Under the Brazilian Sun

by Catherine George

  ‘Not at all. The rest is for me in these heels.’ She leaned back with a sigh of contentment. ‘Do you have a pool on the Estancia?’

  ‘Yes. My father is enlarging it, ready for when I go home. As you say,’ he added wryly, ‘I have much to be thankful for—more than I deserve.’ He turned to look at Katherine. ‘When my mother agreed to leave me here to recover she did not know that fate would send you to me.’

  She looked away. ‘It was James who sent me, not fate.’

  He laughed softly. ‘I prefer my version.’

  ‘You speak very good English, Roberto.’

  He shrugged. ‘It was necessary for me to learn. But I can do nothing about my accent.’

  ‘Nor should you—it’s very attractive.’ So attractive it sent shivers down her spine.

  ‘I am pleased you think so,’ he said, in a tone which made the shivering worse. ‘You are cold, Katherine. We must return to the house.’

  She stumbled as she got up and Roberto leapt to steady her, but his leg gave way and they fell back on the bench in a tangled heap, laughing breathlessly. His arms tightened. ‘I must let you go,’ said Roberto with regret. ‘If I do not you will run away tomorrow, no?’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IF SHE had any sense she would! ‘Probably,’ Katherine said lightly, ‘so let’s walk back to the house.’

  Roberto got to his feet at once and held out his hand. As they walked slowly back, she would have given much to surrender to instinct and melt into Roberto’s arms for the kiss she had wanted just as much as he had. But one kiss would inevitably lead to more than that, and this time, with this man, her resistance was at an all-time low. He was right. It took very little time to fall in—what? Love or lust? Either way, it felt very dangerous in this moonlight.

  When they reached the house Roberto bowed over her hand very formally in the hall.

  ‘Boa noite, Katherine. Dorme bem.’

  ‘Goodnight, Roberto. I hope you sleep well too.’

  He gave a short, mirthless laugh. ‘I doubt that.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘But if I lie awake I will take pleasure in thinking of the day I spend with you tomorrow.’

  ‘No exercises?’

  ‘I will finish early, and wait for my swim until you can join me. If you will?’

  Katherine smiled up at him. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

  ‘I also.’ He raised her hand to kiss it, and then walked with her to the foot of the stairs. ‘Ate amanha, Katherine.’

  She said goodnight and went up the stairs without looking back. She was in bed later, looking at the moonlight filtering through the slats of the blinds, before she remembered that Roberto had not explained the danger of his past life after all. She hesitated, cast a look at her laptop on the dressing table, and then gave way to temptation. She could find out right now. Something she could have done the moment she’d learned his first name, if she hadn’t been so preoccupied with the painting. Katherine slid out of bed to switch on the laptop, and sat transfixed when her search led her to a shot of a younger unscarred Roberto. It was hard to tear her eyes from the handsome, laughing face to read the caption below.

  Roberto Rocha Lima Tavares de Sousa, the racing driver professionally known as Roberto Rocha, was often compared during his budding career to his compatriot, Ayrton Senna, who died so tragically years previously on the Imola racetrack in Italy. But after only a few successful seasons, when the world championship seemed a probability rather than just a possibility in his future, Roberto Rocha retired from the track and returned home to Brazil.

  Katherine’s fascinated eyes stayed glued to the screen as she read about Roberto’s progress from winning almost every race he entered as a youngster in his karting days, then went on to success at every stage on his way to the top. Her lips twitched when she found he’d made the headlines as much for his playboy lifestyle as for his prowess at the wheel of a racing car.

  She stared at the laughing, handsome face for so long it was late when she switched off the machine and got back into bed. Hugh and Alastair were ardent fans, but her interests lay with rugby and tennis. Motorsport had never had the least appeal, though occasionally she’d read about its biggest stars in the papers; the slim young men in jumpsuits and helmets which gave them a Martian uniformity as they diced with danger to earn their spectacular money. She smiled wryly. With success in such a glamour sport, a parade of actresses and models had been inevitable for someone with Roberto’s looks and money. Yet he’d given it all up to return to the Estancia. She wondered why. And, now she came to think of it, his interest in paintings seemed an odd combination with his past career. She would ask him about it tomorrow.

