Postcards From Buenos Aires: The Playboy of Argentina / Kept at the Argentine's Command / One Night, Twin Consequences

Rocco sat up, but she’d turned onto her side. He scooped her in close, feeling the shock of those words.

‘Hermosa, lo siento mucho,’ he soothed, furious that he had not known this.

‘It’s fine,’ she said—too brightly. ‘I lied. I said you must have left ages earlier. That I’d just pulled the sheet off. I don’t know what else I said. I made it up.’

He kissed her shoulder, cursed his stupidity. Of course they had been heard. They’d been wild for each other—then and now. And he’d thought they hadn’t been. Stupid.

‘It’s not fine. I apologise.’ He pulled her back and turned her round, right round, until her head was tucked under his chin. He rocked her, hating the thought of her hurting. ‘What did he do? Were you punished?’

She gave a hollow little laugh.

‘If you can say being sent away to a convent for two years is punishment, then, yes, I was punished.’

He struggled to get his head around this, but knew he had no small part to play.

‘And he made sure that Mark sold Ipanema. That she went to you was coincidence, but it made it all the harder.’

Rocco squeezed his eyes closed, feeling her pain.

‘I see. Now I see. I didn’t think … Angel, I’m sorry. If you’d got in touch I could have sorted it—I could have spoken to him. I wish you’d let me know.’

‘You made it quite plain that the last thing you wanted was for me to get in touch, Rocco. Anyway, it’s totally in the past—it’s fine. I served my time.’ She laughed. ‘Honestly. It’s done.’

He pulled her close. He couldn’t deny that. Any more than he could deny how deep the scars of childhood could wound. How hard they were to heal. His own were like welts under his skin. No one could see them, but they were always there—always would be. Despite the ‘luxury’ of enforced therapy for five years. Five years until he’d learned to say what they wanted to hear: that he didn’t hold himself responsible, that it wasn’t his fault his baby brother had died.

Who else was to blame if not him? Who else had dragged him from doorway to doorway, scavenging, begging, stealing and worse? Who else had got caught up with the gangs, the drug runners and the killers?

He glanced past Frankie’s scooped silhouette to the tiny battered photo of Lodo that he carried with him and placed at his bedside wherever he was. Precious life snuffed out before he’d even turned four years old. Being responsible for him, letting him down, losing him—it was the hardest lesson he had ever learned. But he had learned it. And he would never ever forget it.

The knowledge that Martinez, Lodo’s killer, had never been held to account was like a knife to his ribs every day. But he would make it happen. One day.

He felt Frankie stirring, trailing hot little kisses over him and moaning with hot little sounds. She wriggled against him and he reacted instantly, his mouth seeking hers, his hands cupping her breasts and his knee shifting open her thighs. He positioned himself between her legs, so ready to slip inside her.

‘You owe me,’ she said as she rolled beneath him, ‘and I’m here to collect.’

He smiled as she slid her tongue into his mouth. He owed her, all right, and he was going to pay her what he could. But the guilt that was already unfurling from his stomach was telling him he was never going to give her what she really wanted.

He reached for another condom, turned Lodo’s picture face down and held her tight in his arms as he sheathed himself.

So if he wasn’t going to give her what she wanted, what the hell kind of game was he playing? Because he knew that with every kiss, every stroke, every whispered word, while she might be calling it payback, he was storing up a whole load of brand-new trouble.

She slipped around him, climbed on top, and his body responded hard and fast again. He might have been able to hold back the tide in her farmhouse but as he slid himself into that gorgeous sweet place he’d been dreaming of for years he felt the world reconfigure.

Trouble?

Totally.

CHAPTER FIVE (#u6f935061-d622-5215-bb73-62179d8958f2)

HER EYES WERE SUNKEN. Her chin was grazed. Her thighs were weak and sore. Frankie hung on to the porcelain sink and stared at the wreckage.

Making love could do this to a person? She’d thought she might be glowing, radiant—rosy cheeked at the very least. The shadows under her eyes looked like a sleep-deprived panda’s. Was there any product on earth that could work actual miracles? Not any that she had in her bag. Nothing that Evaña sold could even come close.

She stared round the ‘hers’ bathroom in this glorious suite. It was easily the prettiest she had ever encountered. Antique silver gilt mirrors dotted the shimmery grey marble walls. Sweet little glass jars held candles and oils, and there were feather-soft white folded towels. Lush palms and filmy drapes. A huge bath like a giant white egg cracked open was set on a platform atop four gilded feet. She pondered filling it, but surely it would take hours?

