Too angry to stop and clear her vision, she would have walked straight into a wall if someone hadn’t reached out and grabbed her by her upper arms.

With a soft gasp Aspen looked up, about to thank whoever had saved her. But the words never came and her quick smile froze on her face as she found herself staring into the hard eyes of a man she had thought she would never see in the flesh again.

The air between them split apart and reformed, vibrating with emotion, as Cruz Rodriguez stared down at her with such cold detachment she nearly shivered.

Eight years dissolved into dust. Guilt, shame, and a host of other emotions all sparked for dominance inside her.

‘I …’ Aspen blinked, her mind scrambling for poise … words … something.

‘Hello, Aspen. Nice to see you again.’

From as far back as she can remember MICHELLE CONDER dreamed of being a writer. She penned the first chapter of a romance novel just out of high school, but it took much study, many (varied) jobs, one ultra-understanding husband and three very patient children before she finally sat down to turn that dream into a reality.

Michelle lives in Australia, and when she isn’t busy plotting loves to read, ride horses, travel and practise yoga.

Recent titles by the same author:

DUTY AT WHAT COST?

LIVING THE CHARADE

HIS LAST CHANCE AT REDEMPTION

GIRL BEHIND THE SCANDALOUS REPUTATION

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Most Expensive Lie of All

Michelle Conder

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to Amber and Corin for opening up the world of polo for me and doing it with such warmth and generosity. You guys are great.

To a formidable squash champ, Juan Marcos, who promptly responded to my queries about his game.

And also to my lifelong friend Pam Austin, who wrote down every memory she ever had of her visits to Mexico—which could have been a novel in itself.

Thank you!

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EXCERPT

CHAPTER ONE

‘EIGHT-THREE. MY SERVE.’

Cruz Rodriguez Sanchez, self-made billionaire and one of the most formidable sportsmen ever to grace the polo field, let his squash racquet drop to his side and stared at his opponent incredulously. ‘Rubbish! That was a let. And it’s eight-three my way.’

‘No way, compadre! That was my point.’

Cruz eyeballed his brother as Ricardo prepared to serve. They might only be playing a friendly game of squash but ‘friendly’ was a relative term between competing brothers. ‘Cheats always get their just desserts, you know,’ Cruz drawled, moving to the opposite square.

Ricardo grinned. ‘You can’t win every time, mi amigo.’

Maybe not, Cruz thought, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d lost. Oh, yeah, actually he could—because his lawyer was in the process of righting that particular wrong while he blew off steam with his brother at their regular catch-up session.

Feeling pumped, he correctly anticipated Ricardo’s attempted ‘kill shot’ and slashed back a return that his brother had no chance of reaching. Not that he didn’t try. His running shoes squeaked across the resin-coated floor as he lunged for the ball and missed.

‘Chingada madre!’

‘Now, now,’ Cruz mocked. ‘That would be nine-three. My serve.’

‘That’s just showing off,’ Ricardo grumbled, picking himself up and swiping at the sweat on his brow with his sweatband.

Cruz shook his head. ‘You know what they say? If you can’t stand the heat...’

‘Too much talking, la figura.’

‘Good to see you know your place.’ He flashed his brother a lazy smile as he prepared to serve. ‘El pequeño.’

Ricardo rolled his eyes, flipped him the bird and bunkered down, determination etched all over his face. But Cruz was in his zone, and when Ricardo flicked his wrist and sent the ball barrelling on a collision course with Cruz’s right cheekbone he adjusted his body with graceful agility and sent the ball ricocheting around the court.

Not bothering to pick himself up off the floor this time, Ricardo lay there, mentally tracking the trajectory of the ball, and shook his head. ‘That’s just unfair. Squash isn’t even your game.’

‘True.’

Polo had been his game. Years ago.

Wiping sweat from his face, Cruz reached into his gym bag and tossed his brother a bottle of water. Ricardo sat on his haunches and guzzled it.

‘You know I let you win these little contests between us because you’re unbearable to be around when you lose,’ he advised.

Cruz grinned down at him. He couldn’t dispute him. It was a celebrated fact that professional sportsmen were very poor losers, and while he hadn’t played professional polo for eight years he’d never lost his competitive edge.

On top of that he was in an exceptionally good mood, which made beating him almost impossible. Remembering the reason for that, he pulled his cell phone from his kitbag to see if the text he was waiting for had come through, frowning slightly when he saw it hadn’t.

‘Why are you checking that thing so much?’ Ricardo queried. ‘Don’t tell me some chica is finally playing hard to get?’

‘You wish,’ Cruz murmured. ‘But, no, it’s just a business deal.’

‘Ah, don’t sweat it. One day you’ll meet the chica of your dreams.’

Cruz threw him a banal look. ‘Unlike you, I’m not looking for the woman of my dreams.’

‘Then you’ll probably meet her first,’ Ricardo lamented.

Cruz laughed. ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ he replied. ‘You might meet an early grave.’ He tossed the ball in the air and sent it spinning around the court, his concentration a little spoiled by Ricardo’s untimely premonition.

Because there was a woman. A woman who had been occupying his thoughts just a little too often lately. A woman he hadn’t seen for a long time and hoped to keep it that way. Of course he knew why she was jumping into his head at the most inopportune times of late, but after eight years of systematically forcing her out of it that didn’t make it any more tolerable.

Not that he allowed himself to get bent out of shape about it. He’d learned early on that the things you were most attached to had the power to cause you the most pain, and since then he’d lived his life very much like a high-rolling gambler—easy come, easy go.

Nothing stuck to him and he stuck to nothing in return—which had, much to everyone’s surprise, made him a phenomenally wealthy man.

An ‘uneducated maverick’, they’d called him. One who had swapped the polo field for the boardroom and invested in deals and stock market bonds more learned businessmen had shied away from. But then Cruz had been trading in the tumultuous early days of the global financial crisis and he’d already lost the one thing he had cared about the most. Defying expectations and market trends seemed inconsequential after that.

What had really fascinated him in the early days was how people had been so ready to write him off because of his Latino blood and his lack of a formal education. What they hadn’t realised was that the game of polo had perfectly set him up to achieve in the business world. Killer instincts combined with a tireless work ethic and the ability to think on his feet were all attributes to make you succeed in polo and in business, and Cruz had them in spades. What he didn’t have right now—what he wanted—was a text from his lawyer advising him that he was the proud owner of one of East Hampton’s most prestigious horse studs: Ocean Haven Farm.

Resisting another urge to check his phone, he prowled around the squash court, using the bottom of his sweat-soaked T-shirt to swipe at the perspiration dripping down his face.

‘Nice abs,’ a feline voice quipped appreciatively through the glass window overlooking the court.

Ah, there she was now.

Lauren Burnside, one of the Boston lawyers he sometimes used for deals he didn’t want made public knowledge before the fact, her hip cocked, her expression a smooth combination of professional savvy and sexual knowhow.

‘I always thought you were packing a punch beneath all those business suits, Señor Rodriguez. Now I know you are.’

‘Lauren.’ Cruz let his T-shirt drop and waited for her hot eyes to trail back up to his. She was curvy, elegant and sophisticated, and he had nearly slept with her about a year ago but had baulked at the last minute. He still couldn’t figure out why. ‘Long way to come to make a house call, counsellor. A text would have sufficed.’

‘Not quite. We have a hitch.’ She smiled nonchalantly. ‘And since I was in California, just a hop, skip and a jump away from Acapulco, I thought I’d deliver the news mano-a-mano.’ She smiled. ‘So to speak.’

Cruz scowled, for once completely unmoved by the flick of her tongue across her glossy mouth.