  Katherine was ready in shorts and T-shirt over a jade one-piece swimsuit when her breakfast arrived, but felt too keyed up to eat much of it because the sun was shining outside, and Roberto might already be waiting for her. She ate half a roll, swallowed a cup of tea and, armed with a towel, managed to make it through the house unescorted for once. She sprinted through the gardens to the pool, where parasols were already open to shade the steamer chairs ranged alongside it. She shed her outer clothes, left them on the iron bench and lifted her face to the sun for a moment before diving neatly into the water. By the time she’d completed two lengths Roberto appeared, holding a pile of towels, and she hoisted herself out, smiling.

  ‘Good morning.’

  As she stood up his eyes lit with something which made her want to dive for cover.

  ‘Bom dia, sereia linda!’

  ‘I know bom dia is good morning,’ she panted, wringing water from her braid. ‘What was the rest of it?’

  ‘It means beautiful mermaid, Katherine. How are you today?’

  ‘Much better for my swim—aren’t you coming in?’

  ‘I will soon.’ He handed her a couple of towels. ‘Let us sit in the sun for a while first.’

  Katherine wrapped herself in a large towel sarong fashion and mopped her face with another as she followed him to a deckchair. ‘What a heavenly morning.’

  Roberto eased himself down beside her. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Not that well.’ She braced herself. ‘In fact I have a confession to make. Last night, Roberto, I invaded your privacy. I looked you up on the Net.’

  He shrugged, unperturbed. ‘Such information is open to all who care to look, Katherine.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘So. Now my past is the open book to you.’

  ‘A very glamorous past!’

  ‘It was not all glamour,’ he assured her. ‘To achieve success in motorsport, a driver must make sacrifices. I devoted many years of my life to it, and left home and family when I was young to do it.’

  ‘That must have been hard!’

  ‘It was. I missed my family and felt great saudade for my home.’ He smiled reminiscently. ‘But every time I got in the car and closed my helmet ready to race, it was the only place in the world I wanted to be.’

  ‘Yet at the height of your success you gave it up and went home.’

  ‘I had no choice, Katherine.’ He let out an unsteady breath. ‘My older brother Luis was my father’s right hand at the Estancia. Like me, he had ridden as soon as he could walk. But in a storm when he was out with the herd his horse was frightened by lightning and threw him. The fall would not have been fatal, but the horse’s hoof struck my brother’s head and killed him instantly.’

  Katherine gazed at him in horror. ‘Oh, Roberto, how tragic!’

  Roberto nodded sombrely. ‘I returned home immediately to support my parents in their grief, intending to stay for a while before returning to the track. I knew well it had been hard for them to let me follow my dream, constantly afraid that I would die on the track like Senna. Yet I had no serious accidents during all the years I was racing.’ His mouth twisted. ‘The only time I came near to death was driving from a restaurant.’

  ‘But that was because your friend Elena was at the wheel,’ Katherine pointed out.

  ‘E verdade. But she was no friend of mi
ne.’

  ‘You don’t speak to her now?’

  His jaw clenched. ‘She blames me for the loss of her career.’

  ‘Because you couldn’t lie for her?’

  ‘Exatamente. She rang so often to say I had ruined her life I changed my phone. When she could not reach me she rang the number here at the Quinta, which was a big mistake because my mother answered.’ He gave an evil chuckle. ‘I don’t know what Mamae said to her, but Elena has not contacted me since.’

  ‘Did you care for her?’

  ‘Not at all. I hardly knew her.’ Roberto pushed his sunglasses into his hair to look into Katherine’s eyes. ‘At my friend’s wedding Elena introduced herself to me to beg a great favour. She offered to pay for a meal if I would take her out in my car. Good PR, she told me. It would get her more screen time and therefore more money. I was amused by her honesty and agreed to drive her to the restaurant of her choice in my Maserati, but declined payment for my dinner. She had arranged for a photographer when we arrived, but fortunately he did not stay to witness our violent argument when we left.’

