But…
He wasn’t going to fall in love and have his feelings trampled over. He wasn’t going to make himself vulnerable. Not to her. Not to anyone. Not again.
‘What about you?’ He tossed the question back. ‘Describe your dream lover.’
Her gaze flicked up to the right as if she was picturing her ideal man in her mind. ‘Tall, because I would hate to tower over a man when I put on a pair of heels. Smart, because I find intelligence the biggest turn-on. Funny, because life is so serious anyway and it’s important to be with someone who makes you smile. Sexy, because chemistry is so important and who wants to be with someone who doesn’t make your heart go pitter-patter?’
‘Anything else?’
She tapped her index finger against her lips. ‘Let me see now… Ah, yes. Eyes. He has to have nice eyes.’
Luiz lifted a brow. ‘What about money?’
‘Not important.’
He gave a cynical laugh. ‘It’s always important.’
‘Not to me.’
He held her gaze for a beat. ‘Isn’t the possession of money a sign the man has got his act together? That he has drive and ambition?’
Her clear blue gaze didn’t waver. ‘He might have got it through inheritance or luck, such as winning the lottery.’
‘So you don’t mind if he’s got money as long as he’s earned it himself?’
‘I would overlook his affluence for other far more important qualities.’
‘Such as?’
‘Moral fortitude.’
Luiz laughed again. ‘I guess that rules me out.’
A tiny frown tugged at her brow as she sat looking at him in silence.
‘What?’
She blinked and cleared her gaze. ‘Nothing.’
‘Why were you frowning?’
She put her drink down and flashed him a smile. ‘What does a girl have to do around here to get a guy to ask her to dance?’
* * *
Luiz led Daisy to the dance floor but, instead of the thumping music of all the nights before, there was a pianist playing a slow tempo romantic ballad. Right now she could have done with some head-banging music to knock the sprouting foolishness out of her head. What was she thinking? Luiz wasn’t marriage material. He might be funny and charming and sexy and intelligent and have the nicest eyes she’d ever seen, but he was way out of her league. He was an international sports star. He was the epitome of the freedom-loving playboy. Men like Luiz Valquez did not settle down to suburbia and raise two-point-two kids. He was not the type of man to fall in love, let alone with someone like her.
No, she would be sensible and stick to the plan. She would have her fun and then it would be over. After the Grand Slam he would go back to his life and she would go back to hers. They would never meet again and she would be fine about that. She would have to be fine about it. She had no business conjuring up unrealistic scenarios. Luiz might be a lot deeper than she had first thought him but that didn’t mean he would suddenly morph into ideal husband material. He would hate to be tied down to one woman. He was used to a banquet of them. She’d be lucky to even see him once during the next month. Surely he would find someone more exciting than her.
Luiz’s hand rested in the small of Daisy’s back. ‘You’ve gone quiet.’
‘I’m thinking.’
‘About?’
She looked up at him. ‘Will you see anyone else during the next month?’
His brow was deeply furrowed. ‘What sort of question is that?’
‘It’s not like you’ll be in London full-time. You might get lonely and—’
‘I might seem a little loose with my morals to someone like you but I don’t fool around when I’m in a relationship.’
‘But we’re not really in a relationship. It’s just a fling.’
‘Same difference.’
She looked at his frowning expression. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘I am not upset.’
She touched the corner of his mouth, where a knot of tension had gathered. ‘You’re grinding your teeth. I can hear it over the music. It’s really bad for your molars.’
He suddenly laughed. ‘I need my head read.’
Daisy peeped up at him again. ‘Why? Because you’re enjoying yourself and you didn’t expect to?’
He brought the tip of his finger down the slope of her nose. ‘I’ve never met anyone like you before.’
‘You really need to get out more.’
He was still smiling as he pulled her close. ‘Maybe I do.’
* * *
Because it was their last night together before she flew home with the girls, Luiz took Daisy to an exclusive restaurant where the chef had won numerous awards. He had booked a private dining room for them, which added to the decadence. She drooled at the delicious food as each dish was brought to their table. A seafood starter in a delectable piquant sauce, prime fillet steak with a colourful vegetable stack and crusty bread rolls with fresh butter for mains. All artfully presented and cooked to perfection, complemented with fine wines that burst with flavour with each sip.
‘My thighs are going to hate you for this,’ Daisy said as she finally put down her knife and fork. ‘I’ve eaten more in the last four days than I’ve eaten in the last four months. Years, even.’
He sat watching her like an indulgent uncle. ‘I like to see a woman with a healthy appetite.’
‘Yes, well, if only my appetite for exercise was as robust.’
His dark eyes smouldered. ‘Maybe you’ve been doing the wrong sort of workouts.’
Daisy felt a shiver go down her spine. ‘I hate exercising alone.’
‘So you prefer contact sports?’
‘Not until very recently.’
His mouth tipped up in a sexy smile. ‘Do you want dessert and coffee or should we go and get some exercise?’
Daisy pretended to think about it. ‘Hmm, let me see now…dessert or a hot, sweaty workout?’
His eyes glinted some more. ‘Can I tempt you with your own personal trainer?’
