She undressed, shivering at the window, staring up at the milky indigo sky and full moon. Slipping under the covers, she wrapped her arms around herself as she waited for her bed to warm. She started thinking about all she’d need to do before she left, what she’d need to pack…It was one of the hard parts about traveling—the way it made her so restless. The minute a plan was in place, everywhere her mind fell, there was something that needed to be done.
She closed her eyes, trying not to think, willing herself to relax while wondering why this little trip felt like something so much bigger, a kind of seismic shift. The bed slowly warmed but she couldn’t let go. She lay there in the dark, a thousand thoughts flickering through her mind like so many fireflies on an inky summer night, each one determined to keep her awake and unsettled.
When her father’s health brings Kat home to Wellington, the last thing on her mind is romance. But now she’s forced to work with Sebastian Del Campo, a devastatingly handsome tabloid god as well-known for his polo playing as he is for breaking hearts.
Please see the next page for an excerpt from
Nacho Figueras Presents:
Wild One
Chapter One
Katherine Ann Parker looked in the bathroom mirror and carefully applied a layer of dark red lipstick.
And then, just as carefully, she wiped it back off.
Too much. The last thing she wanted was to look like she was desperate.
She dug some ChapStick out of her bag and slicked it on, trying to ignore the Silver Lake hipster breathing behind her, impatiently waiting to wash her hands.
Yes, that was better. And everything else seemed to be working—her black hair, pulled back into a sleek chignon; the crisp white fitted button-down showing just a hint of cleavage; the modest gold hoops in her ears; the dark wash jeans that were tailored just so, the six-inch-heeled ankle boots…
She frowned. She knew her manager, Honey Kimmelman, would nix the boots. As a general rule, the men in Hollywood were short and didn’t like to be reminded of that fact. And Kat was already tall, even without the heels. The boots pushed her up over six feet.
“Well, too damned bad,” she said out loud. “This is a job, not a date.”
“Um, excuse me?” said the hipster.
Kat blinked, embarrassed. She had forgotten she was not alone. “Sorry. Personal pep talk,” she mumbled, and she moved aside so the girl could use the sink.
The girl washed her hands and left, shooting one last quizzical look at Kat as the door swung shut behind her.
Kat lingered at the window, looking out over the panorama of West Hollywood. She sighed dreamily. Even the bathroom at Soho House had an amazing view.
She checked her watch—it was time. She smoothed her hair, almost went for the lipstick again, and then stilled her hand and forced a deep breath. It was just a meeting, she told herself. She’d been to a million meetings. She could do this.
* * *
As Kat eased her way to the back of the restaurant, she made a point of pretending not to notice the multitude of celebrities and A-listers scattered around the private club. Soho House was, above all, discreet. A place where even the biggest stars could have lunch, take meetings, gossip, and relax, and be sure to go unbothered. Kat had reluctantly let her membership lapse when she could no longer afford the annual fees, but she was always happy to come back as a guest.
The movie exec, Dee Yang, rose from her seat, smiling, as Kat approached the table. Dee was younger than Kat, dark haired and pretty, wearing a navy sheath that showed off her toned arms. Kat liked her at once, could see the intelligence written all over face, and recognized her warm smile as genuine.
“Kat, so great to finally meet you,” said Dee as they shook hands. “I’m such a huge fan.”
Kat waved the compliment off, smiling. “Thank you. It’s so good to meet you, too.”
“And this is Steve Meyers,” said Dee as she and Kat sat down. “He’s producing the project.”
A fiftyish man with graying hair, in jeans and a baseball cap, nodded but did not look up from his phone. “Hang on. Just one second,” he said, texting away.
Kat glanced at Dee, who raised her eyebrows apologetically and passed her a menu. “Have you had the burrata?” she said. “I can’t resist it.”
“And ooookay,” said Steve, putting down his phone at last. “Sorry about that. Couldn’t wait.” He gave Kat an obvious head-to-toe once-over before he stuck out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Kay.”
“Kat,” Dee corrected.
“Right, sorry. Kat.”
Kat’s heart sank as she watched his eyes dart right back to his phone. It wasn’t hard to read the room. He didn’t want to be here. Dee had obviously talked him into this meeting. He probably already had someone else lined up for the job.