  ‘An argument, even though you’d known her such a short time?’

  ‘She offered sex in exchange for the large sum of money she was desperate for.’ His mouth turned down in distaste as he put the glasses back on. ‘She flew into a rage when I refused. The sum was nothing to me, she argued, but it would mean everything to her.’

  ‘If she was in regular work in a television series, even in a minor role, surely she earned good money herself,’ said Katherine, surprised.

  ‘These are the words I said to her, but she refused to tell me why she needed such money. When I said no she snatched my keys out of my hand and ran for the car, screaming that now I must give her money to get it back.’ His mouth twisted. ‘I was a fool. I should have let her take it. But it was my beloved Maserati, you understand, so I wrenched open the door to dive into the passenger seat as she took off. She had no experience of such a powerful machine and failed to control it. I grabbed the wheel as we hit a bend but could not prevent the crash which ended all hope of returning to my career on the track.’ He shrugged. ‘My parents blame Elena, but she did not force me to get in the car. A man who values a piece of machinery more than his own safety has only himself to blame, nao e?’

  Katherine was silent for a moment, eyeing him thoughtfully. ‘She isn’t hugely clever this lady, is she?’

  He smiled. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘From what I read about you last night, she tried to sell you something women stand in line to give you for free,’ she said bluntly.

  He hunched a shoulder. ‘If they did, they do so no longer.’

  ‘Probably because you’re hiding from them,’ said Katherine practically. ‘Come on, Roberto. Be positive. You’ve got a scar and a limp, but both of them will improve. You could have been killed but you’re alive—’ She bit her lip, flushing when Roberto gave a shout of laughter.

  ‘It is good you did not choose a career in nursing!’

  She grinned. ‘I’d make a good Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.’

  He shook his head. ‘You are not capable of such cruelty, Katherine.’

  Her eyes dropped. ‘I think I’ll have another swim. Are you coming in?’

  ‘Pois e.’ He stood up to strip off his shirt and jeans. He held out his hand to her, but drew back, smiling wryly. ‘It is best you get up unaided, or we have a repeat of last night, no? I would enjoy it, but you would not.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ she said demurely, then ran along the side of the pool and dived in. When she turned at the end, laughing as she trod water, he was standing at the edge of the pool, shaking a finger at her. But he was laughing again, she saw with satisfaction, noting that lean though he might be, Roberto had the powerful legs of a man used to a life on horseback, plus a muscular torso for the same reason, or maybe as the result of the fitness regimes all racing drivers endured to stay at the top of their game. One look at that taut bronzed body and no woman in the world would care a toss about his facial scar. ‘Come on in,’ she called. ‘The water’s lovely.’

  So are you, linda flor, thought Roberto as he dived in. He reached her in a few powerful strokes and exerted stern self control to keep from snatching her close as she smiled up at him. Deus, it had been too long since he held a woman in his arms.

  ‘I won’t challenge you to a race because I don’t do much swimming these days,’ she said with regret. ‘But I’ll try to keep up with you for a while.’

  ‘We shall take it easy,’ he promised, but after a couple of lengths she grinned at him and put on speed and he laughed, accelerating to keep up with her. But soon Katherine began to lag behind.

  ‘I’m done,’ she spluttered as he towed her to the steps.

  ‘You swim well, Dr Lister.’

  ‘But I’m seriously out of practice. You, on the other hand,’ she gasped, ‘are not even out of breath.’

  ‘Because I am not out of practice,’ he agreed, thrusting his wet curls back. ‘But now I must do more lengths to complete my daily workout. When you go in tell Jorge we need coffee in half an hour, por favor.’

  ‘Will do.’ Katherine wrung the water out of her braid, wrapped herself in a towel and as she dried off stood watching Roberto power through the water before she went back to the house.

