sudden death.
If he got it in, he would play on. If he missed, he had to go back out and rejoin the party. He had to go out there and watch Tamsin Calthorpe tease and flirt her way around the rest of the England team. And, he thought with a grimace of scorn, judging by her earlier performance, probably most of the Barbarians as well.
It was probably just as well he never missed.
Lazily he bent to line up the shot. From the other side of the massive polished-wood door he could hear the raucous sounds of the party. As a major investor in Argentine rugby he ought to be out there; after today’s game he was the man everyone wanted to talk to and he should be capitalising on that to get publicity for Los Pumas. That was, after all, what he’d come back for.
Unhurriedly he adjusted the balance of the cue. To even up the odds a little he closed his left eye, leaving only the bruised and swollen right one to judge the angle of the shot.
With a sharp, insouciant jab the blue fell neatly into the top-left pocket.
Alejandro straightened up, smiling ruefully as a sting of perverse disappointment sliced through him. He had no desire to go out there and mix with the great and the good of the rugby world, but there was a part of him that would have rather enjoyed the chance to watch the amazing Lady Calthorpe in operation some more, for no other reason than to marvel at how much more polished the routine had become in the last six years. Back then there had been a gawky awkwardness about her, a trembling sort of defiance, but it had affected him far more powerfully than tonight’s virtuoso display of sexual invitation.
Powerful enough to cloud his judgement and get beneath his defences, he thought acidly.
She’d upped her game considerably since then, and as a result it seemed that she was no longer kept in the background as a handmaid for her father’s sordid, secret schemes. Now she was much higher profile, which of course made perfect sense. Henry Calthorpe was now chairman of the RFU, and, judging by the photoshoot Alejandro had just witnessed, the organisation had become one big, indulgent playground for his spoiled daughter. He wondered how far her influence spread now.
With sudden violence he threw down the cue and went to stand in front of the fire.
Henry Calthorpe was obviously too important these days to invite the riff-raff into his own home, but the hotel had apparently been chosen to provide a very similar setting. The billiard room was a gentleman’s retreat in typical English country-house style, with leather wing-backed chairs and oil paintings of hunting scenes on the walls. The long, fringed lamp hanging low over the table made the billiard balls glow like jewels in a pool of emerald green, and firelight glinted on a tray of cut-glass decanters beside him.
He reached for one and splashed a generous measure into a crystal tumbler, and had just thrown himself into one of the high-backed chairs facing the fire when there was a sudden rush of noise behind him as the door opened and then closed again quickly. Alejandro didn’t move, but his hand tightened around the glass as, reflected in the mirror above the fireplace, he saw her.
She went straight to the billiard table and leaned against it, dropping her head and breathing hard, as if she was trying to steady herself or regain control. His first thought was that she was waiting for someone to follow her into the room, and he glanced towards the door again. But it stayed shut, and a moment later Tamsin Calthorpe lifted her head and he saw that the laboured breathing, the bright spots of colour on her cheeks, weren’t caused by desire but by anger.
Picking up the cue he had so recently thrown down, she barely glanced at the table before stooping, and, with a snarl of fury, took a vicious shot which sent the balls cannoning wildly across the table.
In the mirror Alejandro watched the white rebound off the top cushion, just missing the pink and the black and sending the brown ball cannoning into the middle pocket. Still completely oblivious to his presence, Tamsin punched the air and gave a low hiss of triumph.
‘Lucky shot,’ he said sardonically.
In the mirror he saw her freeze, the billiard cue held across her body like a weapon.
‘Who said luck had anything to do with it?’
Her voice was cool and haughty, but he caught the nervous dart of her eyes as she looked around to see who had spoken. Her blonde head was held high, her shoulders tense and alert. She looked oddly vulnerable, like a startled deer.
‘It was a difficult one.’ Alejandro stood up and turned slowly towards her, feeling a flicker of satisfaction as he watched her eyes widen in shock and the colour leave her face. She recovered quickly, shrugging as she walked towards the curtained windows.
‘Precisely. What would have been the point in taking it if it was easy?’
It was Alejandro’s turn to be stunned. As she walked away from him he saw that the dress that had looked so demure from the front was completely backless, showing a downwards sweep of flawless, peachy skin.
He made a sharp, scornful sound—halfway between a laugh and a sneer, which sent a tide of heat flooding into Tamsin’s face and a torrent of boiling fury erupting inside her. Her heart was beating very hard as she whipped round to face him again.
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘Frankly, no.’ He moved around the chair and came towards her. He’d taken off his dinner jacket and undone the top two buttons of his shirt. His silk bow-tie lay loosely around his neck, giving him an air of infuriating relaxation that was completely at odds with the icy hardness of his face. She was pleased to notice that there was a muscle flickering in the hollowed plane of his cheek.
‘You don’t strike me as a girl who likes to try too hard to get what she wants,’ he said scathingly.
The injustice of the statement was so magnificent she almost laughed. Pressing her lips together, she had to look down for a second while she fought to keep a hold on her composure. ‘Don’t I?’ Her voice was polite, deceptively soft as she met his gaze. ‘Well, may I suggest that your assumption says more about you than it does about me, Alejandro?’
He flinched slightly, almost imperceptibly, as she said his name, and for a moment some unfathomable emotion flared in his eyes. But it was gone before she could read it or understand its meaning, and she was left staring into hard, golden emptiness. It was mesmerizing, like meeting the eyes of a panther at close range. A scarred, hungry predator.
‘What does it say about me?’
He spoke quietly, but there was something sinister about his calmness. Above the immaculate, hand-made dress shirt his black eye and swollen mouth gave his raw masculinity a dangerous edge. Tamsin felt fear prickle on the back of her neck, and was aware that she was shaking.
Which was ridiculous. She wasn’t afraid of Alejandro D’Arienzo. She was angry with him. Clenching her jaw, she managed a saccharine smile. ‘Let me see,’ she said with sugared venom. ‘It says that you’re an arrogant, misogynist bastard who thinks that women are for one purpose and one purpose only.’
His mouth, his bruised, sexy mouth, curled slightly in the barest, most insolent expression of disdain. ‘And don’t you rather perpetuate that stereotype?’
Tamsin felt the ground shift beneath her feet. The panelled walls seemed to be closing in on her, leaving her no chance of escape, no alternative but to confront the image he was holding before her of herself the girl who dressed like a slut and had
