—Romantic Times Mothers-To-Be(28)

“You don’t need an excuse,” she whispered with all the natural warmth that lay at the core of her temperament.



“Tomorrow will come too soon. Tokyo…” Rico murmured. “I’ll send Kenway in my place—just this once.”

And then he covered her mouth with erotic precision, his hands buried in her hair. It was a long time before they made it into the shower.





CHAPTER NINE


“THEY belong to my sister. They should fit.”

Bella surveyed the riding gear with concealed amusement. “I could wear my jeans.”

“You’ll feel more comfortable in these. Jeans can be very constricting,” Rico informed her.

“You’re planning for me to look impressive round your stables?” She looked at him with mockery.

“I intend to teach you how to ride.”

Of course, far be it from Rico to ask if she could already ride. He specialised in making assumptions. But then it was encouraging that he should want her to share a pastime which he obviously enjoyed.

Obediently sliding into the borrowed outfit, she watched him out of the corner of her eye and wondered where the past two days had gone.

Time was already slipping through her fingers like sand.

They hadn’t made it down for dinner that first night. They had picnicked like starving adolescents at the kitchen table in the early hours. The next morning she had insisted on going up to London to see Hector and supervise the removal of her possessions. She had wanted to leave her paintings behind but that had provoked an argument, so she had given way. Rico had already had a room cleared for her to use a studio. Filled with natural light, it was an artist’s dream, and if there was such a thing as inspiration, she reflected wryly, Winterwood would surely provide it.

Although not according to Hector. Bella’s cheeks as she recalled his reaction to her chosen change of abode. He had been shocked, unhappy and dismayed. In all ness, what other response could she have expected? Hector was of a different generation. But seeing his disappointment in her had upset her.

“If he cared about you he’d want to marry you,” he had told her sternly, and she had bitten her lip and refused to argue. Only time would tell whether Rico cared or not.

“Come closer.” Rico beckoned with an imperious hand.

“Horses sense fear. It makes them nervous.”

“You think I’m afraid?”

“Why else would you be standing so far back?” Arrogantly he took her hand and showed her how to become acquainted with the velvet-nosed bay mare that was shuffling restively on the cobbles while a groom saddled her up.

“Sheba’s a little fresh. I’ll put you on her in the paddock … on a leading rein.”

“Gosh … it looks a long way up,” Bella twittered, striving to look Scared.

“I’ll be with you. You’ll be fine. Dios … I told him I wouldn’t be riding,” he bit out impatiently, only then noticing that the other groom had already tacked up the glossy grey stallion on the other side of the yard.

And I told him you would be, she thought. Grasping Sheba’s reins, Bella planted a foot in the stirrup and mounted up in one smooth movement.

Halfway across the yard Rico swung back.

“Bella!” he yelled, clearly thinking that she was being recklessly daring to impress.

“Last one over the fence is a wimp!” she called over her shoulder.

Sheba was fresh all right. Given her head, she took off like a bullet out of a gun, racing for the fence. Bella gloried in the wind tearing at her hair and the speed. It was over a year since she had been on a horse. She heard the thunder of pursuit and grinned. Next time Rico would ask whether or not she could do something before he told her she was going to learn.

Sheba sailed over the fence like a champion and galloped across the rolling parkland. Rico’s stallion thundered past and was reined in on a rise beside a clump of massive oak trees. Sheba was slowing down by then. Bella let her trot the last hundred yards.

Two long strides carried Rico to her side as she slid down off the mare’s back.

“Sorry … but I couldn’t resist it.” Her spontaneous smile lit up her whole face as she turned to him.

Her smile lurched and died as Rico closed angry hands round her forearms.

“Don’t ever get on one of my horses again without a hard hat!” he seethed down at her.

“I never wear a hat.”

“You will… If you don’t, you don’t ride,” he spelt out flatly, pale beneath his golden skin.

“And only an idiot would jump a fence like that on a strange mount!”

