‘So, where is he?’ Danny demanded.
‘I don’t know. I’m in no hurry to see him. Are you?’
‘Liar,’ Danny accused. ‘Your face has pinked up, and your eyes are huge. I’m not going into any further anatomical detail on the basis that it wouldn’t be appropriate between friends. But, honestly, Lizzie, please don’t ask me to believe that you’re not eaten up with excitement at the thought of seeing Chico again.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong. I blame Chico for my obsession with all things equine, and nothing else.’ Which was also a lie, but Danny didn’t need to know that.
‘I remember,’ Danny mused. ‘Since the moment you met Chico, you talked of nothing but having a life with horses, just like him. And now here we are, on his training ranch,’ she exclaimed.
Lizzie faked a laugh, wishing she could join in Danny’s upbeat mood. True, everything on Fazenda Fernandez had surpassed her wildest expectation, and she was more determined than ever to excel and pass her diploma with top honours, but when it came to Chico...
‘Suck him dry, Lizzie, and then take his ideas back to Scotland, so you can use them to set up in competition and destroy him.’
She didn’t hate Chico as much as her father wished she did. In fact, she didn’t hate him at all, but she did feel disillusioned by him. She couldn’t even blame him if he had flirted with her mother, though she guessed Serena would be the instigator. Would Chico force himself on her mother? No. Would he rape her? Absolutely not. But Lizzie’s mother was still a very attractive woman, and Chico had always been a free spirit. But he could have been straight with her instead of promising to rescue her from Rottingdean House, and then disappearing without a word.
‘Share your thoughts,’ Danny insisted, crunching mints noisily as she sprawled out on the hay.
Not a chance, Lizzie thought ruefully. In this instance, she wouldn’t be confiding in her friend. ‘Hang up the tack for me, and then we’ll talk. It’s steaming in here. I’m melting after moving all that hay.’ Fanning herself, Lizzie started to peel off her breeches and claggy top. She relished the freedom of thong and sports bra for a few moments, before reaching for her jeans. ‘The heat, when you’ve been working as hard as we have, certainly takes it out of you.’
‘It’s not the only thing that’s hot,’ Danny observed with mischief in her voice.
‘The men?’ Lizzie pretended disinterest. Wiping her arm across her glowing face, she bundled her bright copper hair up into a band.
Danny opened an eye. ‘Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed them. The gauchos are off-the-scale hot, while the polo players are like gilt-edged invitations to sin.’
‘Really?’ Lizzie’s lips pressed down. ‘I can’t say I’ve noticed.’
‘Like hell you haven’t,’ Danny scoffed.
There was only one man Lizzie was interested in, and their paths hadn’t even crossed yet. She guessed Chico must have been busy catching up with everything that had happened while he’d been away, and doubted he’d even recognise her when they met again. She was hardly fifteen years old now. Nor was she impressionable, or prone to having a crush on a man who looked like a barbarian, and who had the morals of a goat, according to the scandal sheets. It was hard to miss the bad boy of polo, as the sports pages called him, when Chico scored as many front covers on polo magazines as he’d scored goals this season.