was breathtaking. Just as they said in the media. Only even more potent in the flesh. The dazzling smiles of their happy conspiracy, the excitement of the match, the thrill of the crowd. How intoxicating.
How sickening.
How on earth was she going to get through the next four hours? The party afterwards, the gushing hero-worship? All over the man who had looked her in the eye, kissed her full on the mouth and broken her soft, trusting heart.
Easy. It would be no problem at all. How hard could it be to watch a little polo, sip a little Pimm’s and keep well out of trouble?
Tipping too large sunglasses onto her too small nose, she took a seat on the high-rise bleachers and crossed her jiggling legs. Maybe she shouldn’t have come here today. She could so easily have made this stopover in Buenos Aires and not taken in a polo match. It wasn’t as if she was obsessed with the game itself. Not anymore.
Sure, she’d grown up more in a stable than in a home. And yes, once upon a time becoming a polo player had been her sixteen-year-old heart’s desire. But she’d been naive back then. Naive enough to think her father had been kidding when he said the best thing she could hope to become was a rich man’s secretary, or better still a rich man’s wife. And even more naive to throw herself into the arms of the most dashing man she’d ever seen and almost beg him to take her to bed.
Almost beg? That wasn’t strictly accurate, either.
At least in the ten years since then she’d got well past palpitations and hand-wringing.
She spread out her pale Celtic skinny fingers, frowned them steady. Looked at the single silver ring with Ipanema carved in swirling writing—a gift for her fourteenth birthday, worn ever since. She rubbed at it. She still missed that pony. And she still hated the man who had stolen her away.
But at least Ipanema’s line was alive and well. She was the dam of two of the ponies on Rocco Hermida’s string. His favourites, as he made no secret of telling the world’s press. And rumoured to be being used in his groundbreaking genetics programme. And about to carry him onto the field and to victory at this charity polo match. Well, that was what everyone here thought anyway. To the home crowd there was not a shred of doubt that Argentina’s darling was going to triumph over the Palm Beach team. Totally. Unquestionably. And, with his brother at his side, the crowd would be guaranteed eight chukkas of the most mouthwatering display of virile man candy in the whole of South America.
But Frankie Ryan wasn’t drooling or licking her lips. Oh, no.
She was rolling her eyes and shaking her head. As much at herself for her stupid reaction—thankfully she now had that under total control—as at the flirty polo groupies all around her.
The fact that Rocco Hermida was here, playing, was completely irrelevant. It really was.
He probably didn’t even remember her …
Which was actually the most galling thing of all. While she had burned with shame and then fury on learning that he’d bought Ipanema, and had then been sent off to the convent, he had appeared in her life like a meteor, blazed a trail and as quickly blazed off. He’d never been back in touch. He’d taken her pride and then her joy. But she had learned a lesson. Letting anyone get under her skin like that was never going to happen again.
She had a perfectly legitimate reason for being here that had nothing to do with Rocco Hermida. She might look like a tourist today, but she was full of business. Landing a job as product development manager at Evaña Cosmetics, after slogging her guts out as an overgrown intern and then an underpaid assistant just so she could sock it to her old man was a dream come true!
She could think of worse things than travelling to the Dominican Republic and then Argentina in search of the perfect aloe vera plantation. And she could think of much worse things than an overnighter in Buenos Aires to lap up the polo followed by a weekend at her friend Esme’s place in Punta del Este to lap up the sun and the sea.
Bliss.
She got another drink—why not? As long as she was fresh enough to start on her presentation tomorrow she could have a little downtime today. It might even do her good to relax before she went out on her last trips. She still had plenty of time to put it all together into a report before the long flight home and her moment in the boardroom spotlight.
It was such a big deal. She’d spent so long convincing the directors to take this leap of faith, to look farther than their own backyard for organic ingredients, to have a unique selling point that was truly unique. So while she could play the tourist here today, the last thing she’d do was jeopardise it by getting all caught up in Rocco damn Hermida.
She began to thread and weave through the contrasting mix of casual porteños and glamorous internationals. On the other side of the giant field, spread out like bunting, she spotted the exclusive white hospitality tents. Esme would be in one of them, playing hostess, smiling and chatting and posing for pictures. As the Palm Beach captain’s wife, she was part of the package. Frankie could imagine nothing worse.
An announcement rang like a call to prayer, and another headshot loomed on the giant screens. There he was again. The default scowl back in position, the dark hair swept back and landing in that flop across his golden brow. He was in the team colours, scarlet and black, white breeches and boots. As the camera panned out, she instinctively looked at his thighs. Under the breeches they were hard, strong and covered in the perfect dusting of hair. She knew. She remembered. She’d kissed them.
For a moment she felt dazed, lost in a mist of girlish memories. Her first crush, her first kiss, her first broken heart. All thanks to that man. She drew her eyes off the screen again, scowled at it. Muttered words under her breath that her mother would be shocked to hear, let them slide into the wind with the commentator’s jabbering biography—a ‘what’s not to love?’ on the Hurricane—and the brassy notes of a gaudy marching band.
The first chukka was about to start. The air around her sparkled with eager anticipation. She could take her place—she could watch this—and if he turned her stomach with his arrogance she could cheer on Palm Beach. Even if two of his ponies were from Ipanema, the Rocco Hermida on those screens was just an imprint of a figment of a teenage girl’s infatuation. She owed him nothing.
If only it was that simple.
He was electric.
Each chukka was more dramatic and stunning than the one before.
He galloped like the wind and turned on a sixpence. His scowl was caught on camera, a picture of composed concentration, and when he scored—which he did, ten times—a flash of white teeth was his momentary gift to the crowd.
And of course there was Dante, too. Like a symphony, they flew up and down the field. Damn, damn, damn, but it was utterly, magnetically mesmerising.
They won. Of course. And as fluttering blue-and-white flags transformed the stadium and the crowd hollered its love she scooted her way out. Head down, her face a picture of ‘seen it all before, can take it or leave it, nothing that special’, she made her way round to the ponies—the real reason she was here.
The grooms were hosing down the last of them when she slipped through the fence, and watery arcs of rainbows and silvery droplets filled the air. She sneaked around, watched the action. She loved this. She missed it. Until this moment she hadn’t realised how much.
Everyone was
