One Scandalous Christmas Eve

by Susan Stephens

  All those years she’d dreamed about him, without making allowances for the man he would become. In her mind, Dante had remained the dangerously attractive youth who hovered unseen, and yet so forcibly present, over every relationship she’d ever had. How was she supposed to have a successful love life with Dante Acosta as her template?

  That kiss hadn’t stopped him when it came to relationships.

  No. Far from it. Following Dante’s career meant following a great many stories of his private life, which ran alongside his success, both in polo and the tech world. While she applauded his many triumphs, she was forced to see him dating, and that cut deep.

  It still did.

  It hadn’t damaged the connection between them. That was real and strong, at least on Jess’s part, but did Dante feel it too? He was impossible to read. Even blazingly alive in front of her rather than haunting her mind, Dante was as intangible as he had ever been.

  Could there ever be anything between them?

  ‘Look at the state of me,’ she murmured as Moon nuzzled her neck. ‘Does that seem likely when women across the world are hammering on Dante’s door? Why waste my life on pointless dreaming?’

  ‘So here you are—’

  She jumped at the sound of Dante’s voice.

  ‘I knew I’d find you with the ponies.’

  Her swift intake of breath must have betrayed the fact she’d been thinking about him. If that wasn’t enough, her cheeks were blazing and her lips felt swollen, while her breasts were aching for his touch.

  Dante appeared totally unaffected. Ditching his cane to come into the stall, he lounged back against the wall to inform her, ‘Look, no stick. I’m cured. You can go home now.’

  ‘By parachute?’ she suggested.

  He laughed, a flash of strong white teeth against his dark, swarthy face, which was the cue for heat to rush through her. If there was one thing more dangerous than a grim-faced Dante Acosta, it was this version. She couldn’t resist this one at all.

  She must, Jess reminded herself. Professionalism was paramount. ‘It’s too soon to discard your stick,’ she observed. ‘I’ve already warned you that you’ll suffer tomorrow if you put too much stress on that leg. You could pay the price with a setback.’

  Dante’s answer was an easy shrug. ‘Relax. I left my cane outside to avoid spooking Moon.’

  ‘And you delight in teasing me. Don’t forget that.’

  Dante almost turned serious. ‘I delight in the improvement I can feel in my leg. You can claim a miracle if you like.’

  ‘I prefer to work steadily until I’m sure that any improvement is lasting. I don’t throw up my hands and cheer at the first sign of change.’

  ‘Tell me, how do you remain so controlled?’

  ‘It counters your teasing,’ she said honestly. ‘As for miracles? All I see in your future is more therapy, hard work and pain.’

  ‘Sounds irresistible.’

  ‘I thought you’d prefer to hear the truth.’

  ‘Did you?’

  The look he gave her now made Jess’s cheeks flare bright red, while her body responded with far too much enthusiasm. ‘I take it you’re here to see Moon?’ she said in an attempt to distract both of them from the mounting tension.

  ‘I’m here to see you also.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘There’s something I forgot to say to you.’

  ‘You’re fired?’ she suggested dryly.

  ‘Now, why would I do that when I think we’re making progress?’ Dante viewed her steadily. ‘Small steps,’ he explained.

  Was he still referring to his leg? ‘Small steps,’ she agreed.

  ‘Truce?’

  She tensed as he pulled away from the wall. As he came closer and his heat wrapped around her, Dante’s energy pervaded the atmosphere.

  ‘I just want to say thank you,’ he soothed.

  He dipped forward to brush a kiss against her cheek, but she turned her head at entirely the wrong moment and their lips met. It seemed like for ever, though it could have been no more than a heartbeat, that she didn’t move, breathe or register anything apart from the fact that Dante was kissing her and seemed in no hurry to move away.

  ‘You okay?’ he prompted, pulling back.

  The penny dropped. No wonder he was frowning. In Dante’s sophisticated world kisses were exchanged as easily as handshakes. ‘Of course I’m okay.’ She shrugged as if men like Dante Acosta kissed her every day of the week, when what she really wanted was for him to kiss her as if he really, really meant it. ‘There’s no need to thank me. It’s my job.’

  ‘You’re very good at your job,’ he observed in a tone that bore out every thought she had about the meaning of that kiss. There was no meaning beyond Thank you.

  ‘And now it’s time to strap in for landing,’ he added briskly.

  You can say that again, Jess thought, curbing misplaced amusement as Dante’s dark stare lingered on her face.

  ‘Now?’ he prompted. ‘We’ll be touching down in a few minutes.’

  His wake-up call was badly needed. She wasn’t his type. If his perfunctory kiss hadn’t proved it, any magazine in the world would show that Dante went for glamorous women, more at home on the front row of a high fashion show than the back row of the stalls.

  Heading off to find a seat to strap into, she was surprised when Dante did the same. She’d already decided to stay on the deck with the horses so she was ready to help the grooms as soon as the plane landed. ‘Why don’t you strap in upstairs?’ she suggested to Dante. ‘We can manage here, and if you don’t rest after treatment you’ll never get better.’

  ‘If you don’t learn that I don’t accept orders you and I are in for a bumpy ride,’ he shot back.