He knew women found him attractive. He was tall, fit, with straight teeth and nose, a full head of black hair, and he was moneyed-up and uninterested in love. It appeared to be the perfect combination. ‘Untameable,’ as one date had purred. He’d smiled, told her he planned to stay that way and she’d come on even stronger. Women, in his experience, were rarely satisfied and usually out for what they could get. If they had money they wanted love. If they had love they wanted money. If they had twenty pairs of shoes they wanted twenty-one. It was tedious in the extreme.

So he ignored his lawyer’s honey trap and kept his mind sharp. ‘That’s not what I want to hear on a deal that was meant to be completed two hours ago, Ms Burnside.’ He kept his voice carefully blank, even though his heart rate had sped up faster than during the whole squash game.

‘Let me come down.’

For all the provocation behind those words Cruz could tell she had picked up his not interested vibe and was smart enough to let it drop.

‘She your latest?’

‘No.’

Cruz’s curt response raised his brother’s eyebrows.

‘She wants to be.’

Cruz folded his arms as Lauren pushed open the clear door and stepped onto the court, her power suit doing little to disguise the killer body beneath. She inhaled deeply, the smell of male sweat clearly pleasing to her senses.

‘You boys have been playing hard,’ she murmured provocatively, looking at them from beneath dark lashes.

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t that smart. ‘What’s the hitch?’ Cruz prompted.

She raised a well-tended brow at his curtness. ‘You don’t want to go somewhere more private?’

‘This is Ricardo, my brother, and vice-president of Rodriguez Polo Club. I repeat: what’s the hitch?’

Lauren’s forehead remained wrinkle-free in the face of his growing agitation and he didn’t know if that was due to nerves of steel or Botox. Maybe both.

‘The hitch,’ she said calmly, ‘is the granddaughter. Aspen Carmichael.’

Cruz felt his shoulders bunch at the unexpectedness of hearing the name of the female he was doing his best to forget. The last time he’d laid eyes on her she’d been seventeen, dressed in nothing but a nightie and putting on an act worthy of Marilyn Monroe.

The little scheme she and her preppy fiancé had concocted had done Cruz out of a fortune in money and, more importantly, lost him the respect of his family and peers.

Aspen Carmichael had bested him once before and he’d walked away. He’d be damned if he walked away again.

‘How?’

‘She wants to keep Ocean Haven for herself and her uncle has magnanimously agreed to sell it to her at a reduced cost. The information has only just come to light, but apparently if she can raise the money in the next five days the property is hers.’

Cruz stilled. ‘How much of a reduced cost?’

When Lauren named a figure half that which he had offered he cursed loudly. ‘Joe Carmichael is not the sharpest tool in the shed, but why the hell would he do that?’

‘Family, darling.’ Lauren shrugged. ‘Don’t you know that blood is thicker than water?’

Yes, he did, but what he also knew was that everyone was ultimately out for themselves and if you let your guard down you’d be left with nothing more than egg on your face.

He ran a hand through his damp hair and sweat drops sprayed around his head.

Lauren jumped back as if he’d nearly drenched her designer suit in sulphuric acid and threw an embarrassed glance towards Ricardo, who was busy surveying her charms.

Cruz snapped his attention away from both of them and concentrated on the blank wall covered in streaks of rubber from years of use.

Eight years ago Ocean Haven had been his home. For eleven years he had lived above the main stable and worked diligently with the horses—first as a groom, then as head trainer and finally as manager and captain of Charles Carmichael’s star polo team. He’d been lifted from poverty and obscurity in a two-dog town because of his horsemanship by the wealthy American who had spotted him on the hacienda where Cruz had been working at the time.

Cruz gritted his teeth.

He’d been thirteen and trying to keep his family from going under after the sudden and pointless death of his father.

Charles Carmichael, he’d later learned, had ambitious plans to one day build a polo ‘dream team’ to rival all others, and he’d seen in Cruz his future protégé. His mother had seen in him an unmanageable boy she could use to keep the rest of his siblings together. She’d said sending him off with the American would be the best for him. What she’d meant was that it would be the best for all of them, because Old Man Carmichael was paying her a small fortune to take him. Cruz had known it at the time—and hated it—but because he’d loved his family more than anything he’d acquiesced.

And, hell, in the end his mother had been right. By the age of seventeen Cruz had become the youngest player ever to achieve a ten handicap—the highest ranking any player could achieve and one that only a handful ever did. By the age of twenty he’d been touted as possibly the best polo player who had ever lived.

By twenty-three the dream was over and he’d become the joke of the very society who had kissed his backside more times than he cared to remember.

All thanks to the devious Aspen Carmichael. The devious and extraordinarily beautiful Aspen Carmichael. And what shocked Cruz the most was that he hadn’t expected it of her. She’d blindsided him and that had made him feel even more foolish.

She had come to Ocean Haven as a lonely, sweet-natured ten-year-old who had just lost her mother in a horrible accident some had whispered was suicide. He’d hardly seen her during those years. His summers had been spent playing polo in England and she had attended some posh boarding school the rest of the year. To him she’d always been a gawky kid with wild blonde hair that looked as if it could use a good pair of scissors. Then one year he’d injured his shoulder and had to spend the summer—her summer break—at Ocean Haven, and bam! She had been about sixteen and she had turned into an absolute stunner.

All the boys had noticed and wanted her attention.

So had Cruz, but he hadn’t done anything about it. Okay, maybe he’d thought about it a number of times, especially when she had thrown him those hot little glances from beneath those long eyelashes when she assumed he wasn’t looking, and, okay, possibly he could remember one or two dreams that she had starred in, but he never would have touched her if she hadn’t come on to him first. She’d been too young, too beautiful, too pure.

He found himself running his tongue along the edge of his mouth and the taste of her exploded inside his head. She sure as hell hadn’t been pure that night.

Gritting his teeth, he shoved her out of his mind. Memory could be as fickle as a woman’s nature and his aviator glasses were definitely not rose coloured where she was concerned.

‘You okay, hermano?’

Cruz swung around and stared at Ricardo without really seeing him. He liked to think he was a fair man who played by the rules. A forgive-and-forget kind of man. He’d stayed away from Ocean Haven and anything related to it after Charles Carmichael had given him the boot. Now his property had come up for sale and objectively speaking it was a prime piece of real estate. The fact that he’d have to raze it to the ground to build a hotel on it was just par for the course.

Of course his kid brother wouldn’t understand that, and he wasn’t in the mood to explain it. He’d left Mexico when Ricardo had been young. Ricardo had cried. Cruz had not. Surprisingly, after he’d returned home with his tail between his legs eight years ago, he and his brother had picked up from where they’d left off, their bond intact. It was the only bond that was.

‘I’m fine.’ He swung his gaze to Lauren. ‘And I’m not concerned about Aspen Carmichael. Old man Carmichael died owing more money than he had, thanks to the GFC, so there’s no way she can have that sort of cash lying around.’

‘No, she doesn’t,’ Lauren agreed. ‘She’s borrowing it.’

Cruz stilled. Now, that was just plain stupid. He knew Ocean Haven agisted horses and raised good-quality polo ponies, but no way would either of those bring in the type of money they were talking about.

‘She’ll never get it.’

Lauren looked as if she knew better. ‘My sources tell me she’s actually pretty close.’

Cruz ignored Ricardo’s interested gaze and kept his face visibly relaxed. ‘How close?’

‘Two-thirds close.’

‘Twenty million! Who would be stupid enough to lend her twenty million US dollars in this economic climate?’ And, more importantly, what was she using for collateral?

Lauren raised her eyebrows at his uncharacteristic outburst, but wisely stayed silent.

‘Hell!’ The burst of adrenaline he used to feel when he mounted one of his ponies before a major event winged through his blood. How on earth had she managed to raise that much money and what could he do about it?