  Katherine gave the request for coffee and ran upstairs to shower. As she hurried into jeans and a scarlet T-shirt, she reminded the niggling voice of caution in her head that all too soon she would be back in her normal everyday life which, satisfying though it was from a work point of view, and even from a social one, there was nothing in it to compare with this halcyon period spent with Roberto de Sousa in his beautiful house. She would be unlikely to make a discovery as exciting as the Gainsborough again, for a start. Even when her research did turn up something promising, James always took over from then on. This period at Quinta das Montanhas was a one-off experience in every way, and she would savour every fleeting moment of it.

  Roberto was gazing out into the garden from his usual post at the veranda pillar when she rejoined him. Her espadrilles made no sound on the shining floor and he turned sharply as she reached him, smiling in approval.

  ‘You were quick!’

  ‘I suppose the women you know take more time—and effort—to get themselves together!’

  He eyed her with appreciation as he led her to the table, where a coffee tray waited for them. ‘You need no such effort, Katherine. Lidia says you ate no breakfast, so break your rules about doces and take some of her little cakes.’

  ‘I will. I’d forgotten how hungry I get after swimming. And you don’t have to diet to fit into a racing car any more.’

  ‘It is one advantage,’ he agreed dryly. ‘Though it was not dieting in the usual sense. I merely kept to those foods which made me strongest for the task. Part of which was mental as well as physical.’

  ‘Did you get depressed if you finished low down in the points?’

  ‘It was not depression exactly, but…what is the word?’ He thought for a moment, then snapped his fingers. ‘Obsession! Because tenths of a second qualifying time meant better start position on the grid.’ He shrugged philosophically. ‘I have no such obsessions now.’

  ‘Except for believing that your scar makes you into a monster,’ she said before she could stop herself.

  Roberto drank some of his coffee, eyeing her thoughtfully over the rim of his cup. ‘You do not think this, Katherine?’

  ‘You know I don’t. In fact—’ She managed to stop herself this time, and coloured at his look of intense interest.

  ‘In fact,’ he prompted.

  Oh, well, in for a penny. ‘When I saw you at the pool it was obvious that no woman who saw you without your clothes would care a toss about the scar.’

  He gave a delighted laugh, shaking his head as her colour heightened. ‘You are so good for me, Katherine Lister. I thank you for the compliment. But sure
ly you noticed that one leg is not as straight as the other?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ She drained her cup hastily.

  ‘You are blushing again! I embarrass you so much, Katherine? Disculpeme; it is not my intention.’ He eyed her objectively. ‘Though you look most beautiful when you blush.’

  ‘And you exaggerate, Senhor Sousa!’

  ‘Roberto, por favor! And I tell the truth, Katherine. Yours is a beauty not only of looks but of brain.’ He grinned. ‘A powerful combination!’

  She laughed. ‘You’re in a good mood today.’

  He leaned to take the cup she’d filled for him. ‘I have thought much about what you said yesterday. You say the truth, Katherine. I have my family at home in Brazil, also this beautiful house here in the Minho and, unlike my beloved brother, I am alive, with good honest work waiting for me at the Estancia when I am fit. I should be thanking God for this, not complaining about the scar and my leg—’ He looked up as Jorge came to say the Patrao was wanted on the telephone.

  ‘The lady refused to give her name,’ he added in apology.

  Roberto’s eyes narrowed. ‘Com licenca, Katherine.’ He snatched up his stick and limped away quickly.

  When Roberto returned to the veranda his eyes were dark with fury he masked quickly as Katherine looked at him in question.

  ‘Que descaramento!’ He tossed his stick away and sat down. ‘You have the phrase talk of the devil, nao e? The mystery caller was the subject of our conversation, Katherine.’ His eyes hardened. ‘Elena Cabral rang to beg for money again.’

  ‘Did she say why this time?’

  ‘She says she owes money for gambling debts, and has been threatened with violence if she does not pay. She tried to soften me with tears and much sobbing.’

  ‘You don’t believe her?’

  Roberto shrugged. ‘She is experienced actress, Katherine. Tears are easy for her. When I refused she made threats, screamed she would make me sorry.’ He squared his formidable shoulders. ‘There is no further harm she can cause me so let us forget about Elena and think of pleasanter things. A courier is coming to pick up the painting this afternoon.’