Czytaj książkę: «The Argentinian's Virgin Conquest»

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS ONE thing to plan the perfect party—it was another thing entirely to pull it off. The Honourable Lucinda Bond of Strathdee knew that better than anyone. Oh, yes. Sipping a scalding mouthful of a really rather bitter Americano, she made yet another mental note of how she would improve things next time.

Next time! As if there would ever be a next time...

Down in the galley kitchen of her infamous father’s infamous yacht she could hear voices rise and explode between the chef and the caterers.

Lucinda—Lucie to her very few friends—stepped out onto the nearest sleekly polished deck to get a moment to herself, but there was no escape. The fierce Caribbean sun was already causing the air to throb, and the flotilla of little boats and giant yachts that were moored off Petit Pierre reminded her more of a flock of killer seagulls than a flutter of happy butterflies.

Honestly. What on earth had possessed her to have this charity auction, the biggest bash of the season, in aid of her beloved Caribbean Conservation Centre, here in the Bahamas, on the Marengo, with a guest list to die for and a crippling lack of confidence as deep as the Caribbean Sea?

Money. Dollars—Bahamian or American. Pounds. Euros. It didn’t really matter at the end of the day. As long as her sanctuary—her pride, her joy, her reason for being in this hot, bright heaven—got every last cent from the people who would soon be treading all over her father’s floating emporium.

Her stomach lurched again, but the calm, flat sea definitely wasn’t to blame. The thought of this party tonight was.

As long as she came—Lady Viv, her mother.

As long as she came to call the auction and schmooze the crowd everything would be fine. No one would give a damn about Lucie and her crippling social anxiety if her glamorous, glorious mother dropped from the sky in her helicopter and beamed her brilliant smile all around. She was adored by public and press alike. Loved for her golden hair, her sparkling eyes and her utterly perfect figure.

The fact that she had an utterly imperfect style of parenting was neither here nor there. The world had no idea that the custody battle that had raged between her mother and father had been more about each having less time with her than more. All they knew was that she’d had enough of her husband’s affairs and had decided to have one herself—with James Haston-Black, or ‘Badass Black’, as he was known. Glamorous divorcees sold many more newspapers than neglected children, after all.

Lucie swilled the final inch of bitter dark liquid around the cup, then tossed it back. She screwed up her face and shuddered, wishing desperately that she could drink full-fat lattes instead of these vile brews. Soon. As soon as tonight was over she would unhook the unforgiving satin frock, screw it in a ball and head to the fridge without a care in the world. She would eat what she wanted and drink what she wanted. She would slob about in shorts and T-shirts and wash her hair when she felt like it. She would exercise by lifting food to her mouth. She would pack her make-up bag away in a drawer and smash her bathroom scales with a sledgehammer. End of.

Well, she might...

Her mother’s ‘conditions’ for flying halfway across the world to host this party were fierce, but she had met them. Three months of abject misery—lose ten pounds, drop two dress sizes, style her hair, tone those ‘thunder thighs’. Each and every obstacle—or ‘betterment’, as her mother described them—she had overcome. But this was the end. In ten hours’ time she would be wearing the dress and smiling at the rich and the beautiful and counting all those lovely pennies.

And five hours after that she would be counting her blessings. If she pulled this off without having a panic attack or throwing herself overboard then a miracle would indeed have happened.

Lucie looked up at the place she had felt most happy in her whole life. The verdant green island, with its dormant volcano and swathe of blue ocean, truly was one of the prettiest islands in the Bahamas. And the fact that she had spent so much of her childhood there, especially in the years after her mother had left, made it doubly important. No one here cared that she was minor aristocracy, with a father who was more interested in dogs and horses than anything that had two legs—unless the legs belonged to a pretty young woman. No one here really cared about her mother either. Each second of life was just too succulent for them to bother about what Lady Vivienne Bond—as she would be known for ever, despite the divorce—was wearing to someone’s party on the other side of the Atlantic.

Life here, in every stolen moment, was simple, happy, and as beautiful as the calypso music played all over the island. Lucie wasn’t ‘hiding’, as Lady Viv claimed. She simply didn’t understand that anyone could find pleasure working with smelly animals in a conservation centre, whereas Lucie couldn’t understand how anyone could find pleasure wading through all those air-kisses at parties.

