Darci's Pride. Jenna Mills

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СКАЧАТЬ lifted her eyes to his, but made no move to step away, no move to break contact. The new age music had faded to a low, soft chant, leaving only the sound of their breaths and the burn of the heat.

      “You’ve done well,” she said quietly, and he felt himself stiffen as if she’d used her hands on him, rather than just her voice. “That’s all I ever wanted for you.”

      The words fell into silence for a long, slow heartbeat until the soft music shifted to a new song, this one with a shrill feminine wail.

      He jerked back, broke every sliver of contact, but bloody hell, even as he let indifference fall around him, he couldn’t help but wonder if any of Tara still existed beneath that trim-fitting suit, where he’d once run his mouth down the curve of her back to the little filly—

      “Peggy will get what you need,” he said roughly, as a mobile phone started to ring. Not his. He hated the things, rarely carried one, certainly not one that played Irish rock music as a ring tone. He turned, refusing to look at her one second longer. To let himself wonder.

      He strode toward the partially open door as the phone rang again, and again, the old braided rug muting the sound of his boots. It had been one of his father’s first purchases after moving to Australia. He’d hung on to it all this time, a reminder of what it was like to start with nothing. True, he’d had his name and a sizable trust fund, but back then David Preston had not had the one thing that had mattered to him.

      “Ty.”

      The quiet voice slipped across the office and the years. Time moved forward. Tyler knew that. To get where he was going, a man had to keep his eye on the destination.

      But he also knew the value of looking back. Of remembering—of never letting himself forget where he’d been.

      It was the only way to make sure he never went there again.

      Slowly he stopped, and slowly he turned. And this time he was prepared. He was prepared for the sight of her standing there, the sight of Darci Parnell in her chic little suit, holding the picture of him in her hands, the picture he’d caught her looking at when he’d first walked into his office, of him sitting atop Lightning’s Match, when the gum trees his father had planted had been too young to give off shade. He’d been wearing a bush hat even back then, and against the glare of the summer sun, he’d squinted at the camera.

      “I’m sorry about the mess with Sam,” she said, looking up from the photo to the man. She hadn’t answered her phone. “I know you didn’t do anything wrong.”

      But someone didn’t. Someone thought he’d drugged Sam Whittleson’s horse. And someone wanted to make him pay.

      “Lightning Chaser is an amazing horse,” she added. “I’m looking forward to the Classic.”

      One side of his mouth lifted. With More Than All That sidelined, the field was wide open, and rumors were running rampant that a filly who rarely ran with the boys might give the race a try. A filly owned by none other than the former owner of Warrego Downs…Weston Parnell.

      A filly named Darci’s Pride.

      Somehow, Tyler thought it fit.

      “Well then,” he said, “that makes two of us, sunshine.” Her smile was brief, fleeting, politely formal.

      “I’m looking forward to seeing what Darci’s Pride is made of,” he added with a wicked surge of adrenaline. “See if she’s all that she’s made out to be.”

      Darci’s chin came up. “She is.”

      He shouldn’t have winked. Tyler knew that. But damn it all to hell, he did.

      Habit, he told himself. It was just a bloody habit. “I prefer to be my own judge.”

      Her smile widened, reminding him for one cruel moment of that girl he’d seen—

      He broke the thought, the memory. “I’ll send Peggy in,” he said, and then he was gone, didn’t trust himself to linger, to look, for one second longer. It was well and fine to glance back…but only a glance.

      She watched him go. She stood there in his large, Spartan office, not trusting herself to move, barely trusting herself to breathe, and watched Tyler Preston walk out the door.

      Again.

      She should have been prepared.

      The last time, she’d been naked, clutching only a sheet. But somehow, through the years and the miles, the distance she’d injected between them, she’d forgotten. She’d forgotten what it was like to be in the same room as Tyler Preston, to feel the gleam in those dark green eyes, to see how his mouth could curve into those naughty, wicked smiles, smiles that had the simultaneous power to seduce and destroy. She’d forgotten how his voice, that low, irreverent Aussie drawl, could swim through her and touch places she hadn’t been touched in six long years.

      She’d forgotten, because she’d had to.

      She’d forgotten, because remembering would have made walking away, moving forward, impossible.

      And if there was one thing Darci was determined to do, it was move forward. There’d been no future for her in Australia all those years ago, a seventeen-year-old whose face had been splashed on the cover of every tabloid. Everywhere she’d gone, people had looked at her. They’d stared—and they’d known. She was the girl who’d seduced the man, the jailbait who’d gone to bed with the cowboy.

      The harlot who’d smeared the reputation of one of Australia’s favorite sons.

      The shame had followed her everywhere, until finally she’d stepped onto the big jet that hot March afternoon, and never looked back. England, Oxford, had been a world away, and with the miles and the years, she’d moved forward.

      But then she’d run into Andrew Preston at a party in London, and all those hard broken edges she’d pushed deep had shoved their way forward, and she’d known. Finally, after six years, she’d realized how to fix things. How to make things better, to give Tyler back all that she’d taken from him.

      That’s what she wanted. To give Tyler back the respectability her recklessness had cost him, to prove to him and her father and everyone who still saw her as frivolous that she was no longer that reckless, irresponsible child. That she was competent, could be trusted. That she was no longer that motherless girl spinning so desperately, horribly out of control. Then she would be free of the past. Then she would walk away, walk forward. Finally, at last, get on with her life.

      She’d planned and she’d analyzed, just as she’d learned to do at Oxford. She’d struck up a conversation with Andrew and the two had quickly realized how much they had in common. It had been easy between them. He hadn’t recognized her name, hadn’t recognized her as the girl who’d almost destroyed his cousin.

      The invitation to join his campaign had been natural, easy. He needed help in Australia. She was Australian. Her father had served two terms as president of the ITRF. Despite her six-year exile, she knew people. She had friends, influence. She could help Andrew as no one else could. She could help him gain Australian support, despite the popularity of Jacko Bullock.

      The opportunity had been all but gift wrapped, the kind of chance she’d been craving since earning her degree in commerce and political science.

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