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

‘I have to find Juanchi. You can wait in the house—relax until supper. Come on, I’ll show you inside.’

Those were the first words he had spoken to her in the best part of an hour. They’d gone back to bed, both drifted off to sleep, and when she’d woken he’d been pulling on clothes with his phone clamped to his ear. It hadn’t moved far ever since.

Her little vinyl carry-on case had arrived, its gaudy ribbon, scuffed sides and wonky wheel incongruous beside the butter-soft leather weekend bag Rocco had been chucking things into as he spoke.

Rattling out questions, he’d glanced at her, given a little wink, then turned his back and walked to the window, continuing to berate the poor director of some vineyard who was on the other end. His hand had circled and stabbed at the air as he’d punctuated his questions with a visual display of his frustration.

She’d showered and dressed quickly in what she’d thought might be appropriate—denim shorts and a pink T-shirt. What else would you wear to a ranch? She’d slipped her feet into white leather tennis shoes and thrown everything else in her case. Rocco had dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. He’d paced up and down. More gestures, more rattled commands, more reminders that the Hurricane was well named.

She’d looked around, making sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. She wouldn’t be back there after all. Spotting her watch on the floor, where she must have thrown it earlier, she’d bent to pick up. Where were her new earrings? She’d glanced all around and then had seen them at the side of the bed, there beside a little photograph. She’d walked round and reached out to scoop them up, but her hand had closed on the tiny frame that lay face down instead. She’d placed it upright.

It had been a picture of a child. She’d lifted it up to have a closer look. A blurry picture of an infant, maybe two or three years old. Bright blond hair, kept long, but definitely a boy. Solemn dark eyes, only just turned to the camera, as if he really hadn’t wanted to look. There had been something terribly familiar in the scowling mouth. Dante? She didn’t think so.

She’d turned to ask Rocco. He had stopped his artillery fire of instructions for a moment, had been standing framed in the hugely imposing window, an outline of the blue day all around him—so light and bright that she hadn’t quite been able to see his features.

She had smiled, held up the picture.

The phone had been dropped to the end of his arm, a voice babbling into the air unheard. He’d paced forward as a thunderous tension had rolled through the room. Something akin to fear had spread out from her stomach at the way he’d moved, the slash of his features and the dark stab of his eyes.

He had taken the photo from her without so much as a glance, but she had felt the wall of his displeasure as if she had run against it, bounced off it and been left scrabbling in the rubble.

Nothing. Not a sound, a word, a look.

He had pulled open a zip in the leather holdall, tucked the photo inside, zipped it back up and then lifted the phone to his ear. He had taken her earrings, dropped them into her hand and then moved back to the window.

The conversation had continued.

She had tried not to be stunned, tried not to be bothered. It was clearly something personal. He was clearly someone intensely private. But it had hurt—of course it had. How much more private and personal could you get than what they had shared these past few hours? She’d opened up to him, told him about her father’s fury and her mother’s disappointment. He’d told her—nothing. Didn’t that just underline the fact that she’d served herself up and he’d selected the bits he wanted, then pushed back the platter, folded his napkin and was probably looking around for the next course.

Again.

She had to get smarter. Had to keep herself buoyant. More than anything else she had to make sure the black mood didn’t come back.

She’d stuffed her watch and earrings inside her case with her other belongings, rolled it to the door and swatted him away when he’d attempted to lift it. She could look after herself. And then some.

Then the two-hour car journey. The icy silence punctuated by more intense conversations on his phone. Frankie had drifted in and out, picking up snippets about equine genetics and shale gas fields, decisions about publicity opportunities he wanted reversed. Now.

She had rummaged in her bag, pulled out a nail file. She’d filed her nails into perfect blunt arcs. The scenery had been flat—green or brown—and the company had been intently and exclusively business. Her phone was still dead and her guilt about not speaking to Esme properly still rankled.

The car had rolled on. She had gazed out of the window, anger and upset still bubbling in her blood. Then she had felt her hand being lifted. She’d looked round sharply. He had smoothed her fingers, squeezed them in his own—the gnarled knuckles and disfigured thumb starkly brown against her paper-pale skin. Still he hadn’t looked at her, but he’d lifted them, pressed his lips to them, and she had known then that that was as much of an apology as she was likely to get.

Damn him. Fire and heat. Ice and iron. She shouldn’t allow him to win her over as easily as that, but there was something utterly magnetic about this man. She needed to play much more defensively—protect herself as much as she could. Because every time she thought she’d figured this—them—out he shifted the goal posts again.