‘Do you want me to start negotiating with her?’ Lauren queried.

‘No.’ He turned his ordinarily agile mind to come up with a solution, but all it produced was an image of a radiant teenager decked out in figure-hugging jodhpurs and a fitted shirt leaning against a white fencepost, laughing and chatting while the sun turned her wheat-blonde curls to gold. His jaw clenched and his body hardened. Great. A hard-on in gym shorts. ‘You focus on Joe Carmichael and any other offers lurking in the wings,’ he instructed his lawyer. ‘I’ll handle Aspen Carmichael.’

‘Of course,’ Lauren concurred with a brief smile.

‘In the meantime find out who Aspen is borrowing from and what exactly she’s offering as collateral—’ although as to that he had his ideas ‘—and meet me in my Acapulco office in an hour.’

Ricardo waited until Lauren had disappeared before tossing the rubber ball into the air. ‘You didn’t tell me you were buying the Carmichael place.’

‘Why would I? It’s just business.’

Ricardo’s eyebrows lifted. ‘And handling the lovely Aspen Carmichael will be part of that business?’

People said Cruz had a certain look that he got just before a major event which told his opponents they might as well pack up and go home. He gave it to his brother now. ‘This is not your concern.’

His brother, unfortunately, was one of the few people who ignored it.

‘Maybe not, but you once swore you’d never set foot on Ocean Haven again. So, what gives?’

What gave, Cruz thought, was that old Charlie had kicked the bucket and his son, Aspen’s uncle, Joseph Carmichael, couldn’t afford to run the estate and keep his English bride in diamonds and champagne so was moving to England. Cruz had assumed Aspen would be going with them—to sponge off him now that her grandfather was out of the picture.

It seemed he had assumed wrong.

But he had no intention of talking about his plans with his overly sentimental brother, who would no doubt assume there was more to it than a simple opportunity to make a lot of money. ‘I don’t have time to talk about it now,’ he said, making a split-second decision. ‘I need to organise the jet.’

‘You’re flying to East Hampton?’

‘And if I am?’ Cruz growled.

Ricardo held his hands up as if he was placating an angry bear. ‘Miama’s surprise birthday party is tomorrow.’

Cruz strode towards the changing rooms, his mind already in Hampton—or more specifically in Ocean Haven. ‘Don’t count on me being there.’

‘Given your track record, the only person who still has enough hope to do that is Miama herself.’

Cruz stopped. Ricardo’s blunt words stabbed him in the heart. His family still meant everything to him, and he’d help any of them out in a heartbeat, but things just weren’t the same any more. With the exception of Ricardo, none of his family knew how to treat him, and his mother constantly threw him guilty looks that were a persistent reminder of the darker days of his youth after he’d gone to the farm.

Charles Carmichael had been a difficult man with a formidable temper who’d liked to get his own way, and Cruz had never been one to back down from a fight until that night. No, it had not been an easy transition for a proud thirteen-year-old to make, and if there was one thing Cruz hated more than the capricious nature of the human race it was dwelling on the past.

He glanced back at Ricardo. ‘You’re going to be stubborn about this, aren’t you?’

Ricardo laughed. ‘You’ve cornered the market in stubborn, mi amigo. I’m just persistent.’

‘Persistently painful. You know, bro, you don’t need a wife. You are a wife.’

* * *

Aspen decided that she had a new-found respect for telemarketers. It wasn’t easy being told no time after time and then picking yourself up and continuing on. But like anyone trying to make a living she had to toughen up and stay positive. Stay on track. Especially when she was so close to achieving her goal. To choke now or, worse, give up, would mean failing in her attempt to keep her beloved home and that was inconceivable.

Smiling up at the beef of a man in front of her as if she didn’t have a head full of doubts and fears, Aspen surreptitiously pulled at the waist of the silk dress she’d worn to impress the polo patrons attending the midweek chukkas they held at Ocean Haven throughout the summer months.

In the searing sunshine the dress had taken on the texture of a wet dishrag and it did little to improve her mood as she listened to Billy Smyth the Third, son of one of her late grandfather’s arch enemies, wax lyrical about the game of polo he had—thankfully—just won.

‘Oh, yes,’ she murmured. ‘I heard it was the goal of the afternoon.’ Fed to him, she had no doubt, by his well-paid polo star, who knew very well which side his bread was buttered on.

Billy Smyth was a rich waste of space who sponged off his father’s cardboard packaging empire and loved every minute of it—not unlike many others in their circle. Her ex-husband still continued unashamedly to live off his own family’s wealth, but thankfully he’d been out of her life for a long time, and she wasn’t going to ruin an already difficult day by thinking about him as well.

Instead she concentrated on the wealthy man in front of her, with his polished boots and his pot belly propped over the top of his starchy white polo jeans. Years ago she had tried to like Billy, but he was very much a part of the ‘women should keep silent and look beautiful’ brigade, and the fact that she was pandering to his unhealthy ego at all was testament to just how desperate she had become.

When he’d asked her to meet him after the game she had jumped at the chance, knowing she’d dance on the sun in a bear suit if it would mean he’d lend her the last ten million she needed to keep Ocean Haven. Though by the gleam in his eyes he’d probably want her naked—and she wasn’t so desperate that she’d actually hawk herself.

Yet.

Ever, she amended.

So she continued to smile and present her plan to turn ‘The Farm’, as Ocean Haven was lovingly referred to, into a viable commercial entity that any savvy businessman would feel remiss for not investing in. So far two of her grandfather’s old friends had come on board, but she was fast feeling as if she was running out of options to find the rest. Ten million was small change to Billy and, she thought, ignoring the way his eyes made her skin crawl as if she was covered in live ants, he seemed genuinely interested.

‘Your grandpop would be rolling in his grave at the thought of the Smyths investing in The Farm,’ he announced.

True—but only because her grandfather had been an unforgiving, hard-headed traditionalist. ‘He’s not here anymore.’ Aspen reminded him. ‘And without the money Uncle Joe is going to sell to the highest bidder.’

Billy cocked his head and considered his way slowly down to her feet and just as slowly back up. ‘Word is he already has a winner.’

Aspen took a minute to relax her shoulders, telling herself that Billy really didn’t mean to be offensive. ‘Yes. Some super-rich consortium that will no doubt want to put a hotel on it. But I’m determined to keep The Farm in the family. I’m sure you understand how important that is, being such a devoted family man yourself.’

A slow smile crept over Billy’s face and Aspen inwardly groaned. She was trying too hard and they both knew it.

‘Yes, indeed I do.’

Billy leered. His smile grew wider. And when he rocked back on his heels Aspen sent up a silent prayer to save her from having to deal with arrogant men ever again.

Because that was exactly why she was in this situation in the first place. Her grandfather had believed in three things: testosterone, power, and tradition. In other words men should inherit the earth while women should be grateful that they had. And he had used his fearsome iron will to control everyone who dared to disagree with him.

When her mother had died suddenly just before Aspen’s tenth birthday and—surprise surprise—her errant father couldn’t be located, Aspen had been sent to live with her grandfather and her uncle. Her grandmother had passed away a long time before. Aspen had liked Uncle Joe immediately, but he’d never been much of an advocate for her during her grandfather’s attempts to turn her into the perfect debutante.

So far she had been at the mercy of her controlling grandfather, then her controlling ex, and now her misguided, henpecked uncle.

‘I’m sorry Aspen,’ her Uncle Joe had said when she’d managed to pin him down in the library a month ago. ‘Father left the property in my hands to do with as I saw fit.’

‘Yes, but he wouldn’t have expected you to sell it,’ Aspen had beseeched him.

