He only hoped the guy knew something about gardening. If the plan he’d cooked up on the flight back from Rome succeeded, they’d need more than a few knowledgeable workers.
He smiled to himself. And imagined how pleased Natasha was going to be when he broke the news.
He glanced at his phone. He had fifteen minutes to gear up and get on the polo field. If he was late, Zoe would have his head.
“Natasha! Over here. Coco will be along in a minute.” Anastasia patted the cushion of the vacant chair beside her.
Natasha made her way past the uniformed servers and what seemed like a horde of beautiful people. Sonoma fundraisers brought them out of the woodwork.
“I got one of these for you.” Anastasia held out a broad-brimmed straw hat with a ribbon circling the crown.
Natasha made out the words Zoe’s team embroidered into the ribbon. Maybe the taped dyslexia exercises Mary had given her were working. She listened to the cassettes each night before bed. But some nights the black mob of tangled letters returned and she lost her confidence. At least she could read a ribbon on a hat.
“It’s lovely, thank you.”
Natasha settled the hat on her head and wished she wore something other than her work jeans. But there hadn’t been time to change. The new lupine starts had rooted and she had to repot them; root-bound starts weren’t strong enough to thrive transplanting into the soils of the vineyard. And the pants she’d thrown into her backpack as she’d left her apartment that morning weren’t much dressier anyway.
Surrounded by long-legged socialites in short designer dresses and sparkling strappy sandals, she felt like the dark duckling of Swan Lake. Except she wasn’t going to be kissed by a prince and transformed into a beauty.
Anastasia gestured at the four horses and riders approaching from the barn. “No fair cheering for Adrian. We women have to stick together today.”
At the sight of Adrian mounted on a gleaming black horse, Natasha’s pulse skittered. The three men riding alongside him were handsome, but Adrian took her breath away. The white jersey stretching across his chest and the tight pants tucked into high boots couldn’t have been painted on him for a more devastatingly sexy effect. He waved over to whe
re she sat with his sisters and then rode toward the opposite end of the field.
“Adrian’s got a good reach,” Coco said as she slipped into the chair next to Natasha. “But Zoe’s got a better seat.”
“Seat?” Horses were as foreign to Natasha as were handsome Italian wine scions.
Coco laughed. “We’d better bring this bella donna up to speed. The game starts in five minutes.”
Between the unfamiliar terms and Coco’s Italian accent, it was difficult to follow Coco’s quick summary of the rules. And the concept of right-of-way completely eluded Natasha. It seemed to her that any angle of approach would be dangerous for riders going as fast as Coco described.
“Let her just enjoy the game,” Anastasia broke in. “For goodness’ sake, it’s not like she’s going to mount up and ride.” She laid a hand on Natasha’s arm. “I’m the only one in the family that knows it’s just a game. If you listened to the rest of them, you’d think life and death hung in the balance of a match.”
“If she weren’t my identical twin, I’d think she’d been dropped out of the sky by a fairy,” Coco said with a mock scowl.
“A goose.” Anastasia laughed. “You always get your stories mixed up.”
“A stork,” Natasha said. “It’s a stork that brings babies.”
“I hope the stork takes bribes to hold off. It’ll be a long time before I’m ready for a delivery,” Coco said with a laugh. “Not that I don’t like children. It’s just—”
“Coco would be about as good with children as Adrian. They’ve both sworn off parenting,” Anastasia said with a wink to her sister. “It’s a good thing since neither of them have grown up yet themselves.”
She couldn’t know how her words skewered into Natasha’s heart. As if she needed one more reason to put another brick in the wall between her and Adrian.
A horn sounded, and Coco and Anastasia stood. Natasha unfolded from her seat and adjusted the hat to shade the glare from the bright afternoon sun. From the opposite end of the field, four more horses and riders galloped out of a tent. The women carried red and blue flags that trailed in the breeze.
“Zoe has a flair for the dramatic,” Coco said.
“Like you don’t?” Anastasia said in a teasing tone.
Sisters.
Natasha had spent long nights as a child wishing that she had sisters.
A man in a striped shirt rode behind the group of men riding to the center of the field. He waved out at the crowd. Zoe’s team rode up to him and one by one handed him the flags.
“Federico has his hands full today,” Anastasia said, pointing at the riders. “That’s Prince William playing number three for Adrian’s team. Diplomacy might trump playing skills.”
“Never,” Coco said in a serious tone. “Not on a Tavonesi field. Federico is a polo umpire, not some bureaucrat.”
“They’re skipping the anthems.” Anastasia nodded to a tent where a man and a woman sat with microphones, stopwatches and clipboards. “We would have had to play six of them, what with Blair and Selena playing with Zoe and Vlad playing with Adrian. And William brought his number one from Bermuda. We’d be waiting all day.”
William. She’d called the future king of England William. Perhaps they were friends. Natasha truly was out of her league.
The spectators settled back into their seats. Natasha felt slightly dizzy as she leaned back into the cushioned chair.
Maybe she’d walked through some sort of looking glass and was in an alternate world. She sure felt like she was in an altered state. She should’ve had more water. Maybe the sun had gotten to her.
The umpire signaled and then threw in the ball.
