Oh, God. It was. Him.
He was leaning insolently against a carved wooden post, looking down. Though his face was in shadow, every line of his elegant, powerful body seemed to communicate contemptuous amusement, and she could feel his eyes searing her with their intensity and their disdain.
The photographer clapped his hands and trilled, ‘OK, people—are we ready? Now, if the two guys on either side of Miss Calthorpe could look down at her, please?’
Why? Why couldn’t he just go?
Dimly Tamsin was aware of laughing banter breaking out around her again, and of Matt pulling her towards him and making some joking comment to the player on her other side. But, as she looked up into Matt’s appreciative blue eyes, it was Alejandro’s cold, contemptuous stare that she saw.
The photographer’s flash exploded in her face as fury erupted inside her.
That was what he’d done to her that night.
‘That’s fabulous,’ gushed the photographer. ‘Really fabulous. Gorgeous, sexy pout, Miss Calthorpe. Now, shoulders straighter, Matt … Lovely.’
He’d broken something inside her, so that no matter how much men like Matt flattered her and flirted with her …
‘Tamsin, you’re looking delicious. Just put your hand on Matt’s chest … yes, like that …’
… she could never quite make herself believe that they meant it.
‘Now, let’s make sure we get the nice rose-patterned lining of the jacket in the shot. Just slip your hand underneath his jacket, and sort of half-push it off his shoulder. Yeah, like that. That’s gorgeous.’
Maybe it was time she proved to Alejandro Arrogant D’Arienzo, and herself, that not all men found her such a turn-off?
The shutter rattled like machine-gun fire. High on adrenalin, fuelled by fury, Tamsin let instinct take over. For six years she had surrounded herself with a forest of thorns, keeping men at bay with her endless succession of barbed comments and razor-sharp retorts, all because he had robbed her of the belief that she was desirable. But she would show him that she was attractive, she was sexy … Her spine arched reflexively as she slid her hand over Matt’s shoulder, but it wasn’t Matt she was thinking of. Turning her head towards the bright lights and the camera, lifting her chin in silent, brazen challenge, she looked into the shadows, straight into Alejandro’s eyes.
It was like a steel trap closing around her—cold, hard, unyielding. He was looking down at her, the lights from below accentuating the sharp planes of his face, which were wholly at odds with the sensual swell of his mouth. And then, as she watched, he shook his head in an attitude of incredulous, pitying amusement.
He turned and walked away. Just as he had six years ago. He walked away, without a backwards glance, leaving the hot throb of desire ebbing from her and nothing but icy desolation and humiliation in its place.
CHAPTER THREE
BLUE ball, top-left pocket.
With narrowed eyes Alejandro looked thoughtfully at the billiard table. It was a difficult shot, and in his own personal game of dare this was sudden death.
If he got it in, he would play on. If he missed, he had to go back out and rejoin the party. He had to go out there and watch Tamsin Calthorpe tease and flirt her way around the rest of the England team. And, he thought with a grimace of scorn, judging by her earlier performance, probably most of the Barbarians as well.
It was probably just as well he never missed.
Lazily he bent to line up the shot. From the other side of the massive polished-wood door he could hear the raucous sounds of the party. As a major investor in Argentine rugby he ought to be out there; after today’s game he was the man everyone wanted to talk to and he should be capitalising on that to get publicity for Los Pumas. That was, after all, what he’d come back for.
Unhurriedly he adjusted the balance of the cue. To even up the odds a little he closed his left eye, leaving only the bruised and swollen right one to judge the angle of the shot.
With a sharp, insouciant jab the blue fell neatly into the top-left pocket.
Alejandro straightened up, smiling ruefully as a sting of perverse disappointment sliced through him. He had no desire to go out there and mix with the great and the good of the rugby world, but there was a part of him that would have rather enjoyed the chance to watch the amazing Lady Calthorpe in operation some more, for no other reason than to marvel at how much more polished the routine had become in the last six years. Back then there had been a gawky awkwardness about her, a trembling sort of defiance, but it had affected him far more powerfully than tonight’s virtuoso display of sexual invitation.
Powerful enough to cloud his judgement and get beneath his defences, he thought acidly.
She’d upped her game considerably since then, and as a result it seemed that she was no longer kept in the background as a handmaid for her father’s sordid, secret schemes. Now she was much higher profile, which of course made perfect sense. Henry Calthorpe was now chairman of the RFU, and, judging by the photoshoot Alejandro had just witnessed, the organisation had become one big, indulgent playground for his spoiled daughter. He wondered how far her influence spread now.
With sudden violence he threw down the cue and went to stand in front of the fire.
Henry Calthorpe was obviously too important these days to invite the riff-raff into his own home, but the hotel had apparently been chosen to provide a very similar setting. The billiard room was a gentleman’s retreat in typical English country-house style, with leather wing-backed chairs and oil paintings of hunting scenes on the walls. The long, fringed lamp hanging low over the table made the billiard balls glow like jewels in a pool of emerald green, and firelight glinted on a tray of cut-glass decanters beside him.
He reached for one and splashed a generous measure into a crystal tumbler, and had just thrown himself into one of the high-backed chairs facing the fire when there was a sudden rush of noise behind him as the door opened and then closed again quickly. Alejandro didn’t move, but his hand tightened around the glass as, reflected in the mirror above the fireplace, he saw her.
She went straight to the billiard table and leaned against it, dropping her head and breathing hard, as if she was trying to steady herself or regain control. His first thought was that she was waiting for someone to follow her into the room, and he glanced towards the door again. But it stayed shut, and a moment later Tamsin Calthorpe lifted her head and he saw that the laboured breathing, the bright spots of colour on her cheeks, weren’t caused by desire but by anger.
Picking up the cue he had so recently thrown down, she barely glanced at the table before stooping, and, with a snarl of fury, took a vicious shot which sent the balls cannoning wildly across the table.
In the mirror Alejandro watched the white rebound off the top cushion, just missing the pink and the black and sending the brown ball cannoning into the middle pocket. Still completely oblivious to his presence, Tamsin punched the air and gave a low hiss of triumph.
‘Lucky shot,’ he said sardonically.
In the mirror he saw her freeze, the billiard cue held across her body like a weapon.
‘Who said luck had anything to do with it?’
Her voice was cool and haughty, but he caught the nervous dart of her eyes as she looked around to see who had spoken. Her blonde head was held high, her shoulders tense and alert. She looked oddly vulnerable, like a startled deer.
‘It was a difficult one.’ Alejandro stood up and turned slowly towards her, feeling a flicker of satisfaction as he watched her eyes widen in shock and the