THE VALQUEZ SEDUCTION(17)

                The attendant left with a sizeable tip in his hand, closing the door on his exit.

                ‘Wow.’

                Luiz tossed his wallet on the sofa. ‘Hungry?’

                ‘I meant the tip.’ Daisy’s eyes were still out on stalks. ‘Did you really give that young man two hundred dollars?’

                He shrugged a loose shoulder. ‘I can afford it.’

                ‘Do you light your cigarettes with a fifty?’

                He flashed her a quick smile. ‘I don’t smoke.’

                Another point in his favour, she thought as he began to take the lids off the food. He handed her a plate. ‘Help yourself.’

                Daisy tried to be circumspect. She really tried. But the food was so scrumptious and she hadn’t had a proper cooked breakfast in years. Before she knew it, her plate was loaded with a mountain of monstrously wicked calories that would at some time in the future have to be worked off. But it would be worth it.

                She took the chair opposite his at the table near the window overlooking the Nevada desert in the distance. She unwrapped her silver cutlery from the snowy white napkin it was encased in and then glanced across at Luiz but all he had in front of him was a steaming cup of black coffee. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’

                ‘I’ll have something later.’

                ‘But there’s so much here.’ Most of it on my plate.

                ‘I like to work out first.’

                The gym or the bedroom? Daisy blushed as the thought slipped into her mind. ‘I suppose you have to be super fit to be a polo player.’

                ‘If you want to be the best then that’s exactly what you have to be.’

                She looked up from her forkful of eggs. ‘I’ve never been to a polo game. Is it fun?’

                A smile kicked up the corner of his mouth. ‘I enjoy it.’

                ‘So…that’s all you do? Fly around the world to play polo?’

                ‘I have business interests with my older brother Alejandro. Resorts, investments, horse breeding, that sort of thing. But yes, I mostly fly around the globe to play polo.’

                Daisy took a mouthful of the delectable bacon, trying not to groan in ecstasy as it went down. ‘Don’t you ever get bored?’ she asked after a moment.

                He cradled his coffee cup in one hand, the handle pointing away from him. ‘How do you mean?’

                ‘Living out of hotel rooms all the time. Doesn’t that get a little boring year after year after year?’

                Something about his expression subtly changed. The half smile was not so playful. The chiselled contours of his jaw not so relaxed. His eyes a little more screened than before. ‘Not so far.’

                ‘Don’t get me wrong—’ she scooped up some more egg ‘—I love hotel rooms, especially ones as nice as this. But there’s no place like home.’

                ‘Where do you live?’

                ‘London.’

                ‘Want to narrow that down a bit?’