Zoe whooped and swung her mallet, and the riders thundered down the field after the ball. But Natasha’s eyes were on Blair. Her golden hair was plaited and hung down her back. In her snug riding gear, she looked like a Viking goddess. Blair reached down, swung her mallet and knocked the ball to a woman wearing an identical uniform. That woman passed it to Zoe. She intercepted it and shot for the goal, but William deflected her shot and sent it in the opposite direction.
“Mio Dio, he’s good,” Anastasia cried out.
“Parker’s even better.” Coco pointed to a man near the goalposts. “That’s another of our cousins. He’s got a bit of an acid tongue, but we love him. And he rides like the devil himself.”
“Parker’s been practicing. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he had a thing for the woman who runs the local polo club.”
Parker passed the ball to Adrian. He drew back to hit it, but Zoe hit it first.
The ball rocketed toward Natasha. The riders chased it, thundering straight for where she sat with Adrian’s sisters. Natasha jumped up. Adrenaline shot nauseating pins and needles into her chest. She hauled in a breath as Adrian rode full speed toward her on a horse bigger than any she’d ever seen.
Coco tugged Natasha back into her seat just as Adrian and a man Natasha didn’t recognize reined up. Without a glance at either her or his sisters, Adrian connected to the ball and shot it down the field. The riders pivoted the charging horses and galloped after it.
Natasha released the breath she’d been holding.
“How can you sit so calmly with only a six-inch white board separating you from ten thousand pounds of horses thundering at us?”
“Don’t worry, all these riders are seasoned.” Coco gave her sister a sly grin. “Well, except for maybe Prince William. He’s suspect in my book. If he heads this way, we should be ready to flee.” She glanced back at the tent. “But we could have our chairs moved back a bit. It’ll get us out of the heat.”
“Coco has Adrian’s impatience with the practice of coddling royalty,” Anastasia said. “Makes her less than ideal company at the Guards tournaments in England.”
Coco signaled and three servers came over. “Would you move our chairs, please? And bring some water.” She turned to Natasha. “You look like you could use some hydration.”
Coming from Coco’s lips, the word hydration sounded like a potion from the gods. Right about then, anything would help. Yet it wasn’t the heat of the sun sending Natasha’s senses spinning. She knew as she watched Adrian riding that she wasn’t going to deny herself the opportunity to feel his strong thighs wrapped around her at least one more time.
What woman in her right mind would?
Good thing she wasn’t in her right mind.
They moved farther from the field and just as they got settled once again, a horn sounded, startling Natasha.
“Two chukkers down!” Coco offered her hand to Natasha. “Time to do some work.”
“She means tamp down the divots,” Anastasia added as she stood. “Ah, here’s the champagne. It’s fuel for the tough effort ahead.” She glanced down at Natasha’s work boots. “And those are perfect for the job. I’ve always thought it ridiculous that women in high heels pretend to be of any use for this at all. But it does allow for a parade of dresses.”
“And other attributes,” Coco said, tilting her head toward a woman in an extremely short, tight skirt and low-cut flowing blouse. “There’s a lot of husband hunting at these events.” She put her finger to her lips. “But don’t quote me. No one would ever own up to it.”
Anastasia took a glass of champagne from the silver tray the waiter held out and handed it to Natasha.
Natasha shook her head. “I have to go back to work, so no thanks.”
“Not going to happen, my dear. Adrian said to make sure that you attend the trophy ceremony.” Coco sipped her champagne and looked at Natasha over the rim of the crystal glass with a twinkle in her eye. “Rumor has it, he has a surprise for you.”
Anastasia eyed Natasha. “Does he? Well you have just earned a thousand million points in my book. Anything that takes Adrian’s mind off work is a good thing. How did you accomplish such a feat?” She clinked her glass against Natasha’s. “We’ve been trying to get him and our brother Rafe to lighten up ever since Mama died. They’re an impossi
ble pair.”
Natasha had no idea how to respond to such a remark. Or how to respond to the longing building in her, the yearning to be part of a caring family. To have a family at all. For Tyler to have the love of a family. Meeting Adrian had pried the lid off emotions she’d shoved down for a very long time. Had stirred feelings she hadn’t even known were possible. Someone to trust, a partner for life, love, sex. He’d even unearthed her wish for siblings.
“You know, that waiter is delicious looking,” Anastasia said as she watched the young man walk away. “He’d make a great Mr. April.”
“I need men with reputations,” Coco said, grumbling.
“There’s always William,” Anastasia said, tilting her head toward the field.
Coco wrinkled her nose. “He has no local connection. Besides, William unwrapped? Not quite the level of hot that I’m looking for.”
“But you can’t argue with his marketing appeal,” Natasha said.
Surreal was the only word for the feeling creeping into Natasha. She was sitting with Italian heiresses—sisters to the man she’d slept with—and watching the future king of England play polo.
Anastasia clinked her glass against Natasha’s. “My point exactly.”
Coco took Natasha’s hand and tugged her onto the green field. A young woman wearing exactly the kind of useless high heels that Anastasia had described and the uniform of a husband hunter that Coco had outlined glided over to them.
“Adrian’s playing well today.” The woman’s silky blond highlights captured the rays of the afternoon sun and outlined her tanned face like a gilded frame. “And so is Parker,” she added.
“Rory, this is Natasha.”
Natasha heard the sharp edge in Coco’s voice.
Rory gave Natasha’s jeans and work boots a once-over and a smile. “Do you work with the horses?” she asked as she held out three fingers for Natasha to shake.