in her direction and froze. Not a single betraying expression appeared on his darkly handsome features but he seemed to breathe in very deep and slow. And she knew right then that she had got it wrong again. Her heart sank right down to the toes of her horribly uncomfortable mules and she despised herself for her own weakness, her pathetic attempt to please and win his approval in even the smallest way.
âSorry I took so long,â she mumbled, reclaiming the buggy without glancing back up at him but conscious of his brooding presence with every fibre of her wretched being.
âNoâ¦problem,â Duarte sighed.
In the VIP lounge, she caught an involuntary glimpse of herself in a mirror and she was startled. She looked like a fluorescent carrot, she decided in stricken recoil. Flinching, she turned away from that mortifying reflection. Sitting down, she tried to disappear into herself and her own thoughts in the manner she had begun to practise within months of marrying Duarte. He never had been any great fan of idle chatter. She just wanted to sink into the woodwork, sitting there in an outfit that he most probably thought was ghastly. So why did she care? Why did she still care?
Emily had always been conscious that she was neither pretty nor beautiful. Her mother and both her sisters were tall shapely blondes with classic bone structures. Even in appearance, she had not fitted her family. At the age of ten, she had asked her mother where her own red hair came from in the family tree as even her father was fair. Her mother had dealt her a angry look as if even asking such a question was offensive and had told her that she owed her âunfortunateâ carroty curls to the genetic legacy of her late grandmother.
Seeing no point in bemoaning what could not be altered, Emily hadnât ever really minded being short, red-haired and small in the chest and hip department. But the same moment that she first saw Duarte Avila de Monteiro, she had started minding very much that she would never have what it would take to attract him. Of course, it had not once occurred to her that a male of his calibre and wealth would look twice at her anyway but she still remembered her own foolish feelings of intense sadness and hurt that it should be that way. That Duarte should be so utterly detached from her when her own senses thrilled to even his presence a hundred feet away.
And she still recalled the very first moment she had laid eyes on Duarte and very much doubted that he didâ¦
CHAPTER THREE
BY THE time she was nineteen, Emily had qualified as a riding instructor.
Her two older sisters had found lucrative employment in their fatherâs wine-importing business but Emily had not been offered the same opportunity. Indeed, urged by her mother to leave home and be independent long before she was earning enough to pay a decent rent, Emily had finally given up on the job she loved. She had taken work as a live-in groom at Ash Manor, Duarteâs English country house.
The stable manager had hired Emily and, working at the manor, she had had an interesting insight into the lifestyle of a super-rich and powerful banker. Aside from his private jet, his fleet of helicopters and luxury cars, Duarte owned half a dozen palatial homes, superb horseflesh and a priceless art collection. He was the guy with everything, the target of endless awe, speculation and envy. But the one thing Duarte Avila de Monteiro did not have, it seemed, was the precious time to enjoy his innumerable possessions.
It had been weeks before Emily actually saw her wealthy employer in the flesh but she had already been told what he was like. Cool, polite, distant, formal, not the type to unbend with lesser beings, very much the product of a Portuguese aristocratic lineage said to stretch back to the thirteenth century.
His incredible silver sports car pulled up one afternoon while Emily and another female groom were cleaning tack. The stable manager hurried from his office to greet Duarte.
âThat carâs a MacLaren F1, worth six hundred grand,â Emilyâs companion groaned. âAnd just wait until you see him. When I first came here, I assumed the banker boss was some old geezer, but heâs only twenty-eight and heâs pure sex on legs. If you got him on his own without his bodyguards, youâd lock him in your bedroom and throw away the key!â
Even more than two years on, Emily still remembered that first shattering sight of Duarte. Sunlight gleaming over the luxuriant black hair stylishly cropped to his proud head as he climbed out of his car, a crisp white shirt accentuating his bronzed complexion but most of all she had noticed his stunning eyes, deepset and dark as sable at first glance but tawny gold as a hunting animalâs the next. She was shocked and bemused by the unfamiliar leap of her own senses and the quite ridiculous stab of loss which assailed her when he turned away to open the passenger door of his car.
In place of the beautiful woman she had expected to see in Duarteâs passenger seat was an absolutely huge shaggy dog curled up nose to tail into the smallest possible size.
The other groom backed into the tack out of sight. âIâm not going to get stuck with that monster again. That dogâs as thick as a block of wood, wonât come when you call it and itâs as fast on its feet as a race horse!â
Before the other girl even finished speaking, the stable manager called Emily over and told her to exercise the dog.
It was an Irish wolfhound. Unfolded from the car, it had to measure a good three feet in height and Emily was just one inch over five feet tall herself. But although Emily had not been allowed to have a pet as a child, she adored dogs of all shapes and sizes.
âBe kind. Jazz is getting old,â Duarteâs rich, dark, accented drawl interposed with cool authority.
Emily angled a shy upward glance at him, overwhelmed by his proximity, his sheer height and breadth and potent masculinity. She had to tip her head right back to see his lean, dark, devastating face. She collided with sizzling dark golden eyes and for her it was like being knocked off her feet by a powerful electrical charge. She trembled, felt the feverish heat of an embarrassing blush redden her fair skin, the stormy thump of her heartbeat and the most challenging shortness of breath. But Duarte simply walked away from her again, apparently experiencing no physical jolt of awareness, feeling nothing whatsoever, indeed not really even having seen her for she had only been another junior employee amongst many: faceless, beneath his personal notice.
And, no doubt, had not fate intervened, her acquaintance with Duarte Avila de Monteiro would never have advanced beyond that point. However, in those days, Duarte had left Jazz behind at the manor when he was out of the country. The dog should have stayed indoors but the housekeeper had disliked animals and as soon as Duarte departed, she would have the wolfhound locked in the barn. Exercising Jazz fell to Emily for nobody else wanted the responsibility.
âThe boss is fond of that stupid dog. If it gets lost or harmed in some way, well itâll cost you your job,â the stable manager warned Emily impatiently. âThatâs why we just leave it locked up. I know it seems a little heartless but the animalâs well fed and it has plenty of space in there.â
But Emily was too tender-hearted to bear the sound of Jazzâs pathetic cries for company. She spent all her free time playing with him in a paddock and she gave him the affection he soaked up like a giant hungry sponge. So, the evening that the barn went up in fire, when everyone else stood by watching the growing conflagration in horror, Emily did not even stop to think of her own safety but charged to the rescue of an animal she had grown to love.
Although she contrived to calm Jazzâs panic and persuade him out of the barn, she passed out soon afterwards from smoke inhalation. Surfacing from the worst effects, she then found herself in a private