Much like what was going to happen tonight.

Yeuch.

She looked back over her shoulder at the ballroom—one of the many rooms on this three-hundred-foot yacht that would be used for the auction tonight, and was already being decorated by a silent swarm of staff who were transforming the darkly elegant interiors into something from a thirties musical film set.

She had taken care of promotion and ticket sales, passing on the growing list of familiar and unfamiliar names to her mother, Some of them had caused a seismic shift when she’d heard them.

‘Urgh! Dante Hermida! He’s a polo player and an utter Lothario. You’d best stay well away—though, having said that, you’re probably not his type. Really, darling, you should put more effort into knowing who’s who,’ she’d added, when Lucie had reeled from yet another spray of her mother’s vitriol.

A lull in the rapid exchanges from the galley allowed her to hear that her phone was ringing. Lucie looked at where it lay, face down on top of a pile of crisp napkins. It couldn’t be Lady Viv—she was supposed to be halfway across the Atlantic by now. But even as she took the four paces across the deck she knew just whose image would be flashing.

God, no. She couldn’t... Not this time...

Sure enough, her mother’s iridescent smile flashed up at her. Lucie lifted the phone and stabbed the green call symbol like a crazy person.

‘Why are you phoning? Where are you? Why aren’t you on your way?’

She waited, clearly imagining the slight roll of her mother’s artfully lined eyes and the slight twitch of her perfectly painted lips.

‘Darling, must you answer your telephone in such a belligerent manner?’

Lucie clenched her eyes closed and prayed for composure.

‘We’ll overlook it for now and begin again. Good morning, Lucinda. I trust you slept well?’

Lucie was in no mood to play her games.

‘Where are you, Mother?’

There was a slight pause—long enough for her to know that she was right. Her gut had told her that she would be left high and dry with this, that her mother would let her down yet again, but she had refused to believe it—refused to believe she could be so cruel. She knew just how much Lucie hated social situations, but one in which she would have to host was inconceivable.

Her mother was babbling on in her ear, but what did it matter? It was just one more example of where she featured in her mother’s list—Badass Black at the top, then her beautiful boy Simon, then her friends, her charities, her houses, clothes and jewellery—and the thing lolling about at the bottom was Lucie.

‘I’m calling to say I might be a little late.’

She sounded clipped, defensive. Or was that just wishful thinking?

‘I’m almost sure I will still manage to make it—some of it—but things are really rather difficult at the moment... I’m sure Simon has got himself into a little trouble, and I can’t just up and off until I know he’s all right!’

Simon and trouble were like strawberries and cream. For twenty years her half-brother had been getting himself into trouble. He was quite the expert.

‘I know your little party is important to you, but clearly I have to look after Simon—and, really, it was a bit selfish to expect that I could drop everything and fly over the Atlantic for something as trivial as a tortoise, or whatever it is, when I’ve got all these other commitments...’

Lucie didn’t hear the end of the sentence. She stood in a daze, hearing the crystal clipped vowels and imagining the perfect nails drumming. James Haston-Black would be pouring a Scotch and Simon Haston-Black would be lying in someone’s bed, lining up his next party.

And Lucie? She would be getting on with it. Herself.

She wondered if she would ever, ever feature to her mother as anything other than the irritating, overweight, unattractive daughter of her first husband.

‘I have to go,’ she said woodenly into the air, and then stood. Her shoulders sank and her head dipped and a sigh as heavy and wide as the gunmetal skies of home poured from her soul.

‘Go where?’ her mother whined, her voice like claws on thin wood. ‘Look, Lucie, you’ll be absolutely fine. You’ve watched me a thousand times. You simply speak into the microphone, pick a face in the crowd. And smile!’

‘I have to get some—air. I have to go. For a swim.’

Lucie’s mouth almost formed her Love to Simon, love to James standard response, but this time it choked her. She swallowed it back.

‘Love you, Mother,’ she said, and she clicked off the call, powered off the phone and walked, one flat sole after another, to her cabin. She’d clear her head. She’d work this out. She had to. Because, once again, she had no other option.