She tossed her napkin on the table and pushed back her chair. ‘Sold.’
* * *
Luiz pushed back the bedcovers at two a.m. and wandered over to the windows to look at the busy strip below. He hated not being able to sleep. Hour after hour of tossing and fidgeting and ruminating made his head pound. Normally he would work off his restlessness in the gym but he hadn’t wanted to leave Daisy. He scoffed at his uncharacteristic sentimentality. It wasn’t as if this was the end of the affair. He would be seeing her on and off in London. He was still in the driving seat. He would say when and where and for how long. The Grand Slam was supposed to be his focus, not a slip of a girl who was looking for the fairy tale. The closest he got to the fairy tale was the role of the big bad wolf. He was good at being bad. He’d spent most of his life playing up. It was his trademark.
He turned from the window to look at Daisy. She was still sleeping soundly, clearly not worried this was their last night together. She was curled up on her side, her cheek resting on one of her hands in that childlike manner she had and her hair splayed out over his pillow. The scent of her was on his sheets, on his skin, burned in his memory. He would never be able to walk past honeysuckle without thinking of her.
How had he got himself in this situation? He was feeling sick to his stomach at the thought of saying goodbye to her at the airport. He hated goodbyes. He loathed them with a passion. He still remembered the way his mother had swept him up in a goodbye hug and poured kisses all over his face as she left for her ‘holiday’. He hadn’t seen her for two years. He had spent every single day of them waiting. Hoping.
What if he never saw Daisy again? What if she changed her mind when she got back to London? Would the intimacy they’d sh
ared be enough to keep her tied to him until the Grand Slam was over?
And then what?
He brushed the errant thought aside. His credo was ‘for fun, not for ever’. He was only interested in the here and now.
Not the, then what?
CHAPTER TEN
DAISY WOKE IN the night and found the space beside her in the bed was empty. She brushed her hair out of her face and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The bedside clock showed it was almost five in the morning and while down below on the strip there was a seething mass of revellers still spilling out from hotels and clubs, the suite felt unnaturally, eerily quiet. She slipped on a bathrobe and loosely tied the waistband, and pointedly ignoring her packed suitcase in the corner, padded out to the lounge area.
Luiz was sitting in front of the large-screen television with the sound turned off. He was watching a twenty-four-hour sporting channel—she would rather watch paint dry—or at least he had been watching. Right now, he was soundly asleep.
Daisy took the opportunity to soak in his features. His dark hair was still tousled from where her fingers had threaded through it. He had slipped on a pair of boxers but the rest of his body was gloriously naked. She had run her hands over every inch of his body, worshipping him with kisses and caresses, imprinting his scent and the feel of his skin on her senses so she could revisit them when their affair was finally over.
She drifted over to the sofa, drawn to him like a magnet drew metal. Her fingers lightly touched his hair, moving through the thick dark strands as lightly as fairy feet. His breathing was deep and even, but there were shadows beneath his eyes, as if he’d taken a long time to get to sleep. His stubble was heavily shadowed along his jaw and she couldn’t resist placing her fingertips on it to feel the sexy rasp of it. His eyelids flickered but his breathing remained steady.
She couldn’t stop herself from touching him. He was a temptation she had no power to resist. Forget about forbidden food. He was her new vice.
Just as well she was leaving this morning…
She traced the outline of each of his eyebrows. She travelled her finger down the length of his nose. She leaned in close and pressed her lips to his in a kiss as soft as a moth’s wing.
His eyes opened and locked on hers. ‘What are you up to?’
‘Watching you sleep.’
‘I wasn’t sleeping.’
‘Yes, you were.’
His brow lifted. ‘On the contrary, I was watching golf.’
Daisy gave him a wry smile. ‘Well, I would be sleeping too if I had to watch that.’
His gaze went to her mouth. ‘What time do you leave?’
‘Eight.’
He traced her mouth with a lazy finger for a long beat of silence. ‘You could stay a couple more days. I don’t have to fly back to Argentina until the weekend.’
‘If I didn’t have a classroom of kids to worry about I might take you up on that.’
He held her gaze with an unreadable look. ‘What if I cover your wages?’
Daisy pulled away to stand with her arms folded across her middle. Hurt knifed through her with shame closely on its tail. He was reducing her to that? Nothing more than a plaything he was prepared to pay for? ‘You know, for a scary moment there I thought you were asking me to be your kept mistress.’
There was another beat of silence.
‘Would that be a problem?’
She dropped her arms and blew out a breath. ‘Of course it’s a problem. I’m not one of your good time floozies. I have a career that’s important to me.’
‘It’s only for a month.’
‘A month is a long time in a child’s life,’ she said. ‘This is the winter term. There’s the Christmas pageant to organise. I have heaps to do and I can’t just drop everything because you want to party a little longer.’
He rose from the sofa and shoved a hand through his hair. ‘Fine. Go back to London. I’ll see you when I see you.’
Daisy looked at the tight set to his back and shoulders as he faced the windows. A wall had come up and she was on the wrong side of it. ‘You’re asking too much, Luiz. Surely you can see that?’
