Forgotten Daughter

“I don’t bring any women here. If I wish to, as you say, take a lover, I go to the village tavern an

d rent a room for the night.” Leaning his elbows against the railing, he looked up at the wide blue sky. “I do not allow strangers here.”

“Except for this Saturday.”

He stared at her blankly.

“Your polo match. The charity gala,” she said with exaggerated patience. “The most exclusive event of the horse-racing world.” She shook her head with a laugh. “Did you already forget?”

He inhaled.

“Yes,” he said flatly. “I did.”

For a few happy moments, he’d forgotten his land would soon be overrun by service trucks and hired staff and white tents, by flashy cars and the sharp stiletto heels of skinny women in slinky dresses, by the flashy horse trailers of rich men who wouldn’t know a good horse from an old ass.

Annabelle blinked, staring at him. “You don’t like hosting the charity event?”

“No,” he said, looking down. “I dread it every year.”

“So why do it?”

He leaned back from her. “Perhaps I do it for publicity. Perhaps that is why my ranch is so exclusive,” he said coldly. “To get good press, to charge higher prices for my horses.”

“If you wanted more press, you would do the celebrity circuit in New York and London, you would do the horse-racing circuit in Kentucky and Dubai,” she observed. “But you stay here. You rarely even give interviews. That’s hardly the way to get press coverage.”

He looked at her. “Then perhaps I do it because I’m just a brilliant huckster who understands how to trick rich fools out of their money.”

An awkward pause fell between them. They were side by side, inches apart, leaning over the railing on the veranda.

“Maybe,” she said doubtfully. He heard her hesitate, then she added quietly, “Although I heard that you donated your fee for participating in this cover story to your charitable foundation. Most men would brag about something like that. You almost go out of your way to avoid credit.”

He stiffened. “So?”

“So,” she said quietly, “are you some kind of saint, Mr. Cortez?” Snorting a laugh, he looked at her. “A saint?”

He gave her a sensual, heavy-lidded stare. “You know very well that I am not.”

She frowned at him. “I’m just trying to understand. For the cover story. Who are you, Mr. Cortez? Who are you really?”

He stared down at her for a long moment, then left the railing. “I will go get the rest of your equipment while you unpack.”

Abruptly, he opened the French doors and went back inside. But to his surprise, she followed.

“I’m coming with you to get the equipment,” she said, lifting her chin.

He shook his head. “You are my guest. And it is silly how you fight me every time I try to do you the smallest kindness.”

“I’m not your guest.” She glared at him. “And you don’t know anything about my equipment. You might break it.”

“I won’t,” he said indignantly.

“I know you won’t, because I’m coming with you.”

Her cool gray eyes challenged him. Defied him. Tempted him.

In the cool shadows of her bedroom, standing so close in front of the bed, Stefano looked down at her. He heard the sound of her breath, saw the pink flush of her pale skin. They were so close. The temperature between them was already hot and rising.

He had the sudden impulse to push her back against her bed, to run his fingers through her lustrous blond hair and pull it down from its tight chignon. He wanted to rip off her prim suit and see her lingerie beneath, to kiss and lick and suckle her skin.