‘He shouldn’t have expected Joe to sort out the mess of his finances either,’ Joe’s determined wife Tammy had whined.

‘He wasn’t well these last few years.’ Aspen had appealed to her aunt, but, knowing that wouldn’t do any good, had turned back to her uncle. ‘Don’t sell Ocean Haven, Uncle Joe. Please. It’s been in our family for one hundred and fifty years. Your blood is in this land.’

Her mother’s heart was here in this land.

But her uncle had shaken his head. ‘I’m sorry, Aspen, I need the money. But unlike Father I’m not a greedy man. If you can raise the price I need in time for my Russian investment, with a little left over for the house Tammy wants in Knightsbridge, then you can have Ocean Haven and all the problems that go with it.’

‘What?’

‘What?’

Aspen and her Aunt Tammy had cried in unison.

‘Joseph Carmichael, that is preposterous,’ Tammy had said.

But for once Uncle Joe had stood up to his wife. ‘I’d always planned to provide for Aspen, so this is a way to do it. But I think you’re crazy for wanting to keep this place.’ He’d shaken his head at her.

Aspen had been so happy she had all but floated out of the room. Then reality at what exactly her uncle had offered had set in and she’d got the shakes. It was an enormous amount of money to pay back but she knew if she got the chance she could do it.

The horn signifying the end of the last chukka blew and Aspen pushed aside her fear that maybe she was just a little crazy.

‘Listen, Billy, it’s a great deal,’ she snapped, forgetting all about the proper manners her grandfather had drummed into her as a child, and also forgetting that Billy was probably her last great hope of controlling her own future. ‘Take it or leave it.’

Oh, yes and losing that firecracker temper of yours is sure to sway him, she berated herself.

A tiny dust cloud rose between them as Billy made a figure eight with his boots in the dirt. ‘The thing is, Aspen, we’re busy enough over at Oaks Place, and even though you’ve done a good job of hiding it The Farm needs a lot of work.’

‘It needs some,’ Aspen agreed with forced calm, thinking she hadn’t done a good job at all if he’d seen through her patchwork maintenance attempts. ‘But I’ve factored all that into the plan.’ Sort of.

‘I just think I need a bit more of a persuasive argument if I’m to take this to my daddy,’ he suggested, a certain look crossing his pampered face.

‘Like...?’ A tight band had formed around Aspen’s chest because, really, it was hard to miss what he meant.

‘Well, hell, Aspen, you’re not that naïve. You have been married.’

Yes, unfortunately she had. But all that had done was make her determined that she would never be at any man’s mercy again. Which was exactly where arrogant, controlling men like this one wanted their women to be. ‘For just you, Billy?’ she simpered. ‘Or for your daddy as well?’

It took Mr Cocksure a second or two to realise she was yanking his chain and when he did his big head reared back and his eyes narrowed. ‘I ain’t no pimp, lady.’

‘No,’ she said calmly, flicking her riot of honey-coloured spiral curls back over her shoulder. ‘What you are is a dirty, rotten rat and I can see why Grandpa Charles said your kind were just slime.’ Who gave a damn about proper manners anyway?

Instead of getting angry Billy threw back his head and hooted with laughter. ‘You know. I can’t believe the rumours that you’re a cold one in the sack. Not with all that fire shooting out of those pretty green eyes of yours.’ He reached out and ran a finger down the side of her cheek and grinned when she raised her hand to rub at it. ‘Let me know when you change your mind. I like a woman with attitude.’

Before she could open her mouth to tell him she’d mention that to his wife he sauntered off, leaving her spitting mad. She watched him pick up a glass of champagne from a table before joining a group of sweaty riders and willed someone to grab it and throw it all over him.

Of course no one did. Fate wasn’t that kind.

Turning away in disgust, she cursed under her breath when a gust of hot wind whipped her hair across her face. Too angry to stop and clear her vision, she would have walked straight into a wall if it hadn’t reached out and grabbed her by her upper arms.

With a soft gasp she looked up, about to thank whoever had saved her. But the words never came and the quick smile froze on her face as she found herself staring into the hard eyes of a man she had thought she would never see in the flesh again.

The air between them split apart and reformed, vibrating with emotion as Cruz Rodriquez stared down at her with such cold detachment she nearly shivered.

Eight years dissolved into dust. Guilt, shame and a host of other emotions all sparked for dominance inside her.

‘I...’ Aspen blinked, her mind scrambling for poise...words...something.

‘Hello, Aspen. Nice to see you again.’

Aspen blinked at the incongruity of those words. He might as well have said Off with her head.

‘I...’

CHAPTER TWO

CRUZ STARED DOWN at the slender woman whose smooth arms he held and wished he hadn’t left his sunglasses in the car. At seventeen Aspen Carmichael had been full of sexual promise. Eight years later, with her golden mane flowing down past her shoulders and the top button of her dress artfully popped open to reveal the upper swell of her creamy assets, she had well and truly delivered. And he was finding it hard not to take her all in at once.

‘You...?’ he prompted casually, dropping his hands and raising his eyes from her cleavage.

She glanced down and quickly closed the top of her dress. Clearly only men offering part of their vast fortunes were allowed to view the merchandise. The realisation of his earlier assumption as to what she might be using as leverage to raise her cash was for some reason profoundly disappointing.

‘I...’ She shook her head as if to clear it. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Old Charlie would roll over in his grave if he heard you greeting a polo patron like that,’ Cruz drawled. Even one he didn’t think would ever be good enough for his perfect little granddaughter, he added silently.

Cruz’s velveteen voice, with no hint at all of his Mexican heritage, scraped over Aspen’s already raw nerves and she didn’t manage to contain the shiver this time.

She couldn’t tell his frame of mind but she knew hers and it was definitely disturbed. ‘My grandfather probably feels like he’s on a spit roast at the moment.’ She smiled, trying for light amusement to ease the tension that lay as thick as the issues of the past between them.

‘Are you implying he’s in hell, Aspen?’

He probably was, Aspen thought, but that wasn’t what she’d meant. ‘No. I just...you’re right.’ She shook her head, wondering what had happened to her manners. Her composure. Her brain. ‘That was a terrible greeting. Shall we start again?’

Without waiting for him to reply she stuck out her hand, ignoring the racing memories causing her heart to beat double time.

‘Hello, Cruz, welcome back to Ocean Haven. You’re looking well.’ Which was a half-truth if ever she’d uttered one.

The man didn’t look well. He looked superb.

His thick black hair that sat just fashionably shy of his expensive suit jacket and his piercing black eyes and square-cut jaw were even more beautiful than she remembered. He’d always had a strong, angular face and powerful body, but eight years had done him a load of favours in the looks department, settling a handsome maturity over the youthful virility he’d always worn like a cloak.

The apology she’d never got to voice for her part in the acrimonious accusations that had no doubt contributed to him leaving Ocean Haven eight years ago hovered behind her closed lips, but it seemed awkward to just blurt it out.

How could she tell him that a couple of months after that night she had written him a letter explaining everything but hadn’t had the wherewithal to send it without feeling a deep sense of shame at her ineptitude? It was little comfort knowing she’d been distracted by her grandfather’s stroke at the time, because she knew her behaviour that night had probably brought that on too. After he had recovered sending Cruz a letter had seemed like too little too late, and she’d pushed out of her mind the man who had fascinated her during most of her teenage years.

And maybe he was here now to let bygones be bygones. She didn’t know, but why pre-empt anything with her own guilt-riddled memories?

Because it would make you feel better, that’s why.

‘As are you.’

As she was what? Oh, looking well. ‘Thank you.’ She ran a nervous hand down the side of her dress and then pretended she was flicking off horse dust. ‘So...ah...are you here for the polo? The last chukka just finished, but—’

‘I’m not here for the polo.’

