Prima Donna (48 page)

Now it was Pia’s turn to laugh. ‘When someone saves your . . . ?’ She shrugged, baffled.

Tanner continued to stare at her, resolutely unamused.

‘Oh my God, you are such an egomaniac! Are you implying . . . are you trying to say you saved my life?’ she giggled. ‘
You?
’

There was a stiff silence and the smile gradually slid off Pia’s face. ‘You? You saved me?’ His face blurred out of sight as the jumble of images and sounds from that day,
which she had tried so hard not to revisit, rushed back at her.

The sound of the dog barking.

She realized suddenly that even the British, with their love of irony, don’t call a black Labrador Custard. It had to have been Biscuit. That was why she was always so excitable around Pia
. . . And his hands . . . when he’d been carrying her back through the wood – she remembered they’d felt big, but rough. Will’s hands were smooth from a life spent brokering
deals on the phone.

Pia grabbed his hand. She rubbed her fingers over the long fingers that were every bit as worked and calloused as her feet. But that didn’t mean anything. He worked with horses; anyone who
worked with animals would have the same.

Tanner watched her. She was staring at him, but he knew she wasn’t seeing him. Her mind was racing, her eyes darting as her subconscious allowed the memories to surface. She remembered . .
. that day when he’d chased her across the fields. She’d caught a trace of it when he’d been standing in front of her, chastising her, but then he’d gone to knock on the
door and . . . She lurched forward and pressed her nose to his neck, inhaling his scent. She breathed in deeply. There it was! Not Trumper’s Lime cologne that Will slathered on, but the smell
that had been her first conscious sense as he’d brought her back to life.

She drew back fractionally and saw that he’d caught his breath. Her face was just inches from his. ‘It was you,’ she said. Tanner didn’t reply. He realized that
she’d never known. That Will had spun her yet another lie.

‘And I never even said thank you,’ she whispered, her voice cracking. ‘No wonder you hate me.’

His eyes wandered over her face, finally allowing the thought to intrude that – in spite of being an absolute nightmare – she was still the most gorgeous thing he had ever laid eyes
on.

‘It’s probably just as well that I did,’ he said quietly, his eyes falling to her lips. Her hair was tickling his jaw and she smelt as sweet as vanilla – so sweet that he
wanted to lick her like ice cream.

‘
Punto da filha!
’ Paolo suddenly exclaimed, and Pia sprang back from him like a feral cat, her eyes wild at the prospect that Paolo had caught them. But his back was to them
as he scanned the forest edge. He was staring at the horses. Or rather, the lack of them.

‘Why are there only two horses there?’ he demanded, as though it was their fault that one of the horses had wandered off during his sleep. Pia and Tanner scanned the clearing,
looking for a tail swish, or the sound of a hoof on a rock to identify the missing horse’s whereabouts. But it had gone.

‘Maybe someone stole it,’ Tanner quipped, expecting Pia to shoot him a look. But she was staring into the pool, trying to process what she’d just discovered.

Paolo looked at Pia standing on the rock in just his shirt. ‘Pia, put your clothes on,’ he ordered, casting a nervous glance at Tanner. Pia snapped out of her trance and glared at
him, not liking the tone of his voice. Tanner kept his eyes on the forest, sensing a domestic brewing.

‘Well, it’s not a catastrophe,’ Paolo said casually. ‘You can stay here, Pia, and the helicopter will be back in a while to pick up the baskets. They can take you to the
house with them.’

‘What?’ Pia cried, grabbing her knickers and stepping into them. ‘You’re going to leave me here on my own?’ She stepped behind a boulder and started getting
changed, worried he might actually go without her.

‘You’ll be fine,’ Paolo shrugged. ‘There’s no one about. You’ll be safe.’

‘Why can’t you stay with me till the chopper comes?’

‘Because it’s a three-hour trek back to the house. We need to start moving again before the sun goes down.’

Pia peered out from behind the boulder. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said in a dangerous voice. ‘If you were any kind of gentleman you’d give me your horse.’ She
threw his shirt at him.

Paolo sighed and put it on. ‘I can’t. I have to lead Tanner back out of here. He’d never find his way out alone and we need to get the horses back. I don’t see what the
problem is.’

‘Well, why can’t I ride on your horse with you?’ she demanded, zipping up her jodhpurs and pulling on her boots.

