The call of the wild, she mused with a faint smile. She walked out onto the balcony and leant on the railing. The grooms in the distance were leading a group of horses through their morning exercises and the sight made her feel homesick.
* * *
It was probably a mistake to go looking for her, but after three hours locked in a business meeting with his executive team, who had flown in from all over the States for a strategy session, Cruz’s brain was fried. Distracted by a curly-haired blonde. He told his team to take an early lunch, because he knew better than to push something when it wasn’t working. Once he’d found Aspen and organised for her to return to Ocean Haven he’d be able to think again. Until then at least the members of his team could find something more productive to do than repeat every point back to him for the rest of the day.
But, annoyingly, Aspen wasn’t anywhere he had expected her to be. Not in his penthouse, nor the hotel boutiques, not one of the five hotel restaurants, nor the day spa. When he described her to his staff they all looked at him as if he was describing some fantasy woman.
Yeah, your fantasy woman.
Feeling more and more agitated, he stopped by the concierge’s desk in case she had taken a taxi into town on her own. It would be just like her to do something monumentally stupid and cause him even more problems. Of course the concierge on duty knew immediately who he was talking about and that just turned his mood blacker.
‘The strawberry blonde babe with the pre-Raphaelite curls all the way down to her—?’
‘Yes, that one,’ Cruz snapped, realising that someone—him—had neglected to inform his staff that she was off-limits.
Oblivious to his mounting tension, the concierge continued blithely, ‘She’s in the stables. At least she was a couple of hours ago.’
And how, he wanted to ask the hapless youth, do you know that? His mind conjured up all sorts of clandestine meetings between her and his college-age employee.
Growling under his breath, Cruz stalked across the wide expanse of green lawn that had nothing on her eyes towards the main stable. He reminded himself that if he’d waited around for her to wake up he would now know where she was and what she was up to.
Survival tactics? his conscience proposed.
Busy, Cruz amended.
He heard the lovely sound of her laughter before he saw her, and then the sight of her long legs encased in snug jeans came into view. He couldn’t see the rest of her; bent as she was over the stall door, but frankly he couldn’t take his eyes off her wiggling hips and the mouthwatering curve of her backside.
Another giggle brought his eyes up and he had to clear his throat twice before she reared back and stood in front of him. Cruz glanced inside the stall in time to see one of his men stuffing his wallet into his back pocket, a guilty flush suffusing his neck.
Unused to such testy feelings of jealousy, and on the verge of grabbing his very married assistant trainer by the throat and hauling him off the premises, Cruz clenched his jaw. ‘I believe your services are required elsewhere, Señor Martin.’
‘Of course, sir.’ His trainer swallowed hard as he opened the stall door and ducked around Aspen. ‘Excuse me, señorita.’
‘Oh, we were just—’ Aspen stopped speaking as Luis turned worried eyes her way, and she glanced at Cruz to find his icy stare on the man. He might have been wearing another expensive suit, but he looked anything but civilised, she noted. In fact he looked breathtakingly uncivilised—as if he had a band of warriors waiting outside to raid the place.
Irritated both by his overbearing attitude and the way her heart did a little dance behind her breastbone at the sight of him, Aspen went on the attack. ‘Don’t tell me.’ She arched a brow. ‘You’ve suddenly decided you’re in the mood?’
‘No.’
His expression grew stormier and he stepped into her space until Aspen found herself inside the stall with the almost sleeping horse Luis had been tending to.
‘What are you up to, Aspen?’ he rasped harshly, blocking the doorway.
Wanting to put space between them, Aspen stepped lightly around the mare and picked up the discarded brush Luis had been using to groom her.
‘I feel bad that Luis didn’t get to finish in here because of our conversation so I thought I’d brush Bandit down for him.’
‘I meant with him?’
She paused, not liking the tone of his voice. ‘If you’re implying what I think you are then, yes, I did offer to sleep with Luis—but unfortunately he only has a spare nine million lying around.’ She shrugged as if to say, What can you do?