Aspen hated the anxious feeling that had settled over her and raised her chin. ‘Well, there’s champagne in the central marquee. Just tell Judy that I sent—’

‘I’m not here for the champagne either.’

Even more perturbed by the way he regarded her with such cool detachment she felt as if she was frying under the blasted summer sun. ‘Well, it would be great if you could tell me what you are here for because I have a few more people to schmooze before they leave. You know how these things go.’

He looked at her as if he was seeing right inside her. As if he knew all her secrets. As if he could see how desperately uncomfortable she was. Impossible, she thought, telling herself to get a grip.

Cruz could almost see the sweat breaking out over Aspen’s body and noted the way her cat-green eyes wouldn’t quite meet his. He didn’t know if that was because he was keeping her from an assignation with Billy Smyth, or someone else, or because she could feel the chemistry that lay between them like a grenade with the pin pulled.

Whatever it was, she wasn’t leaving his side until he had won over her confidence and figured out a way to handle the situation.

His brother’s silky question about ‘handling the lovely Aspen Carmichael’ came into his head. He knew what Ricardo had meant and looking at Aspen now, in her svelte designer dress and ‘come take me’ heels, her wild hair curling down around her shoulders as if she’d just rolled out of her latest lover’s bed, he had no doubt many men had ‘handled’ her that way before. But not him. Never him.

So far he’d drawn a blank as to how to contain her money-grabbing endeavours without alerting her to his own interest in Ocean Haven. Until he did he’d just have to rein himself in and keep his eyes away from her sexy mouth.

‘I’m here to buy a horse, Aspen. What else?’

‘A horse?’

Aspen blinked. That was the last thing she had expected him to say, though what she had expected she couldn’t say.

‘You do have one for sale, don’t you?’ he continued silkily.

Aspen cleared her throat. ‘Gypsy Blue. She’s a thoroughbred. Ex-racing stock and she’s gorgeous.’

‘I have no doubt.’

Aspen frowned at his tone, wondering why he seemed so tense. Not that he looked tense. In his bespoke suit with his hands in his pockets, his hair casually ruffled by the warm breeze, he looked like a man who didn’t have a care in the world. But the vibe she was picking up from him was making her feel edgy—and surely that wasn’t just because of her sense of guilt.

‘Are you hoping the horse will materialise in front of us, Aspen, or are you going to take me to see her?’

‘I...’ Aspen felt stupid, and not a little perturbed to be standing there trying not to look at his chiselled mouth. Which was nearly impossible when the memory of the kiss they had shared on that awful night was swirling inside her head. ‘Of course.’ She glanced around, hoping to see Donny, but knew that was cowardly. It was really her responsibility to show him the mare, not her chief groom’s.

‘She played earlier today, so she should be in the south stables.’ It was just rotten luck that she happened to be in the building where she had kissed Cruz on that fateful night. ‘Hey, why don’t I take you past the east paddock?’ she said, using anything as a possible distraction. ‘Trigger is out there, and I know he’d remember you and—’

‘I’m not here on a social visit, Aspen.’

And don’t mistake it for one, his tone implied.

No polo, no champagne, no socialising. Got it.

Still, she hesitated at his sharp tone. Then decided to let it drop and listened to the sound of their feet crunching the gravel as they walked away from the busy sounds of horse-owners loading tired horses into their respective trucks. It was all very normal and busy at the end of the afternoon’s practice, and yet Aspen felt as if she was wading through quicksand with Cruz beside her.

She cast a curious glance at him and wondered if he felt the same way. Or maybe he didn’t feel anything at all and just wanted to do his business and head out like everyone else. In a way she hoped that was the case, because the shock of seeing him again had worn off and his tension was raising her stress levels to dangerous proportions.

But then he had a reason for being tense, she reminded herself, and her skin flushed hotly as the weight of the past bore down on her. Years ago she had promised herself that she would never let pride interfere with the decisions she made in her life, but in avoiding the elephant walking alongside them wasn’t that exactly what she was doing now?

Taking a deep breath, she stopped just short of the stable doors and turned to Cruz, determined to rectify the situation as best she could before they made it inside.

Shading her eyes with one hand, she looked up into his face. Had he always been this tall? This broad? This good-looking?

‘Cruz, listen. This feels really awkward, but you took me by surprise before when I ran into you—literally.’ She released a shaky breath. ‘I want you to know that I feel terrible about the way you left The Farm all those years ago, and I’m truly sorry for the role I played in that.’

‘Are you?’ he asked coolly.

‘Yes, of course. I never meant for you to get into trouble.’

Cruz didn’t move a muscle.

‘I didn’t!’ Aspen felt her temper flare at his dubious look, hating how defensive she sounded.

She’d gone down to the stables that night because Chad—now thankfully her ex—had stayed for dinner so he could present his idea to her grandfather that he would marry her as soon as she turned eighteen. Aspen remembered how overwhelmed she had felt when neither man would consider her desire to study before she even thought about the prospect of marriage.

She’d known it was what her grandfather wanted, and at the time pleasing him had been more important than pleasing herself. So she’d done what she’d always done when she was stressed and gone down to be with the horses and to reconnect with her mother in her special place in the main stable.

Gone to try and make sense of her feelings.

Of course in hindsight letting her frustration get to her and kicking the side of the stable wall in steel-capped boots hadn’t been all that clever, because it had brought Cruz down from his apartment over the garage to investigate.

She remembered that he had looked gorgeous and lean and bad in dirty jeans and a half-buttoned shirt, as if he had just climbed out of bed.

‘What’s got you in a snit, chiquita?’ he’d said, the intensity of his heavy-lidded gaze in the dim light belying the relaxed humour in his voice.

‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ she’d thrown back at him challengingly.

Inwardly grimacing, she remembered how she had flicked her hair back over her shoulder in an unconscious gesture to get his full attention. She hadn’t known what she was inviting—not really—but she hadn’t wanted him to go. For some reason she had remembered the time she had come across him kissing a girlfriend in the outer barn, and the soft, pleasure-filled moans the girl had made had filled her ears that night.

Acting purely on instinct she had wandered from horse stall to horse stall, eventually coming to a stop directly in front of him. The warm glow of his torch had seemed to make the world contract, so that it had felt as if they were the only two people in it. Aspen was pretty sure she’d reached for him first, but seconds later she had been bent over his arm and he had been kissing her.

Her first kiss.

She felt her breathing grow shallow at the memory.

Something had fired in her system that night—desperation, lust, need—whatever it had been she’d never felt anything like it before or since.

Looking back, it was obvious that a feeling of entrapment—a feeling of having no say over her future—had driven her into the stables that night, but it had been Cruz’s sheer animal magnetism that had driven her into his arms.

Not that she really wanted to admit any of that to him right now. Not when he looked so...bored.

‘This is old news, Aspen, and I’m not in the mood to reminisce.’

‘That’s your prerogative. But I want you to know that I told my grandfather the next day that he’d got it wrong.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’ But her grandfather had cut her off with a look of disgust she hadn’t wanted to face. She looked up at Cruz now, more sorry than she could say. ‘I’m—’

‘Truly sorry? So you said. Have you become prone to repeating yourself?’

Aspen blinked up at him. Was it her imagination or did he hate her? ‘No, but I don’t think you believe me,’ she said carefully.

‘Does it matter if I do?’

‘Well, we used to be friends.’

‘We were never friends, Aspen. But I was glad to see your little indiscretion didn’t stop Anderson from marrying you.’

Aspen moistened her parched lips. ‘Grandfather thought it best if I didn’t tell him.’

