Modern Romance January Books 1-4. Кейт Хьюит

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СКАЧАТЬ She stirred, and then looked at him with sleepy eyes.

      “Hello,” he said, his voice roughened by the long hours spent in silence.

      “Is it morning?” she asked, rolling onto her back, drawing her arm up above her head.

      She was naked and making no move to cover herself. He didn’t mind.

      “Technically.”

      “It’s still dark out,” she said, pushing herself into a sitting position.

      Her hair, artfully styled before he had taken her to bed, was now sticking straight up at the center, the golden crown she had been wearing discarded during their lovemaking. She looked like a beautiful, fallen fairy.

      “Yes,” he said, “it is. But I was hungry.” He placed the food in front of her. “I thought you might be, too.”

      She eyed the cheese. “I suppose I am. But...”

      “Don’t worry about anything. We can stay here for as long as we like tomorrow. Or today, as the case may be. There is nothing pressing for us to attend to. You should eat. Because I expect for you to build up your strength. Because I want you again.”

      He supposed he ought to feel guilt, perhaps. As he had defiled a virgin last night, something he had never done before, and he intended to do it again before the sun rose.

      He did not feel guilt. It was blessedly absent. Possibly because of the color in her cheeks that spoke of her pleasure, or maybe because the sounds she had made as she had found her release still echoed in his ears. Whatever the reason, he felt surprisingly content, all things considered.

      Considering that he would be getting married in a week’s time. Considering that his original fiancée had been stolen and he disliked very much being manipulated in the way that he was, he felt very content indeed.

      That could perhaps be because he had a warm and very willing woman in his bed. And he liked that very much indeed.

      She drew her knees to her chest and picked up a piece of cheese, nibbling at it, and he watched the movements of her mouth, the very sensual slide of her tongue against the food. He wanted it against his skin again. But he would give her time.

      “Tell me,” he said, “about all of the plans that you have once we are finished here.”

      It would do him good to remember that there were plans for the end of all of this.

      “My plans?” She swallowed the mouthful of cheese and looked at him quizzically. “Just...to go back to my rancho. To train my horses. I don’t have any desire to compete. I would rather stay closer to home. But I should like to continue to train racehorses.”

      “That will put us in competition,” he commented.

      She tilted her head to the side. “I suppose it will. But then, our fathers always were.”

      “Yes. But I believe their relationship was a bit different.”

      Her cheeks turned a dusky rose color. “Perhaps.”

      “Do you have plans to expand the operation?”

      She blinked. “I don’t know. Right now I simply want to get back to what I know. It has been... It has been such a difficult few months. I can’t even explain it. Or maybe I can. Just...feeling as though the rug was pulled out from under my life completely. As though I was left standing on nothing. Just falling, endlessly. My father died, and I have barely had a moment to grieve him properly. Because at the same time I lost my home. I lost my horses.”

      “And you did what you had to in order to keep them. To find them again.”

      She shrugged. “It was the only power I had. The only possible thing I could reclaim. There was nothing else. No way that I could get ownership of the ranch back on my own. No way that I could bring my father back from the dead. But I knew where you were. And I knew... I knew that you had the horses. I knew that you had Fuego. And I thought...if I could keep that connection maybe I could keep from going completely insane.”

      “You seem quite sane to me.”

      “That’s up for debate, I suppose. Not very many women would chop off all of their hair on the spur of the moment and decide to try to get a job disguised as a boy.”

      “What made you think of that?” he asked. “It was quite inventive.”

      “I begged for a job. When your staff was there taking the horses away I begged to allow me to go with them. And the man who was leading Fuego away told me that you didn’t hire women. So...it seemed the logical thing to do. At least, in my mind.”

      “I suppose there aren’t very many people who would think to do that.”

      “Yes,” she agreed. “Which is why it might be a stretch to call it logical.”

      “You’re inventive. You’re resourceful, and you’re very brave.” He pressed his thumb against her lower lip, looking at the longing in her eyes. It called to him. To a deep, empty place in his soul. “I know what it’s like to feel alone, Camilla.” Again, he found himself confessing to her. Only ever her. At first he had thought it was because she was unimportant. Because she wouldn’t remain in his life, and so it didn’t matter. But after what they’d shared, he could no longer pretend she didn’t matter. “When my mother died the sense of isolation that followed was profound. I was the only one who knew that my father was responsible. No one else would believe me. My brother and I were never close, but that drove an even deeper wedge between us. We were just boys, but in many ways we had to become men far too soon.”

      “And you became a good man. While your brother...”

      He swallowed hard. He thought of Diego as a child. All angry and defiant and impossible to talk to. He had been angry at him for a long time, because he’d imagined they’d shared the same upbringing, and that he’d had every chance to do the same with his life that Matías had. But Diego didn’t know all of Matías’s secrets. And it hit him then it was very likely he didn’t know the whole story of Diego. “I don’t know that he ever had a chance.”

      “But you did. And if you did, then I suppose he could have, as well.”

      He hesitated, suddenly not so certain of that. Suddenly not so sure of anything. He didn’t like that. Didn’t like relativism as a whole. He preferred things black-and-white. It was how he lived his life. “Sometimes I think people are put together differently,” he said. “It is the best explanation I have.”

      “Perhaps you have more of your mother in you,” she said softly.

      “Perhaps,” he said, the word rough, pulled from him.

      “Is that the real reason you don’t hire women?” she asked softly. “Is it because of your mother? Is it because you don’t want women working on the rancho? Doing that kind of work?”

      “My mother wasn’t killed by a horse,” he said. “She was killed by my father. The horse being spooked was his fault.”

      “Still.” She placed her soft hand on his forearm. He felt something shift inside his chest, and he didn’t like it. Didn’t СКАЧАТЬ