‘Don’t insult me.’
Biting her lip, she replied, ‘They’re saying our marriage was on the rocks before it began. But if you think I started that rumour—’
‘I don’t think that. And I’m not worried about what people think. Our marriage is our business. And, before you ask, no one can touch the ranch. The deeds are in my vault and that’s where they will stay. So, you see, I am no longer in the market for a “convenient bride”.’
She smiled a little, hearing her own words thrown back at her. ‘So why are you here?’
‘We’ve been apart long enough. Everyone on the ranch misses you. Lizzie and Chico wonder why they don’t see more of you. You’ve shut yourself away here. Lizzie misses you, Annie misses you—Deus, Danny, I miss you.’
He hadn’t realised how much.
‘Come back to us,’ he said softly.
She remained silent and he looked around the rundown farm, with its broken fencing, peeling paintwork and neglected yard.
‘I don’t know what this proves. You must be working an eighteen-hour shift just to keep things on an even keel here.’
She firmed her jaw, but didn’t deny anything he’d said.
‘No one doubts you can stand on your own two feet, but why isolate yourself like this? Why are you punishing yourself, Danny?’
‘I’m making a life,’ she said simply. ‘And I’m doing it without your money. I’m sure Lizzie understands why I must do this.’
‘Lizzie might understand, but it doesn’t stop her worrying about you. Is that fair? I don’t understand you, Danny. I don’t understand why you’ve separated yourself from people who care so much about you. I don’t understand why you’re pushing us all away.’
‘You’ve no right to discuss me with Lizzie.’
‘I’ve got every right. We care about you. Is that such an alien concept to you?’
‘It is where you’re concerned. I’ve never known you to express your feelings before.’
‘And you’re so open with yours?’
She turned, restless, uncertain, hovering, as if she wanted to go but also wanted to stay. ‘Thank you for coming to see me,’ she said at last. ‘I do appreciate your concern—’
‘For God’s sake, Danny, I’m not the local doctor. I’m your husband.’
‘Of one night,’ she said. ‘And I know this farm doesn’t look much, but I enjoy my work here.’
‘You’d enjoy any job with a horse attached to it. Is this a permanent position?’
Lifting her chin, she peeled off her riding gloves and blew onto her cold red hands. ‘Nothing’s permanent—is it, Tiago?’
Shaking his head, he ignored the jibe. At any other time he would have seized those hands and put them inside his jacket, so his blood could heat hers, but Danny was like an edgy colt that might bolt if he made any sudden movement.
Undaunted, he asked, ‘How about lunch in town?’
She looked at him as if he were mad.
He shrugged. ‘I’m hungry. It’s nearly lunchtime. And it’s far too cold to hold our reunion here.’
‘But what would we have to talk about?’
He had to remind himself that he had vowed to take this slowly.
‘I’m sure we’ll think of something.’
* * *
The only possible reason she could come up with for sitting in the sedate hush of the Rottingdean tea rooms with a barbarian, whose face was coated in thick black stubble and whose brilliant smile made the elderly waitress primp and simper, was that it wasn’t possible to ignore her husband when he was in town. Tiago had come all the way from Brazil, she reminded herself, and she owed him the common courtesy of a conversation—if only in the hope that they could find some sort of closure.
‘Do you have to do that?’ she demanded—an unreasonable demand, she registered a split second after the words left her mouth, as Tiago removed his jacket.
Just revealing the powerful spread of his shoulders was enough for her awareness of him to soar into the stratosphere. She would challenge anyone to spend the night with Tiago and then just blank it from their mind.
‘You take it off, laddie,’ one of the elderly waitresses advised, endorsing Danny’s opinion that in this sun-starved land Tiago Santos was a rare treat. ‘You’ll never feel the benefit when you go outside if you don’t take your jacket off,’ she commented approvingly, and a dozen or so more women turned their heads to stare at the splendid sight of Tiago, whose powerful frame was clad in the finest black Scottish cashmere.
With a warm smile at the waitress, Tiago raised a brow as he turned to Danny.
‘You wanted to hear about my place of work?’ She judged that a safe enough topic to start off with.
‘Go ahead.’ Smiling faintly, he looked down as he attempted to ease his legs beneath the dainty table without sending it crashing to the floor.
‘You’re too big for here,’ she said as she steadied the teapot.
‘Too big for civilised company?’
She buried her face in her teacup.
‘So?’ he pressed with a faint strand of amusement in his voice when she failed to answer him. ‘This farm where you’re working...?’
‘It’s a tenancy,’ Danny revealed, looking up now they were back on safe ground. ‘The landlord lives off-site. He owns several similar properties, and he has asked if I would consider managing all of them for him.’
‘Has he indeed?’ Tiago’s jaw tightened.
‘There’s no need to sound so suspicious. He’s old enough to be my grandfather and due to retire any time now. More tea?’
Tiago’s eyes narrowed at her prim tone, drawing her attention to the fact that he was twice the size of any man in the tea room. His hair was thicker, blacker, wavier and more unruly. And you could take it as a flat-out fact that there wasn’t another man in the place wearing a gold earring. Local skin was blue-white—freckled, in her case—while Tiago’s skin was swarthy, and she was quite sure there wasn’t a man in a fifty-mile radius who could boast anything close to his physique.
‘I feel like a giant, trying to fit my frame into this chair.’
She was forced to smile when he eased his position gingerly. ‘You’ll break it if you move too suddenly,’ she warned.
Dipping his head, he stared up at her in a way that sent heat to every part of her body. It was impossible to remain immune to Tiago’s particular brand of charm, and impossible to forget how it felt to be held in his arms. And now every woman in the place was staring at him.
‘I won’t catch you if you fall,’ she warned him when he tipped his chair back.
‘You’ve already caught me, chica.’
Tiago’s murmur and that black stare fixed onto hers made her think of one thing only—and it wasn’t tea.
‘Are you ready to go?’ he said.
She was about to leave when the bell tinkled over the door and Hamish, the gamekeeper, and his crew walked in. She was glad of the distraction, and surprised when Hamish acknowledged Tiago as if they were old friends—but then she remembered that they would have met at Chico’s.
‘Are you okay, Danny?’ Hamish asked gruffly.
‘Yes.