* * *

It was the morning after the night before—and the night before that—and if he could focus enough he knew that he might be able to recall exactly when this party had started. Because for Dante Salvatore Vidal Hermida—Dante to his several thousand friends, acquaintances and fans—this was turning into one hell of a hangover. Not that he had been drinking too much—he’d long since outgrown that particular route to oblivion. But the whole effort involved in happily hosting was catching up with him.

What he needed now was a clear run of mindless athleticism before getting back on a horse and leading the team to the glory of the Middle Eastern circuit.

There were noises behind him—a slurred squeal, a crash, a muffled laugh—and there was only so much more he could stomach. It was already nearly eleven a.m., and the day surely held a lot more than getting back ‘on it’ with Vasquez and Raoul and whoever else was left.

He scanned the bay. He was glad they had come here. Such a beautiful part of the world. He normally never ventured farther than the mid-Caribbean islands of Dominica and Costa Rica—he didn’t have the time. But they were heading out to a full-on schedule that would last weeks, and he’d planned to squeeze every last drop of fun from the run-up to finally sealing the deal on the new polo club with Marco in the Hamptons.

All that before the big sober-up in New York with his family.

Five days until New York. The clock was ticking and his mother had been remarkably patient—for her. He’d sort that out later today—his date for the awards ceremony. There had to be someone he could take. Someone who would know that attending with his family didn’t mean she was next on the list to join it. And that ‘white tie’ didn’t mean turning up like a gift-wrapped Playmate. He smiled to himself. Though admittedly that held a certain appeal.

Five days. He could achieve a lot in five days. Starting with a trip on board Lord Louis’s infamous Marengo.

He looked at it where it was berthed in the bay, dwarfing everything—like an iceberg in an ice floe of dinghies. He braced his arms on the balcony and really scanned it. He’d never been on it, but according to Raoul it was the Playboy Mansion of the seas. Well, he’d judge that for himself. Maybe. He had at least three offers tonight—and they were in the middle of nowhere.

His reputation was getting out of hand. But the oblivion of hedonism was sometimes exactly what he needed.

Tonight...? He might make an appearance and then call it a day. Though how many times had he said that? And how many times had he woken up buried underneath another blanket of limbs and loving, with another mindless, numbing headache and people wanting more than he was ever prepared to give.

He dropped his head, stared at his braced hands, white knuckles, and tensed his jaw. Happy-go-lucky Dante. What a sham. Like the happy family they’d show the world at the Woman of the Year Awards. A united front of high-achievers, with perfect lives and perfect partners, the Argentinian Hermidas would be honouring their American-born mother as she collected a Lifetime Award for services to charity. Charities that didn’t begin at home, of course.

Yes, his mother would be back on the case at any moment—asking who his ‘mystery date’ was. The mystery was why everyone. including the press, thought he had one. He hadn’t! Not yet, anyway. But he would—all he had to do was call up one of the endless stream of women they were speculating he’d bring. As long as she had an IQ above eighty and dug her own gold.

He chuckled as he recalled the list of minimum assets his mother had rattled off when she’d first told him about tonight.

He would figure it out. He always did.

Right after he figured out what was going on over there on the Marengo...

He frowned, lifted his binoculars. A woman was climbing up and along the very edge of the bottom deck. A woman in a bikini. Even from this distance she was uniquely, outstandingly female. Nothing unusual in that on the Marengo, he supposed, but there was something strange about her.

She made her way to the side and stood completely upright on the railing. as if on the ledge of a skyscraper. waiting to jump. Tall, proud, dignified. Seconds passed. Minutes, even—and still he stared. And then, with an almost regal shake of her head, she stepped into mid-air and plunged.

God! He dropped his binoculars. She’d disappeared. Straight down into the water. No elegant dive...no playful jump. Just down like a lead pipe.

He grabbed the binoculars, paced forward. ‘What the hell?’

He waited a moment, scanned the water round the yacht, but it was a shimmer of brilliant white and blue. He forced his focus as the sun needled his eyes. There was no sign of life—just the glitter and glare of heat and light. He pulled his binoculars away, rubbed at his eyes. Put them back. Nothing. Not. One. Single. Thing.

Dante paused. Surely there was nothing wrong? Surely the people on the yacht would be on hand if something had happened? Surely he should mind his own business?