She forced herself to look at her menu, trying not to let the disappointment show on her face.
“So, Kat,” said Dee, “I notice a little Southern accent. Where are you from?”
Kat smiled. “My folks are originally from Georgia, but I grew up in Wellington, Florida.”
“Wellington?” Steve said, momentarily interested, “I think my first wife went down there once for some expensive thing she had to buy a crazy hat for. Tennis? Cricket?”
“Polo, probably,” said Kat. “Or some other horse-related activity. It’s pretty much all horses all the time in Wellington.”
She could just imagine Steve’s first wife, tan and toned, her face a mask of Botox, taking out her frustrations about her jerk of a husband as she violently stomped divots on the field in her Chanel suit and oversized hat.
“That’s right,” said Steve, “polo. You ride?”
Kat shook her head. “Nope. I am not what you would call a horsey person.”
Steve nodded. His phone pinged. “Oh man, it’s a text from Michael.” His voice sank to a conspiratorial whisper. “You know, Bay. I have to answer this.”
As he turned away from the table, Kat tried to push down a rising wave of annoyance.
“So anyway,” said Dee hurriedly, “I absolutely love Winter’s Passing. It’s one of my all-time favorites. I cry every time I watch it. And you were practically still in school when you made it, right?”
“About a year out,” said Kat.
“It was a crime that it lost the Oscar,” said Dee.
Kat smiled ruefully. “Well, you know what they say, just an honor to be nominated.”
Steve looked up from his phone again, smirking. “But then…Red Hawk.”
Kat felt the smile freeze on her face. “Yes. Red Hawk.”
Steve made a clucking sound with his tongue. “Man, how much money did that one lose? It was some kind of record, wasn’t it?”
Kat met his beady eyes defiantly. “Came this close to making the Guinness book.”
Dee laughed. Steve didn’t even crack a smile.
“Hell of a thing to be remembered for,” he said. “And didn’t you have a fling with Jack Hayes while you were filming? He dumped you right after the box office numbers came in, right?”
Kat fought the urge to stab him with her fork. “Something like that.”
“Well, they should have known better, really. Talk about ruining the source material. I mean, what little boy was going to want to see a girly version of Red Hawk comics?”
Kat stiffened. “And what Hollywood producer is so out of touch that he still thinks a bunch of little boys are driving the box office?”
Steve sniffed. “Yeah, because stunt-casting a female director obviously brought the audience out in droves.”
Kat slowly counted to ten in her head before speaking again. “You know, I made a lot of mistakes on that film, but I’m pretty sure that being born female wasn’t one of them.”
He shook his head. “Shoulda stuck with what you know.”
She cocked her head. “Oh? And what, exactly, do I know?”
“Rom-coms. Princess movies. Fifty Shades of Crap.”
She stared at him. “You’re kidding, right?”
He shrugged and looked back at his phone. “Your movie tanked. That says it all.”
Kat felt her face flush, and some very choice words rose to her lips, but Dee hurriedly interrupted. “But that was all years ago,” she said in a placating tone. “I’m sure you’ve done a ton since then, right?”
Kat took a deep breath and forced herself to turn away from Steve so she could give Dee her usual spiel about having some work in development, about how she was working on a new spec—but before she could even really start, Steve’s phone pinged again.
“Oh, yep, gotta take this one, too,” he interrupted.
That was it. She’d had enough.
She put her hand on his wrist and gave him her sweetest smile. “You know, Steve, I feel like we kind of got off on the wrong foot. Can we start over?”
He looked back at her, suspicious at first, but she just kept smiling until she saw the exact moment when he relaxed and a new kind of interest kindled in his eyes. His gaze slid down to her chest.
Bingo. She licked her lips in anticipation.
“It’s cool,” he finally said. “But I seriously gotta answer this text.”
“Oh, is that Michael Bay again? Are you really friends with him?” Her Southern accent was suddenly thicker.
He smirked. “Played tennis with him just last week.”
She looked up at him from under her lashes. “That is so amazing. I heard he only works with the best. You must be really good at what you do.”
He straightened his shoulders. “I think it’s fair to say that I know what I’m doing.”
“I can see that.” She smiled again, squeezing his arm. “I bet there’s a lot you could teach me.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I bet you’re right.”