  Pressing her lips together so she didn’t say something she might regret, Jess reflected tensely, You don’t frighten me, Dante Acosta, and, whether you like it or not, for the duration of your treatment I’m in charge.

  * * *

  With the horses safely arrived in Spain and loaded into transporters waiting on the tarmac, it was Jess’s turn to climb into Dante’s flatbed alongside.

  Flinging his cane into the back, Dante hauled himself into the driving seat beside her. ‘You’ll be in pain for some time yet,’ she explained when he grimaced and paused to knead a cramped muscle. ‘I dare say I’ve woken up nerve endings you’d forgotten about.’

  ‘No chance of that now,’ he agreed grimly. ‘How long must I suffer cramp?’

  ‘Until you’re cured.’

  ‘Then you’d better get on with it.’

  ‘I intend to.’

  As Dante shook his head with exasperation, Jess knew she was dealing with a warrior, a man who had thought himself invincible until the accident.

  ‘You’d better make sure I’m ready for the new polo season,’ he threatened, grimacing.

  ‘I’d be lying if I said I could guarantee that. It’s largely up to you, and how seriously you take my treatment plan.’

  ‘Do you have to be so honest?’

  ‘Always.’

  ‘I can hire a therapist any day of the week.’

  ‘Then go ahead and do so, though I can’t imagine you’ll have many takers if that expression settles on your face.’

  ‘Ha! And what about the ponies? Or have you forgotten about them?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten nothing,’ she fired back. ‘I’ll stay on your estancia until they’re settled, but that doesn’t mean you have to keep me on as your therapist. Go ahead and hire someone else.’ At least I wouldn’t have to tolerate you as a patient, she thought, though deep down she knew it was the frustration of Dante’s injury driving him to lash out at her. Better he did that than he took it out on someone who didn’t understand him. ‘I’m here to help and until you fire me that’s what I’m going to do.’

&
nbsp; ‘So you can put Acosta on your CV?’ he suggested with an ugly snarl.

  ‘So you can walk without a cane, and ride again, and maybe even play polo at international level again,’ she argued calmly.

  ‘Only maybe?’ he said with a narrow-eyed look.

  ‘There are no guarantees where the body is concerned,’ she said honestly, ‘but I’ve never shirked in my attempt to heal a patient yet, and I don’t intend to start with you. I’m not a quitter, Dante.’

  ‘Just my bad luck,’ Dante murmured beneath his breath. Releasing the handbrake, he gunned the engine and they were off to a future even Skylar would find hard to predict.

  * * *

  While they were driving, Jess called her father to reassure him they’d landed safely and the horses had been loaded successfully without drama and were now on their way to Dante’s ranch in Spain. It would have been a lie to add that things were going well, she reflected, and so she confined herself in a very British way to talking about the weather. ‘It’s warmer here in winter than Yorkshire in summer,’ she told her father with a laugh.

  ‘You enjoy yourself,’ he said before cutting the line. ‘All work and no play et cetera.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad, I’ll remember that.’

  Dante glanced at her as they ended the conversation and she huffed a rueful laugh. ‘Everything okay?’ he asked.

  ‘My father seems fine—on top of the world, in fact. I’ve never heard him sounding quite so optimistic.’

  ‘Good. That’s good.’

  They both fell silent and she tried to relax, but it wasn’t easy when she was trapped in the confines of a cab with so much man. Dante’s lean tanned hands effortlessly tickling the wheel while his biceps bulged and his iron-hard thighs rested a hair’s breadth away from hers would have tested the endurance of a saint. His machismo was like a living thing that sucked the air from her lungs, leaving her nothing to breathe but pure sex.

  ‘I’m fast but safe,’ he stated.

  She laughed inside, wondering if she should feel quite so disappointed about the fast reference in that statement.

  ‘You drive very well,’ she said in an attempt to blank images of her life becoming fast and extremely unsafe. Her body wanted one thing, while common sense dictated caution. Twenty-seven years old and she couldn’t boast a single successful sexual relationship, and that was all down to one man setting the bar at an unattainable height. Dante hadn’t made things better with his most recent kiss. Even if it was just a token to say thank you, she was still buzzing with awareness and kept touching her lips with the tip of her tongue, as if to recreate the moment.

  Okay, so she had been one hundred per cent guilty of sabotaging any potential love affair in the past by picking unworthy men. She didn’t have time for love, she’d tell herself as she concentrated on her studies. Though she did have time to dream about Dante Acosta. And the failed love affairs? Were down to not wanting to tarnish that first romantic image of a memorable kiss in a stable. And who could blame her, when even a routine ‘thank you’ kiss from Dante Acosta set her heart pounding? He knocked the competition out of the park.

  But there was no point in falling for a lost cause. She had to find a way to get him out of her system, or she’d never move forward and have the chance to love.

  Not that she was in danger of falling in love with Dante Acosta. No way! Jess assured herself in the most forceful manner possible. Sucking in a deep breath, she made herself relax.

  They’d been driving for around an hour when Dante announced, ‘We’re here.’