But he had no option. Hand on the rail, he vaulted—right over into the speedboat that was tied up as a tender. Music blasted behind him, and Raoul called his name, but he landed in front of the wheel, turned the key and was off.

The party could wait.

The boat bumped, soared and crashed over the water but he kept his gaze still and steady. What the hell had he just seen? It could just have been a daredevil jump, but it wouldn’t be the first time he had known someone try to hurt themselves...

Closer, he slowed. The last thing he should do was make the situation worse by ploughing into her.

He looked up at the Marengo, at its infamous majestic outline—there were people milling about, but nobody seemed to be shouting, Man overboard!

And then he saw her. A single pale arm like a white reed rose above the water, then lowered in a circle as she stroked the surface and moved back effortlessly.

He waited—watched, mesmerised. Each arm was raised high above her then down in a slow, graceful arc. He smiled. Put the binoculars that hung round his neck up to get a better view—he had to make sure she really was okay. She was swimming out past the safety buoys—and only a really experienced swimmer or a complete lunatic would be doing what she was doing. This was speedboat turf. Anything could go wrong.

He saw her tread water and watched for her arms to rise and circle again. For a second there was immense calm. As if time had stopped. As if all the air had been sucked from the whole wide expanse of sea and sky. And then the surface of the water churned as white limbs thrashed.

He narrowed his eyes—what had happened? She’d been gliding like a pro one minute, then thrashing like a novice the next. He powered up the boat immediately and went to her, eyes trained like a tractor beam on her. Her head sprang up and he almost felt her gaze, wide and frightened. He had to help her. There was nothing else in that moment but her safety.

He cut the engine and nosed the boat away, and then in one move dived into the water and swam with bursting lungs towards her. She was still on the surface and he reached out, grabbed her light, silky limbs and clutched them to his chest, flipping backwards and powering them on.

The frail limbs in his grasp suddenly took on a ferocious strength, and he had to dig a bit deeper to keep them afloat and moving.

‘Let me go—let me go!’ she yelled.

Shock. It had to be. But it was really not helping.

‘You’re fine—you’re going to be okay. Relax!’

He loosened his hold and then gripped her again, tucked his arm around her and propelled them back to his boat. She was still thrashing and yelling, and even as he reached round her waist, his hands meeting on warm wet skin, he could feel her strength and hear her rage.

A part of him fired up.

Like breaking in a new pony, he needed to overcome this flailing, furious female—pin her down and soothe her. But he had nothing to push back against, no purchase to propel her up and onto the boat. With one huge effort he raised her up and over the edge. His face caught curves and clefts, firm, soft wet skin, tiny triangles of bright green fabric and string and all sorts going on.

She landed, and leaped out of his hands as he hauled himself up and over the edge, his breath steadying into pants as he stared at this bundle of nervous energy.

She was even more beautiful up close. Her skin was pale, glistening satin, barely covered by the bikini that lay askew over lush curves. Her hair hung in soaked blonde tresses around her shoulders. Her arm... She was rubbing it up and down, up and down. He frowned as he realised just how mesmerised he was by her.

Shaking it off, he stepped towards her. ‘Are you hurt?’

The look on her face...

‘Am I hurt? You tore across the sea in this stupid boat! You nearly carved me up. And the marine life that actually does belong here—it’s a miracle that I’m not hurt!’

Dante stared. This was beyond shock.

‘I got stung, you stupid great idiot! That’s all—there was no need for all—this.’

She stared at him, ran glinting green eyes all over him, and he felt his jaw tense, his hands flex. He found himself standing taller, puffing out his chest, staring down at her.

‘No need for all what?’

He could not get this framed right in his head. She’d been struggling in the water—he was sure she had! If he hadn’t seen her God knew what would have happened to her. What sort of person was ungrateful for that?

‘So you didn’t need any help? Well, my mistake, but you certainly didn’t look like you were in control out there.’

Her head came up and she gave him that haughty look he’d clocked just before she’d vanished into the sea.

‘You didn’t rescue me! I didn’t need rescuing! I was fine—it was only a jellyfish! And if I hadn’t had to swim away from you and your stupid speedboat I would have seen it!’

Dante opened his mouth and then bit down. What a foul-tempered witch! He should have left her there. She was screaming at him when all he’d tried to do was help her.