And how many hours were left in the day? Had she really been in bed for ten of them? A good, convent-educated girl like her? Though in the eyes of her father she was ‘just a whore’.

She shivered in the warm humid air at the memory of that slap, those words. The stinging ache on her cheek had been nothing to the pain of Rocco’s walking away. And when he’d never come back, when all she’d been left with was a crushing sense of rejection, she’d had no fight left. Her father’s furious silence … Her mother’s hand-wringing despair … Going to the convent in Dublin had almost come as a relief. Almost.

Then finding out that her beautiful Ipanema had been sold …

Mark had come to tell her. She’d been sitting there in her hideous grey pinafore and scratchy-collared blouse in the deathly silent drawing room that was saved for visitors. The smell of outdoors had clung to Mark’s clothes—she’d buried her face in his shoulder, scenting what she could, storing it up like treasure.

He thought she’d be happy that the handsome Argentinian she’d been so sweet on—the one who was now scooping polo prize after prize—was Ipanema’s new owner. He’d known it would be upsetting, but she had always been going to be sold—surely she’d known that? She was their best, and they needed the money now that Danny had walked out on them and Frankie’s school fees were so high. It wasn’t as if she was home anymore, riding her every day after school. And Rocco Hermida was easily the best buyer they could hope to find—notoriously good with animals, and miles ahead in equine genetics. Soon there would be more Ipanemas. Wasn’t that great?

She’d painted on her smile until he left, knowing that she had nothing now. Not even the smell of fresh air on her clothes.

Dark days had followed. She’d moved listlessly through them. She’d lost her appetite, become even thinner, lost her sparkle, lost her motivation for everything. No one had been able to believe the change in her. Herself least of all. One minute naive, innocent, unworldly. Next moment as if she had been handed the book of life and it had fallen open at the page of unrequited love.

Because it had been love. She, in her sixteen-year-old heart, had known it was love. And he didn’t love her back. She had laid herself bare, body and soul, and he had played with her a little, then tossed her away.

The only ray of sunshine had been Esme. Relentlessly digging her out of her dark corners—relentless but never interfering. Just like now.

Frankie pulled out a bath towel, shuddered at her own selfishness.

What must Esme be thinking? Her best friend, whom she hadn’t seen for years, had been so excited to hear that she was coming all the way from Madrid—had sent a car to collect her, planned to show her such a good time at the Molina Lario, over the weekend in Punta …

She had managed one brief reply to Esme’s text to say she was ‘Fine! Xxx’, and then her phone had been powered off. She cringed, wondering what she must have made of Rocco’s dismissive statement that they had ‘unfinished business’. It would be news to Esme that they had any business at all!

Frankie Ryan was not a party girl—never mind a one-night stand girl. She was a no-nonsense career girl. A don’t-ever-give-them-anything-to-criticise girl. She hated anyone knowing her business, judging her or in any way getting past the wrought iron defences she had spent the past ten years erecting all around her.

Well done, she thought as she stared at her own mess. Well done for walking straight into the lion’s den. She looked at it—his den. The extravagant opulence. Everything in prime fin-de-siècle glory. Silvery marble and gilded taps, Persian rugs and domed cupolas. And Rocco Hermida … prowling.

She’d walked right in, lain right down and made sure that the whole world knew. So much for wrought iron. Everyone could see right through it.

She’d told him far too much last night. Given too much of herself away. She didn’t want this to be a pity party. She wasn’t here for his sympathy. She’d never breathed a word about that night to another living soul. Denials to her father, and her mother too shocked even to ask. Mark and Danny both oblivious. Rocco needn’t have known.

But it was done now. She couldn’t take it back. As long as he didn’t think he owed her or anything. That would be too much to bear.

She padded to the shower, turned on the jets and jumped back as water blasted from all angles. Then she adjusted the taps, stood determinedly under the slightly too cold spray and scoured herself. You could take the girl out of the convent …

She patted herself dry and swaddled herself in a robe. Used a brand-new toothbrush that made her think of all the other brand-new toothbrushes that would come after she’d gone.

One-night stand.

Whore?

Absolutely not. She was tying up loose ends. She was filing away memories and then moving on. She was here on business and she was having some pleasure. What was so wrong with that? People did it all the time! She just hadn’t got round to it until now.