‘Because my horse isn’t big enough.’

Pia looked at the two horses standing in the glade. There was a visible discrepancy in the size of them, as there was a visible discrepancy in the size of the two men.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll ride on Tanner’s, then.’

‘What?’ Tanner said, finding himself drawn into the dispute, after all.

‘That’s okay, isn’t it?’ she demanded. ‘Your horse is perfectly capable of carrying us both.’ She looked back at Paolo. ‘Unlike
his
runty
donkey.’

Tanner tried not to laugh at her furious description. One look at Paolo’s face told him it was definitely not the time to laugh.

‘Well . . . if it helps,’ he said blankly, shrugging at Paolo like there were a million other things he’d prefer.

‘Okay, so that’s sorted, then,’ Pia said, tucking her shirt into her tiny waistband.

Tanner rolled his eyes to heaven, and walked over to untie his horse. He put his foot in the stirrup and climbed up. Then he took his foot out of the stirrup and she put hers in. He saw how
effortlessly her leg reached up to it. It was like she was made of elastic.

‘Duck,’ she ordered, and he moved his head out of the way just in time as she swung her leg over him, before sliding her back down his chest.

He felt a jolt of desire course through his body at the feel of her skimming down him. He swallowed hard, trying to get a grip. Paolo was standing with his hands on his hips, frowning at
them.

Tanner pulled a face as her ponytail tickled his nose. ‘Shove forward,’ he grumbled noisily. ‘You’re taking all the room.’

Pia shifted forward an inch.

‘Oh great. Thanks,’ he drawled sarcastically. ‘Bet you’re a treat with the duvet.’

‘Wouldn’t you like to know,’ she quipped.

Tanner gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Come on, then,’ he said to Paolo, shaking the reins. ‘Let’s get this over and done with.’

The horses picked their way faithfully back through the forest, an innate contrary sense telling them that heading deeper into the forest was the best way out of it. Tanner tipped his head to
the side to see round Pia, his arms circling her waist as he held the reins.

Paolo kept turning around suspiciously every few minutes to check on them, but Tanner kept his face resolutely grim and martyred, and as the miles clocked up, Paolo stopped bothering.

The trio rode on in silence, letting the scenery do all the talking as deep velvety creeks folded into the mountainside. The scale of them was unlike anything found in the British Isles. Why did
everything seem to be bigger, wilder, more dramatic and flamboyant here, he wondered, watching a wisp of baby hair flutter on the nape of Pia’s neck.

Eventually, though, the epic landscape hit a different scale and the lofty, bosky forest yielded to the orderly dwarf rows of the coffee plantations. They had been going for nearly two hours now
and were all tired, but they were nearly there. Tanner couldn’t even bear to think about finding the energy to party at the festa tonight and still cope with a transatlantic journey in the
morning. He’d scarcely be able to move after this. He’d need a cortisone injection just to get on the plane.

Pia began to lean into him.

‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, correcting herself and drawing up again. But when she sank back for the fifth time, he put a hand on her shoulder and kept her there. ‘It’s
fine,’ he said quietly. He well remembered how fragile she’d been after the accident. ‘Just rest.’

She rested her head back against his chest, but after a few minutes he became aware of her breath on his jaw.

‘You’re staring at me again,’ he muttered.

‘I just can’t help wondering . . .’ she said in a soft voice.

‘What?’

‘What it’s like to save someone’s life.’

There was a long silence and she thought he wasn’t going to answer, again.

‘Bloody awful,’ he said in a tight voice eventually. ‘I thought I was too late. You weren’t breathing.’ Pia took in his words and saw in the set of his jaw the full
extent of the drama he had gone through.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

Tanner flickered his eyes down to her and the sight of her resting against his chest, doe-eyes staring back up at him, her hair floating in the breeze, made his heart skip a beat.

‘You’re welcome,’ he replied gruffly, looking back up again and praying for the house to heave into view. He needed to get off this horse and away from her. It had been weeks
since he’d had a woman, and the sight of her, grateful and gorgeous, pressed up against him, was beginning to be more than he could bear. He clenched his jaw and looked grimly ahead.

‘I guess this means I’m indebted to
you
now.’

‘No, you’re not.’

‘Yes, I am. That Chinese proverb says that when someone saves your life, your soul belongs to them’

‘Stuff the Chinese proverb.’