She giggled. “Oh, hey, is that the latest iPhone? So neat. Do you mind if I take a look at it for just one little second?”
Steve chuckled. “Haven’t seen it yet, eh? I had my assistant stand in line for twelve hours to get this thing.” He passed it over.
Kat stood up, dropped the phone on the floor, and ground it under her heel.
“What the hell?” yelled Steve, his face going beet red.
Kat looked him in the face. “Oops. I’m so sorry,” she said, deadpan. She stomped down again. “It must have slipped.”
She smiled blissfully as she leaned even harder, enjoying the satisfying crunch of metal against metal.
Appendix
The Game of Polo
Each TEAM is made up of four PLAYERS. The players are designated positions from one through four and wear the corresponding number on their team shirts. Player 1 is primarily offensive; player 4 primarily defensive. Normally, the most experienced and highest-handicap players play positions two and three, with position three being akin to the captain or quarterback of the team.
HANDICAPS: Each player is given a handicap from –2 (the worst) up to 10 goals (the best). Only a handful of the greatest professional players achieve the prestigious handicap of 10.
Polo is played on a large grass field—or PITCH—that is 300 yards long and 160 yards wide. There are GOALPOSTS at either end, placed 8 yards apart.
THE GAME begins with players lined up in the center of the field. One of the two UMPIRES bowls the ball between the teams. The players then use a combination of speed, skill, and teamwork to mark each other—and to score.
Players SCORE by hitting the ball between the goalposts. A pony can score a goal for its team if it knocks the ball across the line between posts. After each goal, and at the end of each chukka, the teams change playing directions. Play resumes with another throw-in.
CHUKKA: The number of periods in which a game of polo is divided. Players change out their ponies between chukkas. There are generally six chukkas in a game (in Argentina there are eight) and each chukka lasts approximately seven minutes.
HALFTIME: At halftime, which is typically five minutes, the custom is for spectators to walk onto the polo field to tread in the clumps of turf—or DIVOTS—kicked up by ponies.
The horses ridden in polo are known as POLO PONIES, regardless of their height. Originally, no horse taller than thirteen hands and two inches (54 inches) was allowed to play the game. Though the restriction was removed early in the twentieth century, the terminology has remained.
Polo ponies can be Thoroughbreds or of mixed breed. What matters is that they are fit (they might run a couple miles during each chukka), strong, disciplined, intelligent, and love to play. Some of the finest ponies are bred in Argentina. Most ponies begin their training at the age of five, and this can last from six months to two years. As with their riders, it takes many years to master the game and most ponies reach their peak around age nine or ten. Barring injuries, a pony can continue to play until age eighteen or twenty.
During a game, a player will use as many as eight ponies—known as a STRING OF PONIES. The higher the level of competition, the more ponies in a player’s string.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Ignacio “Nacho” Figueras is one of the most recognized men in the world as the global face of Ralph Lauren’s polo line. Hailed by CNN as the “David Beckham of Polo,” Figueras is also captain and co-owner of Argentina’s award-winning Black Watch team. He has been featured on Oprah and 60 Minutes, and Vanity Fair readers have voted him one of the most handsome men in the world.
Nacho currently splits his time between the United States and Argentina with his wife, Delfina, and their four children.
Jessica Whitman lives and writes in the Hudson Valley, New York.
You can learn more at:
NachoFiguerasPresents.com
Twitter @NachoFigueras
Facebook.com/NachoFigueras
More in The Polo Season Series
Nacho Figueras Presents: High Season
Nacho Figueras Presents: Wild One
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
A Note from Nacho Figueras
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Epilogue
“Nacho Figueras Presents: High Season”
“Nacho Figueras Presents: Wild One”
Appendix
About the Authors
More in The Polo Season Series
Newsletters
Copyright
This book is a work of fictio
n. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Ignacio Figueras
Excerpts from High Season and Wild One copyright © 2016 by Ignacio Figueras
Cover design by Elizabeth Turner
Cover illustration by Alan Ayers
Author photograph by Claudio Marinesco
Horse images © Steve Greer/Getty Images
Cover copyright © 2016 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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ISBN 978-1-4555-6372-2 (trade paperback edition)
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Nacho Figueras Presents Page 24