“Or an idiot who asked the groom first how she performed. He told me she jumped like she was on springs.” Bella looked up at him, into still grim dark eyes, and groaned.

“I gave you a fright. I’m sorry.”

“Where did you learn to ride?”

“Well, not in a paddock on a leading rein.” She threw herself down on the lush grass and turned her face into the sunlight.

“Cleo had friends we sometimes stayed with. They had horses. I was crazy about them. And Gramps kept stables-‘ ” Stables? “

“Boarding, riding lessons, all that sort of stuff.” She linked her hands round her raised knees and stared down the rolling slope into the distance.

“The business went bust when I was nineteen. He broke a hip while I was at college. He could’ve asked me to come home but he didn’t. By the time I realised how bad things were the bank was calling in his loan.

All he needed was a little more time but they pushed him to the wall. “

“I gather you tried to persuade the bank otherwise.”

“A waste of my breath.” Bella grimaced.

“And when the horses had to be sold Gramps just gave up. He didn’t own the stables. He had to move out into a council house in the village. It killed him.”

“Why do you blame yourself?.”

Bella tensed, unprepared for someone saying out loud what she had often thought.

“I could’ve stopped it happening.”

“How?”

“I could’ve run the place for him until he got back on his feet.”

“But he obviously didn’t want you to drop out of college, gatita. And what business experience did you have? Why blame yourself when you lost your home as well?”

“Fiddlesticks,” she said, with a wry curve to her expressive mouth.

“A little tub of an elderly Shetland pony called Fiddlesticks. I was more upset about him being sold. Silly really—I mean, he was only a pet. I was far too big to ride him.”

Rico tugged her back against his chest.

“Dios … loath as I am to admit it when you have been showing off, you’re a terrific rider.”

His breath stirred her hair, the familiar scent of him blissfully enveloping her.

She felt at peace in Rico’s arms and that worried her. At peace was the last thing she ought to have felt around him. This was an interlude for him. It wouldn’t last. He didn’t even want it to last.

He wanted a passionate affair and an open door to freedom at the end of it. No strings, no complications, no recriminations. He had made that resoundingly clear.



She felt mean and she acted accordingly.

“Tell me about your ex-wife.”

The strong muscles in his arms drew taut.

“What do you want to know?”

“Her name … that would be a start.”

“Margarita.”

“And then maybe you could tell me why you’re so bitter,” she dared.

“I am not bitter.”

“Do I remind you of her?”

“Not at all. She was small, black-haired, blue-eyed.” “Beautiful?”

“Stunning.”

“You could ease up on the superlatives if you like,” she told him.

“So how did you meet?”

“A nightclub. She was an actress but I had no idea how ambitious she was. In fact I never really knew her at all,” he admitted flatly.

“I

was twenty, she was two years older. I didn’t know the difference between love and sexual obsession. At that age everything feels so intense. When she told me she was pregnant I married her. “

“Yes,” she whispered softly.

“Once he was born, Margarita dropped any pretence of wishing to be a mother and went back to the film world,” he said drily.

“I tried very hard to make the marriage work. Everyone had told me I was making a mistake. I was determined to prove them wrong … and I trusted her.

“Even when I found her in bed with another man I didn’t realise that he was one of many. She would have slept with anyone capable of furthering her career. She was drunk that night. She told me how many others there had been. The next morning she moved out and moved in with her producer. I instigated the divorce…”

“What else could you have done?” Bella leant her head back against him, understanding all that he had left unsaid. He had been used, kicked in the teeth and dumped. She waited for him to mention the little boy again, realised that he hadn’t even referred to him by name, and also that he had not told her that that child had not been his.

“Margarita made it a battle, and she revelled in the publicity until it turned on her,” he drawled.

“Her career no-se dived after the divorce. Nobody came out of it happy.”

Had he still been in love with his ex-wife? His grim intonation suggested regret to Bella. Regret for what? She wanted to probe deeper but resisted the temptation. She knew that she would drag it all out of him eventually. But now, she sensed, was not the time.