She could have been on a helicopter to Punta right now. He had offered to send her. Not to take her, of course—there was the subtle difference. And she had declined. She’d still have plenty of time to catch up with Esme when she got there. Her buying trip to the Pampas was not for days yet. She would make it to Punta tomorrow, the party was tomorrow night—it would be no time at all until this thing burned out between them. No time until she was off doing her own thing again.

If she kept her head it should all work out fine.

There had been more calls, more decisions. She’d sat wrapped in her own thoughts, no room for soft squeezes or stolen kisses. Had closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, finally opening them as they’d arrived at this heart-stopping ranch.

‘It’s fine,’ she said now, stepping out of the car, and feeling every one of her senses come alive with this place. ‘You go and find Juanchi and I’ll have a wander.’

For the first time since Dante had left Rocco seemed to look at her properly. He finally tucked his phone away in the pocket of his jeans, flipped his hair back from his eyes and scowled.

‘Problem?’ she said, with as bored an expression as she could muster. Diplomacy wasn’t her biggest skill, and she knew if she really spoke her mind it might not be the best move. Not yet anyway.

‘I’ve been neglecting you.’ He looked at her over the roof of the car. ‘So much to deal with—my apologies.’

Frankie shrugged. ‘You’re a busy guy,’ she said. ‘I really don’t want to be in the way.’

He was looking around, as if Juanchi was going to spring out from behind a bush. He looked back. Looked totally distracted.

‘I’ll catch you up,’ she said, walking off, waving her hand.

‘Where are you going to go?’

‘I’m a big girl,’ she called over her shoulder, ‘I’m sure I’ll find something to occupy myself.’

‘Wait by the pool. Round the back. I won’t be too long.’

She answered that with another wave and kept walking.

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

FRANKIE STEPPED TOWARDS the house. Up close it was imposing, presidential. The drive swept before it in a deferential arc. Pillars loomed up, supporting the domed roof of the entrance and the terrace that wrapped itself like a luxury belt all around it.

She could imagine Rocco roaring up in a sports car, braking hard and jumping out, striding up to the doors, owning the whole scene. In fact, she didn’t need to imagine it—she’d seen it all before, in that television report of Rocco. This was where he had been photographed with one of his blondes. Carmel Somebody … the one who’d been reported to be ‘very close’ to him.

She walked towards the door, noted the long, low steps, the waxed furniture and exotic climbers. Frankie stopped. She didn’t particularly want to go wandering about in his house—she didn’t particularly want to get wrapped up in any more of his life. Not when she was only passing through. Was it really going to help her to have another page in her Hurricane scrapbook? She already had a million different mental images of Rocco: making love, showering, sipping coffee at the breakfast table. She had hoarded more than enough to keep her going for another ten years. What she really needed to do was start erasing them—one by one. Otherwise …? Otherwise history was going to repeat itself.

Rocco wasn’t looking for a life partner. He was looking for a bed partner and some arm candy. And so was she.

She turned on her heel. She’d go to the stables. She’d feel much more at home there.

It was strange how unlike her expectations this part of the estancia was. She’d grown up with so many stories of heartless South American animal husbandry. Horses whipped and starved and punished. But Mark had been vehement in his defence of Rocco. He had confirmed the rumours that had rolled through their own stables—of the Hurricane in the early days, sleeping with his horses rather than in his own home, spending more time and money on them than he did anything else. He’d been notoriously close to his animals, and notoriously distant with people.

It didn’t look as if much had changed.

She picked her way along the side of the house, past the high-maintenance gardens and round to the even more highly maintained stables.

They were immaculate. Nothing out of place. All around grooms—some young, some old, Argentines and Europeans, men and girls—seemed lazily purposeful. Here and there horses were being walked back and forth to the ring, or beret-capped gauchos were arriving back from the fields with five or six ponies in lightly held reins. No one seemed to notice that she was there, or if they did they left her well alone.

Rocco was nowhere to be seen.

She walked past high fences, their white-painted wood starkly perfect against the spread of grass behind. The sun’s heat was losing its hold on the day, but some horses and dogs still sought shade under the bushes and trees that lined various edges of the fields.

Rounding the corner of a low stable block, she saw him. Off in the distance, deep in conversation with an old, bent man. Juanchi, she supposed.

Even from here he was striking, breathtaking. His stride was so intense, yet it held the effortless grace of a sportsman. Every part of him was in harmony, undercut with power. Everything he did with his body was an art. Kissing, dancing, riding, making love. Being so close to him for these few hours she had learned his ways, his unashamed confidence, control and drive. He was everything she had spent the past ten years expecting him to be. Everything her broken teenage heart had built him up to be. More was the pity.