Kept at the Argentine's Command

‘You know I will try to change your mind this weekend?’ he said, in that beautiful, coaxing voice she needed to block out.

Lulu wanted to stopper his mouth. He had to stop saying these wonderful, thrilling things to her. He had to be made to see she wasn’t worth the trouble.

‘No, don’t do that, Alejandro. Please. I don’t want you touching me or acting—acting in any way towards me that might be construed as intimate.’

It had come out all wrong, and she could feel her chest growing tight as a drum as he regarded her in newly tense silence.

‘My friends and family are going to be there and they’ll only ask questions,’ she finished, half under her breath, unable to meet his eyes.

Alejandro discovered he didn’t much like being put in the interesting position of being a woman’s dirty little secret. Although at least it would explain the stone lodged in his chest.

It was also a reminder to him that the moment you expected something better from a woman was the moment she let you down.

‘Please don’t be difficult about it,’ she said.

It was the bare shoulders, he decided, and the inky curls out of control above them, and her mouth, still swollen from kissing him. That was what was rubbing him up the wrong way.

As soon as they were back in the real world this feeling of possessiveness about her would loosen and fall away. There were plenty of beautiful women out there.

‘There is no difficulty, querida. I’m just surprised. You didn’t seem like that kind of girl.’

‘What kind of girl?’ she framed uneasily.

‘A woman who was looking for a one-night stand.’

A flash of real hurt glanced across her face, but she merely looked away and didn’t deny it, and Alejandro discovered that all his reasonableness in this situation was gone. He wanted to destroy something.

He’d slept with a lot of women as a younger man who just wanted to score a little fame and it hadn’t bothered him, because he hadn’t been in it for anything other than the sex.

But inexplicably the woman who came to mind was Valentina. He could still see his ex-wife—then his very current wife—clutching a sheet to her breasts while her lover, his erstwhile teammate, yanked on clothes so at least he would be dressed when Alejandro knocked him out cold.

In the end he hadn’t swung that punch. The guy had done him a favour—had destroyed whatever his parents’ crazy marriage had left of his faith in an old-fashioned till-death-do-us-part relationship.

When he’d asked Valentina why she’d married him as they’d signed the divorce papers she’d said simply, ‘You’re a ten-goal player.’

He looked at Lulu now—at her closed expression, her tightly held mouth.

Was that what this was about?

He remembered how she’d been on the plane: spoilt and demanding and exactly the kind of woman he avoided like the plague. He grimly reflected on the efforts he’d made in the past with Valentina, to satisfy her endless demands for a different life while holding together the livelihoods of everyone on the estancia. He’d wasted two years on a woman who was empty inside and had blamed him for it. He wasn’t wasting any time here.

He grabbed his bag and shoved a few things inside. ‘We need to get a move on,’ he repeated calmly.

Lulu watched Alejandro zip up his bag, utterly together, as if something very special hadn’t just been smashed at their feet.

She guessed he did things like this all the time, whereas she’d only done it once—now, with him—and it felt so strange and emotional and…knotty.

The problem was she couldn’t explain the circumstances of her request any more than she’d been able to explain why she hadn’t been able to give up her seat on the plane.

But she wanted to.

She opened her mouth to ask if he could think of another way, but what was the point? What was she going to ask of him? That he sneak into her room at night when no one would see? It was too ridiculous, and he’d just laugh at her or—worse—see her as odd and damaged. Better he think she could turn off her feelings like a tap, that last night had meant nothing to her. Because she had to let this go.

One day, when she was better, she’d be able to handle a relationship, but not now. She just wasn’t ready yet. Certainly not this weekend.

‘You might want to get dressed,’ he said.

His expression was cool, but she couldn’t blame him for it.