  Anything Jess had imagined was obliterated by what she saw in front of her. Having left the bustling coast behind, the peace of this much lusher, greener interior held immediate appeal for Jess. ‘How lucky you are,’ she murmured as high gates swung back to reveal a crown of snow-capped mountains circling Dante’s land. Neatly fenced paddocks full of ponies stretched away as far as the eye could see.

  ‘I can ski in the morning and swim in the sea in the afternoon,’ he said as they passed through the gates and drove on down an immaculately maintained road.

  Lush green was fed by a glittering river, while clusters of trees provided shelter for the ponies. Jess was rendered speechless, and wondered how Dante could ever bring himself to leave.

  ‘I spoke with my brother while you were busy with Moon. He says they booked you for a month.’

  ‘I can’t predict how long your treatment will take, but I would expect a substantial improvement by then.’

  Dante hummed, leaving Jess to wonder if, for him, a month was too long or not long enough. Either way, she must separate her personal feelings from what she’d been tasked to do.

  Each bend in the road revealed a new vista of contented animals and tidily maintained land. ‘I’ve never seen so many ponies in one place before,’ Jess admitted on an incredulous laugh, ‘but what about security?’

  ‘High-tech.’

  Like everything else in Dante’s life, she imagined. ‘You’ve got a lot of plates to keep spinning, and once you return to full fitness I suspect you’ll want to spin even more. Do you ever take a break?’

  ‘Do you?’ he countered with a swift sideways glance.

  They fell silent after that, which allowed Jess to appreciate how big his ranch was. It was like a small country within a country, and when she contrasted that with the small hill farm where she’d grown up she got an even greater sense of the yawning gulf between them.

  ‘Do you like what you see?’ Dante enquired.

  ‘The more I see, the more I understand why you chose to come here to lick your wounds.’

  ‘It’s my home,’ he said, as if this were obvious.

  But it was more than that, Jess suspected. This was Dante’s retreat from the world, where he could live free from comment or the cruel gossip that suggested he might never play again. That gossip made her doubly determined to heal him.

  Though there might be more to heal than Dante’s leg, she accepted. He was a complex man who had famously run wild in his youth, only to be drawn to a shuddering halt by the death of his parents. Since then, it was well documented that Dante had done everything he could to help his oldest brother take care of the family. That took its toll as well, she reflected, thinking of her father’s distressing retreat from the world when he’d lost his wife. Nothing hurt more than seeing someone she loved suffering as much as her father had, and Dante had gone through that same torment with his brothers and sister, which made her wonder how much time he’d taken to grieve.

  ‘Another couple of miles and you’ll be able to see all the facilities, as well as the ranch house and the stables.’

  Meanwhile, she would feast her eyes on Dante’s hands, lightly controlling the wheel, and his powerful forearms, shaded with just the right amount of dark hair.

  Another couple of miles?

  Could she control her breathing for that long?

  She must, and she would. It wasn’t a gulf between them; it was an ocean. She had entered a kingdom for one, which would be forced in the short term to play host to an invader with a medical bag.

  And a will every bit as strong as Dante Acosta’s.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘MY FATHER TAUGHT me that the handing over process is as important as the sale, so I’ll see the ponies settled in before I go to my accommodation, if that’s okay with you?’ Jess said as Dante drew into a courtyard the size of a couple of football pitches.

  ‘Don’t worry. Your father’s ponies have come to the best home in Spain.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ she agreed, ‘but I promised that I would see them settled, and then ring to reassure him. After that, I’ll concentrate on you.’

  ‘That sounds ominous,’ Dante said as he rested his hands on the wheel.

  ‘You’re my patient, and that makes you my primary concern.’

  ‘I’m v
ery glad to hear it.’

  The way he spoke, the way he looked at her, was going to make it hard to remain immune to the infamous Acosta charm.

  Make that impossible, Jess thought as Dante climbed down from the driver’s side and came around the vehicle to help her out.

  ‘I can manage, thank you.’

  Ignoring her comment, he lifted her down, leaving her with the overwhelming and inconvenient urge to be naked with him, skin to heated skin.

  ‘When you’ve reassured yourself regarding the ponies, my housekeeper will show you around the ranch house. Or you can sit on the fence and watch as I allow the ponies to stretch their legs. They’ve been cooped up and will appreciate some carefully controlled freedom.’

  ‘Sit on the fence?’ she queried wryly. ‘Does that sound like me?’

  ‘No,’ Dante admitted, ‘but the sooner the ponies get used to new handlers, the happier they will be.’

  For a moment Jess felt excluded, and had to remind herself that interaction with her father’s ponies was to reassure him and that her main job was to treat Dante.

  But she couldn’t help herself, and when she noticed Moon playing up she walked over to the wrangler. ‘Let me do this,’ she insisted as the tricky mare reared. ‘I know Moon. I understand her.’

  ‘Está bien, Manuel. Back off,’ Dante instructed as Jess took charge.

  The ease with which she was able to calm Moon was almost embarrassing. Everyone stopped to watch as she brought the pony down the yard but, not wanting to start off on the wrong foot, she explained to the assembled wranglers, while Dante translated her words from English to Spanish, that the mare trusted her because she’d known Jess since the day she was born.