‘You might want to learn some manners, Princess. Before I toss you back overboard.’

That was exactly what he wanted to do. He could feel his shoulders tensing further and his fists bunch—he had to get himself in check. What was going on? He was easy, slow—even lazy when it came to women. He never, ever got fired up. Never acted without brain and body being in total harmony. Hadn’t he learned anything all those years ago?

So what the hell nerve was she touching that had him flexing and puffing and grinding his jaw when he looked at her?

He looked at her now as her green eyes widened. Her rosy mouth fell open slightly, and maybe that was a moment of vulnerability stealing across her face like a cloud across the sun. Likely she was just another one of Lord Louis’s cast-offs, dramatically throwing herself overboard because she’d just realised her shelf life had expired.

Who knew? Women were all games and drama. He had the T-shirt to prove it. And the only sure thing was that he was never going to be taken in by a woman again.

‘Do not call me Princess. I do not hold that title. And you might want to ask people if they want to be manhandled before you chuck them onto your boat.’

‘Plenty do.’ Dante smiled then, and watched her eyes widen all over again. He nodded his head back to the Sea Devil, where the gang would be getting well back on track now. ‘There’s a party over there, waiting for its host to return. So if you’ll excuse me...?’

He gestured to the water—jerked his thumb. She could get on with her own rescue.

‘Off.’

‘What?’ She frowned as if he was speaking a different language—and not very clearly at that. ‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’

He looked round at the Sea Devil. Another boat was making its way towards it and now berthed alongside. He put the binoculars back up to his eyes. Looked like the Cotier sisters climbing out. He’d know those legs anywhere...

He turned back to her.

‘Sorry—what?’

‘You know, people like you—you disgust me! You’re just tourists, intent on destroying this place—it’s all parties and speedboats and you don’t give a damn about the island, or the people, or the animals, or—’

‘Maybe you didn’t hear me. I said, off.’

Her eyes widened in shock and up went her chin even further.

‘Honestly! You think you can order me around now? Really? Do you know who I am?’

‘Know who you are? Apart from being the biggest pain in my ass, I couldn’t care less if you were the Queen of England. Which you’re not. So now I think—’

He cocked his head, relishing the pink tinge to her neck, which seemed to be spreading to her chest. Her chest. She certainly had one—and it was well worth a lingering stare. But he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction—even though the swell of her left breast, set almost completely free by her bikini, was quite a test.

‘I think you and I have nothing left to say to one another. So I’m ordering you now to get off my boat.’

She stared right at him, and he knew that a lesser man would flinch. But not he. Not Dante Hermida. He might not have a doctorate from Harvard Law School, or a Fortune 500 business like his brother—yet. But he could fight and he could ride and he could charm every woman within a hundred-mile radius.

So why was this one being so difficult?

‘You’ve got twenty seconds. Damn!’ he said, suddenly catching sight of the misted face of his grandfather’s treasured watch.

He shook his head, held his annoyance in check. He’d nearly lost it once before over a stupid woman, but he’d managed to keep it intact for all these years—a gift from the one person on this earth who’d had time for him. Damn this woman. Standing on his boat, spraying her poison and leaving him soaked to the skin. She might look like a goddess—like some kind of deity in female form—but life was far too short to waste another second with a woman who made his hackles rise this high.

‘Ten,’ he said.

Biting down on the urge to throw her off himself, he ripped his T-shirt over his head and grabbed up a towel. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her watching him through narrowed eyes, seething and ungrateful. Yeah, but there was no mistaking her hunger. He could feel it—emanating out of every selfish pore. She might sound as if she wanted to fight, but she was eying him like a late lunch.

He patted the towel down each arm and over his pecs. ‘Five.’

She was still gawping, still showing no signs of going anywhere. Slowly he grabbed each end of the towel and rubbed it across his back, then down over his abs. Finally he smoothed it over his face and dragged it roughly through his hair. Then he stood right in front of her. His shorts were soaked too. Her eyes landed there and her mouth opened on a coy, ‘Oh...’

Her skin glistened in the bright late-morning light as stray droplets of water continued to course their way down all those curves. Idly he wondered if her waist-to-hip ratio was the best he’d ever seen, because it had started a reaction in his body that seemed to pay no heed at all to the fact that he really didn’t like her.