Cruz barked out a laugh. ‘Well, now I almost feel sorry for the fool. If he’d known what a disloyal little cheat you were from the start he might have saved himself the heartache at the end.’

Oh, yes, he hated her all right. ‘Look, I’m sorry I brought it up. I just wanted to clear the air between us.’

‘There’s nothing to clear as far as I’m concerned.’

Aspen studied him warily. He wasn’t moving but she felt as if she was being circled by a predator. A very angry predator. She didn’t believe that he was at all okay with what had transpired between them but who was she to push it?

‘I made a mistake, but as you said you’re not here to reminisce.’ And nor was she. Particularly not about a time in her life she would much rather forget had ever happened.

She turned sharply towards the stables and kept up a brisk pace until she reached the doors, only starting to feel herself relax as she entered the cooler interior, her high heels clicking loudly on the bluestone floor. Her nose was filled with the sweet scent of horse and hay.

Cruz followed and Aspen glanced around at the worn tack hanging from metal bars and the various frayed blankets and dirty buckets that waited for Donny and her to come and finish them off for the day. The high beams of the hayloft needed a fresh coat of paint, and if you looked closely there were tiny pinpricks of sunlight streaming in through the tin roof where there shouldn’t be. She hoped Cruz didn’t look up.

A pigeon created dust motes as it swooped past them and interested horses poked their noses over the stall doors. A couple whinnied when they recognised her.

Aspen automatically reached into her pocket for a treat, forgetting that she wasn’t in her normal jeans and shirt. Instead she brushed one of the horses’ noses. ‘Sorry, hon. I don’t have anything. I’ll bring you something later.’

Cruz stopped beside her but he didn’t try to stroke the horse as she remembered he might once have done.

‘This is Cougar. Named because he has the heart of a mountain lion, although he can be a bit sulky when he gets pushed around out on the field. Can’t you, big guy?’ She gave him an affectionate pat before moving to the next stall. ‘This one is Delta. She’s—’

‘Just show me the horse you’re selling, Aspen.’

Aspen read the flash of annoyance in his gaze—and something else she couldn’t place. But his annoyance fed hers and once again she stalked away from him and stopped at Gypsy Blue’s stall. If she’d been able to afford it she would have kept her beloved mare, and that only increased her aggravation.

‘Here she is,’ she rapped out. ‘Her sire was Blue Rise, her dam Lady Belington. You might remember she won the Kentucky Derby twice running a few years back.’ She sucked in a breath, trying not to babble as she had done over her apology before. If Cruz was happy with the way things were between them then so was she. ‘I have someone else interested, so if you want her you’ll have to decide quickly.’

Quite a backpedal, Cruz thought. From uncomfortable, apologetic innocent to stiff Upper East Side princess. He wondered what other roles she had up her sleeve and then cut the thought in half before it could fully form. Because he already knew, didn’t he? Cheating temptress being one of them. Not that she was married now. Or engaged as far as he knew.

‘I’ve made you angry,’ he said, backpedalling himself.

This wasn’t at all the way he needed her to be if he was going to get information out of her. It was just this damned place. It felt as if it was full of ghosts, with memories around every corner that he had no wish to revisit. He’d closed the door on that part of his life the minute he’d carried his duffel bag off the property. On foot. Taking nothing from Old Man Carmichael except the clothes on his back and the money he’d already earned.

Of its own accord his gaze shifted to the other end of the long walkway to the place where Aspen had approached him that night, wearing a cotton nightie she must have known was see-through in the glow of his torch. He hadn’t been wearing much either, having only thrown on a pair of jeans and a shirt he hadn’t even bothered to button properly when he’d heard something banging on the wall and gone to investigate.

He’d presumed it was one of the horses and had been absolutely thunderstruck to find Aspen in that nightie and a pair of riding boots. She’d looked hotter than Hades and when she’d strolled past the stalls, lightly trailing her slender fingers along the wood, he couldn’t have moved if someone had planted a bomb under him.

It had all been a ploy. He knew that now. He’d kissed her because he’d been a man overcome with lust. She’d kissed him because she’d been setting him up. It had been like a bad rendition of Samson and Delilah and she’d deserved an acting award for wardrobe choice alone.

His muscles grew taut as he remembered how he had held himself in check. How he hadn’t wanted to overwhelm her with the desperate hunger that had surged through him and urged him to pull her down onto the hay and rip the flimsy nightie from her body. How he hadn’t wanted to take her innocence. What a joke. She’d played him like a finely tuned instrument and, like a fool, he’d let her.

‘Like I said before.’ She cleared her throat. ‘This feels a little awkward.’

She must have noticed the direction of his gaze because her voice sounded breathless; almost as if her memories of that night mirrored his own. Of course he knew better now.

About to placate her by pretending he had forgotten all about it, he found the words dying in his throat as she raised both hands and twisted her flyaway curls into a rope and let it drop down her back. The middle button on her dress strained and he found himself willing it to pop open.

Surprised to find his libido running away without his consent, he quickly ducked inside the stall and feigned avid interest in a horse he had no wish to buy.

He went through the motions, though, studying the lines of the mare’s back, running his hands over her glossy coat, stroking down over her foreleg and checking the straightness of her pasterns. Fortunately he was on autopilot, because his undisciplined mind was comparing the shapeliness of the thoroughbred with Aspen’s lissom figure and imagining how she would feel under his rough hands.

Silky, smooth, and oh, so soft.

Memories of the little sounds she’d made as he’d lost himself in her eight years ago exploded through his system and turned his breathing rough.

‘She’s an exceptional polo pony. Really relaxed on the field and fast as a whip.’

Aspen’s commentary dragged his mind back to his game plan and he kept on stroking the horse as he spoke. ‘Why are you selling her?’

‘We run a horse stud, not a bed and breakfast,’ she said with mock sternness, her eyes tinged with dark humour as she repeated one of Charles Carmichael’s favourite sayings.

‘Or an old persons’ home.’ He joined in with Charles’s second favourite saying before he could stop himself.

‘No.’ Her small smile was tinged with emotion.

Her reaction surprised him.

‘You miss him?’

She shifted and leant her elbows on the door. ‘I really don’t know.’ Her eyes trailed over the horse. ‘He had moments of such kindness, and he gave me a home when Mum died, but he was impossible to be around if he didn’t get his own way.’

‘He certainly had high hopes of you marrying well and providing blue stock heirs for Ocean Haven.’ And he’d made it more than clear to him after Aspen had returned to the house that night that Cruz wouldn’t be the one to provide them under any circumstances.

‘Yes.’

Her troubled eyes briefly met his and for a moment he wanted to shake her for not being a different kind of woman. A more sincere and genuine woman.

‘So what do you think?’

It took him a minute to realise she was talking about the mare and not herself. ‘She’s perfect. I’ll take her.’

‘Oh.’ She gave a self-conscious laugh. ‘You don’t want to ride her first?’

Oh, yes, he certainly did want to do that!

‘No.’

‘Well, I did tell you to be quick. I’ll have Donny run the paperwork.’

‘Send it to my lawyer.’ Cruz rubbed the mare’s nose and let her nudge him. ‘I hear Joe is planning to sell the farm.’

She grimaced. ‘Good news travels fast.’

‘Polo’s a small community.’

‘Too small sometimes.’ She gestured towards the mare. ‘She’ll ruin your nice suit if you let her do that.’

‘I have others.’

So nice not to have to worry about money, Aspen thought, a touch enviously. After the abject poverty she and her mother had lived in after her father’s desertion, the wealth of Ocean Haven had been staggering. It was something she’d never take for granted again.

‘Where are you planning to go once it’s sold?’

‘It’s not going to be sold,’ she said with a touch of asperity, stepping back as Cruz joined her outside the stall. ‘At least not to someone else.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re going to buy it?’

