The Playboy of Argentina(24)

Rocco smiled to himself. God, he loved that man. He headed indoors. Time  to shower, shave and then bundle them both back to La Colorada and  their full and frank, no-holds-barred discussion.

Frankie finished the last part of her email and reread it for the tenth  time. Her finger hovered for two whole seconds above the keyboard-and  then she pressed Send.

Gone. Too late to do anything about it now.

She had taken almost two hours to think it through, come to a final  decision and then write the damned thing. Two hours in which she had  written out a list of pros and cons that had Rocco Hermida's name in  both columns.

Staying here was a pro because it gave her more time with him-time to  get to know him better, to explore every part of his fabulous estancia,  to go riding, to take in the next polo match and to lie in his arms  after it and revel in the gorgeous feeling of being Rocco's girl.

But staying here was also a con, because if she did all of those things  it meant that she was going to fall deeper and deeper in love. And she  wasn't stupid enough to think that was a two-way street-yet. It might be   …  in time. But after opening up to her last night, lifting the lid on  his box of secrets, he'd slammed it shut again, nailed it down and  buried it deeper than it had ever been.                       
       
           



       

He'd prowled through the house on the phone, moving into empty spaces  and closing glass doors, literally shutting her out. He'd spent nearly  all morning running on the beach, and a good part of the afternoon in  the gym. He'd been curt, verging on rude when Dante had been there, and  though he'd apologised he'd offered no explanation or softening. It was  almost as if he was angry at himself for sharing his story, for making  himself seem a little more human, a little more mortal than godlike.

And in a way that just added to the allure. He was so complex, so dark,  so vulnerable. And she ached to help him slough off this crown of thorns  he wore. She'd never felt more moved than when she was lying in his  arms, making love in the early hours of the morning. It was like opening  her eyes after the longest sleep, glimpsing a beautiful sunrise, seeing  a glorious future-and then feeling darkness seep back as night fell  prematurely, suddenly. Leaving her stumbling about in the dark, unable  to find the light.

So what to do? What to do  … ?

In the end one thing had tipped the balance-he enriched her. But more  than that he needed her. She knew how hard it had been for him to talk  about his early childhood. Maybe he never had before. And if she didn't  make an effort for him now she might never take the chance again.  Because it was a chance. There was no guarantee that he was going to  revisit any of that trauma with her or anyone else. It broke her heart  to think that he carried that guilt. But it was so him. To shoulder  everything himself. And keeping everyone else at a distance was probably  the only way he could handle it.

Did she really expect him to treat her any differently than any of the  countless women she'd seen on those pictures that she and Dante had  scrolled through earlier? She knew what she felt, but getting him to a  point where he might admit the same was like trying to reroute a  hurricane. It was only going to go where it wanted. And when it hit land  everybody had better stand back.

She sighed and clicked on her sent box to confirm that the email had  indeed been delivered. Knowing that in approximately two hours' time her  boss was going to read it and probably go into some kind of tailspin  himself.

The timing couldn't be worse. She was asking for leave at a time when  she should have been parcelling herself up to be sent express delivery  back to Madrid. She could feel in her bones the resistance to her  proposals already. The emails that had been coming from head office were  getting more and more cautionary. She could detect a derisory sniff in  the air, and now she was seven days away from a one-to-one with her  boss.

But she was going to use this extra time to polish her proposal until it  shone. Going organic was the only way. Natural products were  everywhere. There was nothing to commend Evaña to the modern savvy  shopper. If she could develop an organic line and hook in a couple of  bloggers, they'd be off to a flyer. If not they were going to continue  to lose customers like skin lost elasticity, and none of the big  stockists would look twice at them. At least this way the ageing  geriatric company might have a future. And if it had a future, so did  she.

That had to remain her number one priority. Being here with Rocco was  enriching, but it wasn't real life. Real life was waiting for her when  she jumped out of the metro in Madrid and picked her way along the calle  to head office and her moment in the spotlight.

She packed up her briefcase in readiness for their early-morning  helicopter ride. Rocco's helicopter  …  Rocco's pilot. Hopefully their  journey would go by unnoticed. The last thing she wanted was any more  media interest as a result of her being with him. Her poor mother was  already contending with whatever it was that had tipped Danny over the  edge and into wedded bliss. He was playing his cards very close to his  chest, as he always did. But thankfully what had happened in Punta  seemed to be staying in Punta-for now anyway.

She braced herself every time she got a message, thinking it might be  her mother, wailing and crossing herself over her daughter's loose  morals-or even more likely her father, who would be happy to finally be  proved right.

She zipped up the black leather case, stacked it beside the gorgeous old  desk in the study she'd settled herself in and smiled. Strange how  she'd begun to see things slightly differently after hearing Rocco's  words. For a moment she let herself bask in all the sweet things he'd  whispered to her at night. Let herself feel that she was unique in a  positive way, rather than freakily different from all the local girls.  Feel proud of what she'd achieved rather than ashamed that she didn't  want what had been mapped out for her. An inspiration, he'd called her  once. And more than a tiny part of her wanted to believe that.                       
       
           



       

She traced her way back through the expansive masculine home. Polished  parquet floors with silk runners spread out along long narrow hallways.  Console tables punctuated the burgundy silk walls, highlighting fabulous  black-and-white photographs of gauchos and dancers and patent-coated  stallions. It was so him-so darkly, elegantly, brutally beautiful.

His bedroom threw the house's dark arteries into airy relief. High  ceilings, wide windows and sumptuous silk carpets-and the bed that they  had christened after that disastrous pony ride two days earlier.

She smiled, looked at it and straightened the pony-skin cushions,  setting them against the vast wooden headboard. The little photo of Lodo  was back in place on the bedside table. She picked it up and looked at  it-really looked at it. What a beautiful boy he had been  …  but so  solemn. God only knew what terrors he'd seen-what terrors Rocco had seen  and continued to see. He might have clammed up again, but those flashes  of truth had given her such insight-personal nuggets she'd hold dear  and treasure.

She sighed. Blew out a huge breath she hadn't even realised she'd been  holding. She glanced over at the door to the dressing room and her  battered little carry-on and suit bags. She had to remember she was here  for a purpose, and it wasn't all about taming the Hurricane-and the  more she read the subtext of her directors' bulletins the more she felt  the enormity of that task, too.

But she could nail this, she thought as she moved over and ran a hand  down her best summer suit, smoothing down the fabric and straightening  the seams. She could actually make a difference-not only to Evaña but to  herself, too. She could talk terms with traders, strike reasonable  deals and put the stats into a really slick presentation. She could do  some groundwork with bloggers and a beauty editor she'd begun to get  friendly with. She really could pull this off.

And then she'd have banked more than enough to ride back to County Meath  with her head high and her pride intact and demand a very long overdue  apology from her father.





CHAPTER ELEVEN


TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER Frankie jumped out of the helicopter, kept her  head bent, clutched her briefcase to her body and hurled herself across  the parched grass to the driveway. Her heels stuck in mud-baked crevices  and the rotors thundered over her head, throwing up the skirt of her  dress. But she didn't care. She just wanted out of it. Out of the  helicopter and away from her stinging reflections on the crucifying day  she'd forced herself to relive on the hour-long flight back.