In the Brazilian's Debt

Lizzie flashed a glance around.

‘I don’t know why you’re being so secretive. I saw you walking across the yard with him—everyone must have...’

‘Doesn’t this smell delicious?’ Lizzie remarked, refusing to rise to the bait. She and Danny were standing in front of the open grill where three chefs were preparing everything from vegetarian specials to man-sized steaks.

‘Your attempt to change the subject has fallen on deaf ears, Lizzie Fane,’ Danny assured her.

There were too many grooms around, as well as Chico’s fellow polo players, for Lizzie to be indiscreet, but Danny wasn’t going to let the subject drop. ‘So, what do you want to know?’ Lizzie asked.

‘You were a long time alone with Chico, and so I was wondering...’

‘He was telling me about the bandaging tutorial we have to attend at six tomorrow morning.’

As Danny groaned the polo player behind them, muddy and with his hair tousled from a game, exclaimed, ‘Wake up and move along, will you? Hungry people are waiting to be fed here.’

‘Calm down, man mountain,’ Danny flashed, rounding on him. ‘We’re hungry too.’

‘Then hurry up and choose your food, fresh meat—’

‘Watch it, nuts for brains, or it’ll be your meat on the grill,’ Danny fired back.

‘I love your ladylike way with words,’ Lizzie murmured as the good-looking guy stared down at Danny with amusement.

‘Are you all like this back home?’ he demanded, directing the question at Danny.

‘Believe it,’ Danny snapped, exchanging an appreciative look with Lizzie.

‘Tiago,’ Lizzie confirmed in a discreet murmur. ‘One of the top players. You must have seen him on the cover of Polo Times? Bad. Very bad.’

‘Excellent,’ Danny mouthed.

‘That’s your Christmas present sorted.’

‘Promise?’

‘It’s a deal,’ Lizzie confirmed.

Danny was about to say something smart back, but her words choked off abruptly when she saw the expression on Lizzie’s face. Nothing more needed to be said. Chico Fernandez had just walked into the cookhouse.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_680e9acd-6831-5415-bf06-0b6eaf8c0d48)

LIZZIE DIDN’T NEED to look at Chico to know he was there when she could feel him in every fibre of her being. Determined not be distracted by the sudden overload of testosterone, she calmly gave her order to the chef. ‘Tomatoes, eggplant, fries, and—’

‘And the biggest steak you’ve got,’ a husky male voice interrupted.

Having casually jumped the queue, Chico was handed a plate already loaded with every delicacy his uniformed chefs could provide. ‘I don’t want my new recruits fainting on the job,’ he explained. ‘Here—take this.’ He pressed his own plate of food into Lizzie’s hands. ‘Well?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘Don’t stand there staring at it. Eat before it gets cold.’

‘I’m a vegetarian.’

‘Vegan?’

‘No.’

‘Slap a hunk of cheese onto her plate,’ he ordered the chefs, swapping plates.

Lizzie passed the plate forward to the waiting chef. ‘Cheese omelette, please.’

Damn, if she didn’t sound like the prissiest food freak on the planet, but no way was she being told what she could eat. Chico Fernandez might rule what she did as a student, but her downtime was her own. Tilting her chin at a determined angle, she joined Danny at a table by the window where they could chat undisturbed—only to discover that Danny, like everyone else in the cookhouse, had been watching Lizzie’s exchange with Chico with interest. Didn’t anyone ever take him on? Lizzie wondered.

‘Do you have to provoke him?’ Danny demanded.

‘Why not? It’s fun. I had to stand up to him. Dinosaur—trying to make me eat his plate of flesh.’ She flashed a glance at Chico’s table, knowing it was more than Chico’s dietary concerns for her. These brief encounters with him were bringing it all back to her—the times they’d shared, the jokes they’d told, the gossip they’d exchanged, and the wild rides they’d enjoyed through the magical glens of Scotland. And weighted against that—very heavily weighted against that—was the pain he’d caused her, and that was like a reopened wound as if Chico deserting her had only happened yesterday. She’d gone downstairs on the morning he left to find all the other grooms in the stable yard at Rottingdean, but no sign of Chico. She could still feel the sickening blow of incredulity when they told her he’d gone back to Brazil with Eduardo. She couldn’t believe them—and now? Looking back, she had to admit her feelings all those years ago had been the overreaction of a hormonal teenage girl.

‘Fun?’ Danny queried, breaking into her thoughts. ‘If that’s what you look like when you’re having fun, I’d hate to see you when you’re angry.’

‘Sorry.’ Shaking her head as if that could disperse the memories, she set about distracting Danny. ‘You weren’t exactly all sweetness and light with Tiago, I seem to recall.’

‘And where’s the similarity in that?’ Danny asked, pausing with her fork halfway to her mouth. ‘One polo player owns this facility and can throw us both out on a whim, while the other is a guest player. Chico is a whole different deal. You know that as well as I do, Lizzie, and you shouldn’t take him on. Just behave,’ Danny coaxed as Lizzie pretended nothing was wrong as she tucked into her omelette.

‘I promise,’ Lizzie agreed.

‘For how long?’ Danny groaned as she followed Lizzie’s gaze.

‘Hateful man,’ Lizzie muttered as Chico raised his glass to her.

‘I can see how much you hate him,’ Danny remarked as Lizzie’s cheeks flamed red.

* * *

Bandaging. Something Lizzie had believed she could do really well, but maybe not at six o’ clock in the morning. The class had gathered round Chico to pay attention as he worked, while all she could register was that his touch was so deft, that watching those long, lean fingers was a thought-stealing distraction—

‘Lizzie?’ Chico glanced up. ‘Would you care to demonstrate my technique to the class, please?’

This would be all right if she could concentrate, and if her cheeks didn’t burn red from Chico being so close to her. She actually gasped when their stares met and held. ‘Sorry—I’m being fumble-fingered this morning.’

‘No problem,’ Chico growled. ‘We can wait.’

And she did make a good job of it. ‘Same time tomorrow, everyone,’ Chico said when she’d finished.

Straightening up, she turned to leave with the other grooms, but Chico stopped her with his hand on her arm. Relax, she told herself firmly as heat zigzagged through her.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he began.

She sincerely hoped not. Her thoughts were the wrong side of X-rated.

‘You think I’m being hard on you, for no good reason, but either you want to succeed or you don’t.’

‘I want to be the best,’ she said frankly.