‘Yes.’ She had always been a believer in the power of positive thinking, and she had never needed that more than she did now.

Gypsy Blue whickered and stuck her head over the door and Aspen realised her water trough was nearly empty. Unhooking it, she walked the short distance to a tap and filled it.

‘Let me do that.’

Cruz took the bucket from her before she could stop him and stepped inside the stall. Aspen grabbed the feed bucket Donny had left outside and followed him in and hooked it into place.

‘It’s a big property to run by yourself,’ he said.

‘For a girl?’ she replied curtly.

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Sorry. I’m a bit touchy because so many people have implied more than once that I won’t be able to do it. It’s like they think I’m completely incompetent, and that really gets my—’ She gave a small laugh realising she was about to unload her biggest gripe onto him and he was virtually a stranger to her now. Why would he even care? ‘The fact is...’ She looked at him carefully.

He had money. She’d heard of his business acumen. Of the companies he bought and sold. Of his innovative and brilliant new polo-inspired hotel in Mexico. He was the epitome of a man at the top of his game. Right now, as he leant his wide shoulders against the stall door and blocked out all sources of light from behind, he also looked the epitome of adult male perfection.

‘But the fact is...?’ he prompted.

Aspen’s eyes darted to his as she registered the subtle amusement lacing his voice. Did he know what she had just been thinking? ‘Sorry, I was just...’ Just a bit distracted by your incredible face? Your powerful body? Way to go, Aspen. Really. Super effort. ‘The fact is—’ she squared her shoulders ‘—I need ten million dollars to keep it.’

She forced a bright smile onto her face.

‘You’re not looking for an investment opportunity, are you?’

CHAPTER THREE

SHE COULDN’T BELIEVE she’d actually voiced the question that had just formed in her mind but she knew that she had when Cruz’s dark gaze sharpened on hers. But frankly, with only five days left to raise the rest of the money and Billy Smyth firmly out of the picture, she really was that desperate.

‘Give you ten million dollars? That’s a big ask.’

Her heart thumped loudly in her chest and her mouth felt dust dry. ‘Lend,’ she corrected. ‘But you know what they say...’ She stopped as he straightened to his full height and she lost her train of thought.

He shoved both hands into his pockets. ‘They say a lot of things, Aspen. What is it exactly you’re referring to?’

‘If you don’t ask you never know,’ she said, moistening her lips. ‘And I’m desperate.’

Cruz’s eyes glittered as he looked down at her. ‘A good negotiator never shows that particular hand. It puts their opponent in the dominant position.’

Heat bloomed anew on her face as his tone seemed to take on a sensual edge. ‘I don’t see you as my opponent, Cruz.’

‘Then you’re a fool,’ he returned, almost too mildly.

Aspen felt her hopes shrivel to nothing. What had she been thinking, approaching a business situation like that? Where was her professionalism? Her polish?

But maybe she’d known he’d never agree to it. Not with the way he obviously felt about her.

‘What would I get out of it, anyway?’

The unexpected question surprised her and once again her eyes darted to his. Had she been wrong in thinking he wouldn’t be interested? ‘A lot, actually. I’ve drawn up a business plan.’

‘Really?’

She didn’t like his sceptical tone but decided to ignore it. ‘Yes. It outlines the horses due to foal, and how much we expect to make from each one, and our plans to purchase a top-of-the-line stallion to keep improving the breed. We also have a couple of wonderful horses we’re about to start training—and I don’t know if you’ve heard of our riding school, but I teach adults and children, and—well... There’s more, but if you’re truly interested we can run through the logistics of it all later.’ Out of breath, she stopped, and then added, ‘It has merit. I promise.’

‘If it has so much merit why haven’t any of the financial institutions bankrolled you?’

‘Because I’m young—that is usually the first excuse. But really I think it’s because unbeknownst to any of us Grandfather hadn’t been running his business properly the last few years and—’ Realising that yet again she was about to divulge every one of her issues, she stopped. ‘The banks just don’t believe I have enough experience to pull it off.’

‘Perhaps you should have thought about furthering your education instead of marrying to secure your future.’

Aspen nearly gasped at his snide tone of voice. ‘I didn’t marry to secure anything,’ she said sharply. Except perhaps her grandfather’s love and affection. Something that had always been in short supply.

Upset with herself for even being in this position, and with him for his nasty comment, Aspen thought about telling him that she was one semester out from completing a degree in veterinary science—and that she’d achieved that while working full-time running Ocean Haven. But she knew that in her current state she would no doubt come across as defensive or whiney, and that only made her angry.

‘If you have such a low opinion of me why pretend any interest in my plans for The Farm?’ she demanded hotly, slapping her hands either side of her waist. ‘Are you planning to steal our ideas?’

That got an abrupt bark of laughter from him that did nothing to improve her temper. ‘I don’t need to steal your ideas, gatita. I have plenty of my own.’

‘Then why get my hopes up like that?’

‘Is that what I did?’

Aspen stared him down. ‘You know that’s exactly what you did.’

He stepped closer to her. ‘But maybe I am interested.’

His tone sent a splinter of unease down her spine but she was too annoyed to pay attention to it. ‘Don’t patronise me, Cruz. I have five days before The Farm will be sold to some big-shot investment consortium. I don’t have time to bandy around with this.’

‘Ocean Haven really means that much to you?’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘I suppose it is the easiest option for a woman in your position,’ he conceded, with such arrogance that Aspen nearly choked.

Easy? Easy! He clearly had no idea how hard she worked on the property—tending horses, mending fences, keeping the books—nor how important Ocean Haven was to her. How it was the one link she had left with her mother. How it was the one place that had made her feel happy and secure after she’d been orphaned. After her marriage had fallen apart.

She was incredibly proud of her work and her future plans to open up a school camp for kids who’d had a tough start in life. Horses had a way of grounding troubled adolescents and she wanted to provide a place they could come to and feel safe. Just as she had. And she hated that Cruz was judging her—mocking her—like every other obnoxious male she had ever come across. That she hadn’t expected it from him only made her feel worse.

Hopping mad, she had a mind to order him off her property, but she couldn’t quite kill off this avenue of hope just yet. He was supposed to be a savvy businessman after all, and she had a good plan. Well, she hoped she did. ‘Ocean Haven has been in my family for centuries,’ she began, striving for calm.

‘I think the violinist has packed up for the day...’

Aspen blinked. ‘God, you’re cold. I don’t remember that about you.’

‘Don’t you, gatita? Tell me...’

His voice dropped an octave and her heartbeat faltered.

‘What do you remember?’

Aspen’s gaze fell to his mouth. ‘I remember that you were...’ Tall. That your hair glints almost blue-black in the sun. That your face looks like it belongs in a magazine. That your mouth is firm and yet soft. She forced her eyes to meet his and ignored the fact that her face felt as if it was on fire. ‘Good with the horses.’ She swallowed. ‘That you were smart, and that you used to keep to yourself a lot. But I remember when you laughed.’ It used to make me smile. ‘It sounded happy. And I remember that when you were mad at something not even my grandfather was brave enough to face you. I rem—’

‘Enough.’ He sliced his hand through the air with sharp finality. ‘There’s only one thing I want to know right now,’ he said softly.

If she remembered his kisses? Yes—yes, she did. Sometimes even when she didn’t want to. ‘What?’ she asked, hating the breathless quality of her voice.

‘Just how desperate are you?’

His dark voice was so dangerously male it sent her brain into overdrive. ‘What kind of a question is that?’ She shook her head, trying to ward off the jittery feelings he so effortlessly conjured up inside her.