‘But what if I
want
to make it up to you?’ she whispered and he felt her hips tilt back fractionally, her buttocks pushing up against him.

‘I’ve already told you, you don’t owe me anything,’ he said, trying to move away, but he was already jammed on the back of the saddle. Short of jumping off the horse
altogether, there was nowhere to go.

The horse’s tempo rocked their bodies together, and as much as Tanner recited the Periodic Table, trying to keep himself from growing hard, it was no good. His brain wouldn’t fool
his body this time. It had stored the images of her knockout curves for just such a moment as this. ‘Just stop it,’ he hissed. ‘I’m not Silk.’

‘Precisely,’ she murmured. He felt her legs widen – that impressive turn out easily able to press her thighs back to his – and it took all the control he had not to drop
the reins and slide a hand into her jodhpurs to feel her own excitement.

Slowly Pia turned her face upwards and, softly, so that he could barely feel it, kissed his throat. A treasonous moan of desire escaped him. She took his idle hand off his thigh and brought it
up to her breast. He felt the weight of it sink into his hand with each trot and instinctively he squeezed it lightly, wondrously, utterly unable to stop himself. She sighed with pleasure, her butt
pushing into his groin, the horse’s rhythm rubbing her against him.

Every fibre in his body was straining to swivel her around and have her there and then on the horse, but Paolo was only a few yards ahead and the house was in sight. Plantation workers were
walking up the path fifty feet away, finished for another day. Tanner dropped his hand from her glorious, weighty breast and took up the rein, trying to steady his breathing.

Pia, sensing his change, pulled herself back up, just as Paolo turned round to them.

‘Well, we did it,’ he smiled, winking at Pia, already forgetful of their argument. ‘It was good, no?’

She shrugged noncommittally, putting on her best stroppy face.

Tanner nodded stiffly. ‘Thank you, Paolo.’

‘There aren’t many places in the world that can boast picnic spots like that,’ Paolo replied. ‘Even if it does take a superhuman effort to get there.’

Sod the ride. It’s taken superhuman effort not to sleep with your girlfriend, Tanner thought to himself, staring hatefully at Paolo’s slight spoilt back. They trotted into the yard,
and the grooms rushed forward.

Paolo jumped off, and held his arms up to Pia. She slid down into them. ‘Time to go back for a rest now, hmm?’ he said to her, bending down and planting a kiss on her neck. Pia
looked up at Tanner and for a second he saw panic in her eyes.

He looked away angrily – frustrated with desire, furious that she was with Paolo, his boss’s son, half demented that there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t afford
to lose Velasquez’s patronage. It was precisely this relationship that had freed him from Silk. The yard’s survival depended on the business from one of those two men, and having to
choose between honouring his father’s memory or getting the girl of his dreams was an unbearable quandary. So much for living life on his terms.

He dismounted to the other side, away from the two lovers, and handed the reins to a groom, patting the horse and buying himself some recovery time.

‘Well, thanks again, Paolo,’ he said finally, shaking his hand quickly. ‘That was a great trek. Really impressive. Great, uh . . . great views.’ He ran his hand through
his hair, unable to meet Pia’s eyes.

‘Yes, it always goes down well with our guests,’ Paolo boasted half-heartedly. He was clearly eager to get Pia back to the hacienda. ‘Okay, so we’ll see you later, at the
festa,’ he said dismissively.

Tanner shook his head. ‘No. Sorry. I’m beat. I’ll have to give it a miss. Besides, I need to prepare for the journey back tomorrow.’

‘You’re leaving?’ Pia asked, shocked.

‘Nonsense!’ Paolo said, thumping him on the back. ‘My father won’t hear of such a thing. Anyway, the yard manager will have everything sorted for the journey. It’s
his job. You go and rest and shower now before dinner. We’ll meet you back at the house at eight.’

Tanner nodded wearily. He knew Velasquez would never let him wriggle out of the occasion. He watched Paolo lead Pia back up the path, his hand wandering casually over her butt. He let them round
the corner before he kicked the ground furiously, startling and then amusing the grooms in turn. They hadn’t missed Pia’s looks to him and a blind man could see his frustrations. He
turned abruptly and strode up the path to the house, hoping to God that he’d find Maria turning down the sheets.