Yeah, well, I was enjoying it just fine until a few hours ago, Luiz thought.
But had he?
Hadn’t he come back to his suite alone because he wasn’t enjoying himself?
He shrugged the thought aside. He had to find a way to get himself out of this entanglement before some serious harm was done.
Hadn’t cute little Daisy Wyndham already got more out of him in a few minutes than anyone had in years? He never spoke of his childhood. To anyone. But for some reason he had spilled out his whole back story to her over breakfast. It had come pouring out…sentence after sentence, buried hurt after buried hurt. Little Miss Daisy Wyndham, with her sweet and engaging manner, had stumbled upon his Achilles heel. The pain and bitterness he concealed behind a laugh-at-life façade. He laughed his way through life because it was a damn sight more comfortable than whinging about the stuff he couldn’t change.
He had been young—only eight years old—when his father had the accident, but not too young to understand that life would never be the same. He had spent day after day waiting for his mother to return from her ‘holiday’, as she’d termed it. He had almost worn out the end of his nose pressing it to the window whenever he heard a car come up the long driveway to the villa.
But no, each time he’d been bitterly disappointed. He hadn’t shown it on his face, but for years that disappointment had burned and festered inside him like a fetid sore. One conversation with Daisy and it had all come bubbling to the surface. How much more would she get out of him if he let her too close?
He had watched his older brother painfully struggle to keep the family together, taking on responsibilities that no child of ten should ever have to shoulder.
He had seen his strong and capable father reduced to a skin-wrapped skeleton in a chair, wearing nappies like a baby. The indignity of it had been stomach-churning. The suffering of his father had been like a brooding presence in the villa—haunting, maudlin, tortured.
From as young as he could remember, Luiz had chosen to enjoy life in the fast lane because he knew how quickly things could change. He pushed the limits but only as far as he knew he could go. The adrenalin rush of a new challenge energised him. Hadn’t that been the most alluring thing about Daisy? She hadn’t fallen at his feet as he’d expected. Even now she wasn’t playing by his rules.
What would happen if he dared to relax them just this once?
CHAPTER FIVE
‘OF COURSE, if you don’t think you’re up to the task of taking me on then I’m sure I’ll soon find some other guy to—’ Daisy began.
‘No, you won’t.’ Luiz’s tone was strident. ‘From what I’ve seen so far, you’ll probably pick up some sleazy creep who’ll take more than your virginity off you. Your credit card details, for instance. Or your passport. No wonder your old man won’t let you out alone. Do you have any idea of the danger you could get into in a place like this?’
Daisy was finding his protective streak rather endearing. Underneath that suave and sophisticated über-modern exterior he was as old-fashioned as her father. Which was why she wanted him to be the one to make love to her for the first time. He ticked all the boxes for a holiday fling. He was gorgeous and fun-loving. He was respectably dissolute—a bad boy from a good family. He wouldn’t make demands on her past the time frame of their fling. Who could be better to give her the experience she longed for than a man who was a professional playboy? It wasn’t as if she was in any danger of falling in love with him. He was the total opposite of what she wanted in a long-term partner.
Besides, Belinda was always ragging her for not stepping outside her comfort zone. A red-hot fling with world champion polo player Luiz Valquez would win her some serious bragging rights.
Not to mention she was seriously attracted to him.
Daisy smiled up at him. ‘So you’ll do it?’
He was glowering as if she’d asked him to skin a spider before swallowing it. ‘Aren’t you being a little cold-blooded about this?’
‘What’s wrong? Surely you don’t expect me to wrap it up in flowery language? I bet you don’t when you select your next sleepover partner.’
He stalked to the other side of the room, one of his hands rubbing at the back of his neck as if he had a knot of tension bothering him. ‘This is crazy. I can’t believe I’m having this conversation.’
‘Is it because I’m not a supermodel? I’ve heard you’re really picky over your partners.’
‘Not picky enough, it seems,’ he muttered not quite under his breath.