He reached forward and captured a strand of her hair between his fingertips, his eyes burning into hers. ‘If I were to lend you this money I’d want more than a share in the profits.’

Aspen felt her chest rising and falling too quickly and hoped to hell he wasn’t going to suggest the very thing Billy Smyth had done not an hour earlier.

Reaching up, she tugged her hair out of his hold. ‘Such as...?’

His eyes looked black as pitch as they pinned her like a dart on a wall. ‘Oh, save us both the Victorian naïveté. You’re no retiring virgin after the life you lived with Chad Anderson—and before that, even. You’re a sensual woman who no doubt looks very good gracing a man’s bed.’ He paused, his gaze caressing her face. ‘If the terms were right I might want you to grace mine.’

Was he kidding?

Aspen felt her mouth drop open before she could stop it. Rage welled up inside her like a living beast. Rage at the injustice of her grandfather’s will, rage at the way men viewed her as little more than a sexual object, rage at her mother’s death and her father’s abandonment.

Maybe Cruz had a reason for being upset with her after she had failed to correct her grandfather’s assumption that they were sleeping together years ago, but that didn’t give him the right to treat her like a—like a whore.

‘Get out of my way,’ she ordered.

His eyes lingered on her tight lips. ‘Make sure you don’t burn your bridges unnecessarily, Aspen. Pride can be a nasty thing when it’s used rashly.’

She knew all about pride going before a fall. ‘It’s not rash pride making me reject your offer, Cruz. It’s simple self-respect.’

‘Whatever you want to call it, I’m offering you a straightforward business deal. You have something I’ve decided I want. I have something you need. Why complicate it?’

‘Because it’s disgusting.’

‘What an interesting way to put it,’ he sneered. ‘Tell me, Aspen, would it have been less disgusting if I’d first said that you were beautiful before taking you to bed? If I’d first invited you out for a drink? Taken you to dinner, perhaps?’ He took a step towards her and lowered his voice. ‘If I had gone down that path would you have said yes?’ His lips twisted with mocking superiority. ‘If I had romanced you, Aspen, I could have had you naked and beneath me in a matter of hours and saved myself a hell of a lot of money.’

Aspen threw him a withering look, ignoring the sudden mental picture of them both naked and tangled together. ‘You can save yourself a hell of a lot of money and skin right now and get off my property,’ she said tightly.

His nostrils flared as he breathed deeply and she suddenly realised how close he was, how far she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. ‘And for your information,’ she began, wanting to stamp all over his supersized ego, ‘I would never have said yes to you.’

‘Really?’

He stepped even closer and Aspen felt the harsh bite of wood at her back. Caged, she could only stare as Cruz lifted one of her spiral curls again; this time carrying it to his nose. Her hands rose to shove him back but he didn’t budge, and almost immediately her senses tuned in to the warm packed muscle beneath the thin cotton of his shirt, to the fast beat of his heart that seemed to mirror her own racing pulse.

A flash of memory took her back eight years to the feel of his mouth on hers. The feel of his tongue rubbing hers. The feel of his hands spanning her waist. Heat pooled inside her and made her breasts heavy, her legs unsteady. She remembered that after they’d been caught she had been so shocked by her physical reaction to him and so scared of her grandfather’s wrath she’d fallen utterly silent—ashamed of herself for considering one man’s marriage proposal while losing herself in the arms of another. Cruz hadn’t raised one word of denial the whole time and she still wondered why.

Not that she had time to consider that now... He leant forward as if her staying hands were nothing more than crepe paper. His breath brushed her ear.

‘Let me tell you what I remember, gatita. I remember the way your curvy backside filled out those tight jodhpurs. I remember the purple bikini top you used to wear riding your horse along the beach. And I remember the way you used to watch me. A bit like the way you were watching me stroke the mare before.’ His hand tightened in her hair. ‘You were thinking about how it would feel if I put my hands on you again, weren’t you? How it would feel if I kissed you?’

Aspen made a half coughing noise in instant denial and tried to catch her breath. There was no way he could have known she’d been thinking exactly that.

‘Have you turned into a dreamer, Cruz?’ she mocked with false bravado, frightened beyond belief at how vulnerable she suddenly felt. ‘Because really a dream would be the only place I would ever want something like that from you.’

Dreamer?

Cruz felt his jaw knot at her insolent tone. How dared she accuse him of being a dreamer when she was clearly the dreamer here if she thought she could buy and hold onto the rundown estate Ocean Haven had become?

Memories of the past swirled around him and bit deep. Memories of how she had felt in his arms. How she had tasted. Memories of how she had stood there, all dazed innocence, and listened to her grandfather rail at him. He’d been accused of ruining her that night but it was her—her and that slimy fiancé of hers, Chad Anderson—who had tried to ruin him. She and her lover who had set him up for a fall to clear the way for Chad to take over as captain of Charles Carmichael’s dream team.

There’d been no other explanation for it, and he’d always wondered how far she would have taken things if her grandfather had turned up five minutes later. Because that was all it would have taken for him to twist her nightie up past her hips and thrust deep into her velveteen warmth.

His eyes took her in now. Her defiant expression and flushed face. Her rapidly beating pulse and her moist lips where her pink tongue had just lashed them. Her hands were burning a hole in his shirt and he was already as hard as stone—and, by God, he’d had enough of her holier-than-thou attitude.

‘You would have loved it.’ Cruz twisted her hair into a knot at the back of her head and pulled her roughly up against him. ‘Will love it,’ he promised thickly, wrapping his other arm around her waist and staunching her shocked cry with his mouth.

Her lips immediately clamped together and she pushed against him, but that only brought her body more fully up against his as her hands slipped over his shoulders. She stilled, as if the added contact affected her as much as it affected him, and with a deep groan he ran his tongue across the seam of her lips. He felt a shiver run through her and then she shoved harder to dislodge him. He told himself he wasn’t doing his plan any favours by forcing himself on her, but the plan paled into insignificance when compared to the feel of her warm and wriggling in his arms. He wanted her to surrender to him. To admit that the chemistry that had exploded through him like a haze of bloodlust as soon as he had seen her again wasn’t just one-sided.

But some inner instinct warned him that this wasn’t the way to get her to acquiesce, and years of experience in gentling horses rushed through him. He marshalled some of that strength and patience now and gentled her. Sucking at her lips, nipping, soothing her with his tongue. She made a tiny whimper in the back of her throat and he felt a sense of primal victory as she tentatively opened her mouth under his, aligning her body so that her soft curves were no longer resisting his hardness but melting against him until he could feel every sweet, feminine inch of her.

With a low growl of approval he gentled his hold on her and angled her head so that he could take her mouth more fully. When her lips opened wider and her arms urged him closer he couldn’t stop himself from plundering her, couldn’t resist drawing her tongue out so that she could taste him in return.

An unexpected sense of completeness settled over him—a sense of finding something he’d been searching for his whole life—and he didn’t want the kiss to end. He didn’t want this maddening arousal to end.

If he’d had any idea that it would be like this again he wasn’t sure that he would have started it. But now that he had he didn’t want to stop. Ever. She tasted so sweet. So silky. So good.

He made a sound low in his throat when she circled her pelvis against his in an age-old request and he couldn’t think after that. Could only grab her hips and smooth his hands over her firm backside to mould her against him. ‘Yes,’ he whispered roughly against her mouth. ‘Kiss me, chiquita. Give me everything.’

And she did. Without reservation. Her mouth devouring his as if she too had dreamed of this over and over and over. As if she too couldn’t live without—

‘Ow!’

Her sharp cry of pain echoed his deeper one as something pushed the back of his head and bumped his forehead into hers. He pulled back and glared over his shoulder to where the horse he had just agreed to purchase snorted in disgust.

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