He turned to look at her with an inscrutable expression. ‘It was just an idea. Forget about it. Let’s stick to the plan.’
‘It’s not that I don’t want to—’
‘Can I ask you to refrain from speaking to the press?’ He gave her a formal smile that didn’t involve his eyes. ‘They have a habit of twisting things.’
Daisy turned back to the bedroom, her spirits sinking like a ship’s anchor. She could feel the dragging weight of it in the pit of her stomach. How could he dismiss her so casually after the passionate night they’d spent together? Or was this the way he ended all of his hook-ups? Cleanly and coldly and clinically.
When she came back out, showered and dressed, Luiz informed her he had a taxi waiting.
She hoped she wasn’t showing anything of the disappointment she was feeling. It was a tight ache in her chest like a band of steel squeezing against her heart and lungs. ‘You’re not coming to see me off?’
‘I have a conference call with the sponsors.’
Daisy could see which way his priorities lay. She would be out of sight and out of mind. How soon before he found a replacement? Her spirits plummeted even further. How had she let this happen? Why hadn’t she seen it coming? Her four days of fun had set her up for a lifetime of misery.
He handed her into the taxi and leaned down and kissed her on the mouth through the open window. ‘Be safe, little English girl.’ He tapped his hand on the rim of the window and then stepped back, his expression as blank as if he was seeing off an acquaintance.
Daisy waved to him as the taxi pulled away from the hotel concourse, her heart feeling as if it was being pulled in a vicious tug-of-war. She wanted to stay but she had responsibilities she couldn’t drop on a whim. But even if she had stayed, how could she agree to his terms? He wasn’t offering her a future. He was offering her a position. A temporary one. A tawdry one. He wanted to grease the wheels with his sponsors. She was nothing more than a means to an end. He would achieve his goal and she would be out of his life, just like every other woman he had associated with before.
How had she been so foolish and naïve to expect anything else? Was this why her father felt she had to have someone to watch over her twenty-four seven? She couldn’t be trusted to run her own life. She was too gullible. Not street smart enough to know when she was being used. Luiz Valquez wasn’t the sort of man to suddenly fall in love, certainly not after only four days. How could she compete with the women who took his fancy? She was so ordinary compared to them. He would probably hook up with a replacement while she was on her way to the airport. Las Vegas was full of girls looking for a good time with a bad boy.
She had stupidly been one of them.
Belinda and Kate were waiting outside their hotel as the taxi swept in to collect them.
‘Where’s lover boy?’ Belinda asked. ‘I thought he’d be seeing you off.’
‘He has more important things to do.’
Belinda gave her a probing look. ‘Uh-oh.’
Daisy glowered. ‘Don’t start.’
‘Have I taught you nothing, Daze?’ Belinda’s tone was exasperated. ‘How many times do I have to drum it into your thick head? You’re not supposed to fall in love on a holiday fling.’
‘I’m not in love with him.’ If she said it enough times maybe it would be true. How could she have fallen in love with him? It was the last thing she wanted. The last thing she expected.
‘Sure you’re not.’
‘I just think he could’ve had the decency to say goodbye at the airport like everyone else does.’ Daisy hugged her handbag against her stomach. ‘I mean, how hard is that?’
‘Maybe he doesn’t like saying goodbye,’ Kate said.
Daisy thought about Luiz’s mother leaving when he was a small child. Had she explained to him where she was going or had she just left? Had he waited for her day after day, not sure if she would ever return? She thought of him being brought up by his older brother, only a child himself, struggling to keep the family together. Their tragically injured father living out the rest of his days in sickness and dependency. Was that why Luiz was so restless and rootless? He hated being tied down. He shied away from commitment. He didn’t bond with people because people always let him down one way or the other.
Wasn’t that why he always had a call to make or an email to check? He used business to distance himself. It was a barrier he used to keep himself separate from anything emotional. Was he developing feelings for her—fledging feelings he didn’t know how to handle? Like the feelings she wasn’t even game to name? Was that why he’d put the drawbridge up, making her think his conference call was far more important than seeing her off? Was it foolish to hope she would be the one person to dismantle the defences he had built around himself?
The last four days had been much more than a sex-fest. He had taken her to dinner and shows, spent hours with her, talking about everyday matters. He had told her things he had told no one before—secrets and confidences. He had allowed her in. He seemed to enjoy her company in whatever context. All those times she’d found him looking at her with a contemplative expression on his face were surely not the product of her imagination. It was as if he was imagining the possibility of a future with her.
Or had that been just wishful thinking on her part?
As they were checking in a young man dressed in the uniform of Luiz’s hotel came rushing over. ‘Miss Wyndham? This is from Luiz Valquez. He asked me to give it to you.’
Daisy took the small square package. ‘Thank you.’
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ Belinda asked.
‘What is it?’ Kate peered over her shoulder. ‘Is it a ring?’
Daisy peeled back the giftwrap to find a small lingerie box inside, tied up with a scarlet bow. She undid the bow and opened the box and lifted out of the bed of tissue a pair of dainty lace knickers as fine as a silky cobweb. There was a card poked in amongst the tissue.
THE VALQUEZ SEDUCTION Page 13