Modern Romance April 2015 Books 1-8. Annie West

world would have to make of it what it wanted.

      He held out his pen. She took it and signed her name, and Tiago countersigned the document after her. She stared at their signatures and felt cold inside. She had no idea what Tiago felt. Relief, certainly, but she doubted whether he felt anything more.

      What had made him this way? she wondered. The polished playboy of the polo circuit seemed far happier and more relaxed here on his ranch, working alongside the gauchos. The thought that she had just contracted to marry a man she didn’t know did nothing to reassure her. She should have listened to those rumours of the lone wolf. If she had she wouldn’t be here now, with her heart yearning for a man who thought of her only as the means to an end.

      ‘So you’re rich now,’ he said. ‘How does that feel?’

      ‘Strange,’ she admitted.

      Stranger still was the fact that she had never felt more impoverished in her life.

      * * *

      What had she done? Danny wondered as she watched Tiago cross the yard. She had to shake off this feeling of doom. She was about to join one of the finest horsemen in the world and work alongside him. What could be better than that? The wedding would happen when it happened, and in the meantime she would concentrate on everything Tiago could teach her about the ranch.

      Maybe that would bring them closer. If not love, then maybe they could pick up their friendship and make the year ahead bearable for them both. That shouldn’t be too hard when they shared so many interests.

      Deciding to act as if this were just a new and exciting day in Brazil, rather than the start of a new and uncertain life, she leaned over the fence of the corral where Tiago was working, telling herself that she would get through this, and would learn a lot along the way.

      ‘Would you like to try?’ Tiago called to her softly.

      He didn’t take his attention off the young colt he was training for a moment. The pony was trembling with awareness, and it was one of the most valuable animals on the ranch, Tiago had explained.

      ‘You’ll let me work with him?’ Danny asked with surprise.

      ‘Why not? You’re good.’

      She couldn’t pretend that didn’t thrill her.

      Taking care to shut the gate silently, she joined one of the best horse-trainers in the world. Working alongside Tiago would be the greatest opportunity of her life.

      ‘Now, watch how I do this,’ he said after a few moments.

      Watching Tiago was no hardship. She watched his lips move when he spoke. She watched the muscles flex in his arms as he worked with the pony. She watched his hands soothe and stroke with exquisite sensitivity—

      ‘Concentrate,’ he said softly.

      She hated it that he knew what she was thinking.

      ‘That’s good, Danny.’

      He came to stand behind her. She held her breath as his body brushed hers, and tensed when his hands came around her, allowing Tiago to use his hands to direct hers.

      ‘Bring your face closer,’ he advised in an undertone. ‘Share the same air as your pony.’

      His husky voice was hypnotic, and his touch made both Danny and the pony relax.

      ‘He’s starting to trust you,’ Tiago murmured. ‘I’m going to move away now, while you carry on. Caress him, speak to him and build his confidence. Who knows? One day he might be yours.’

      Danny smiled, knowing she would never be able to afford the young colt, and then felt a spear of surprise, knowing that with Tiago’s marriage settlement in the bank she could.

      ‘What would you call him?’ he asked.

      ‘Firefly.’ She turned, expecting to find Tiago behind her, but he was already with the gauchos on the other side of the fence.

      * * *

      He was on the same wavelength as Danny, Tiago reflected as he watched her work. He never allowed bystanders into the corral when he was working with young ponies fresh to training, but he trusted Danny. He’d seen her work on Chico’s ranch.

       And on the personal front...?

      He trusted her on the personal front too. He couldn’t say that about any other woman apart from Elena, his housekeeper. His mother had been a socialite—a butterfly who had fallen in love with the son of a rough working man who’d happened to own a valuable ranch. His mother had seen an opportunity.

      Tiago had been pampered and petted as a boy—a situation he’d refused to tolerate as a teen. By that time his father had been a drunk and his mother an ageing beauty who had refused to accept that her day in the sun was over. There had to be more pills, more potions, more clothes, more visits to the beauty salon, and then eventually to the plastic surgeon. She had ruined his father, who had ended up stealing from the ranch, leaving Tiago’s grandfather with nothing.

      It had taken Tiago to return—a changed man—and rescue things to the point where Fazenda Santos had become no longer a broken-down ranch that existed solely to feed the greed of his parents, but a highly successful concern he had dedicated his life to.

      Did he want to get married, with a family history like that?

      No. But a year with a woman as lithe and lovely as Danny might just be tolerable—especially when she was in his bed.

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      TIAGO WAS IN a good mood after working with the colt, and as they walked back to the house it seemed as good a moment as any for Danny to ask him about the details of the wedding. She might not be having the idyllic country wedding she had imagined as a girl, but arrangements would still have to be made. It might be a hastily arranged formality, or—and she desperately hoped this wouldn’t be the case—a full-blown society wedding for the type of people Tiago mixed with when he was on the polo circuit.

      ‘So...our wedding...’ she began.

      ‘Friday,’ he said.

      ‘Friday?’ She looked at him blankly.

      ‘Friday is the end of the week,’ he said impatiently. ‘I did tell you it would have to be this week.’

      Yes, but talking about something was very different from facing the reality of the situation. She was already running through a checklist in her mind.

      ‘There’s too much to do in the time available.’

      Even if a wedding could be arranged at such short notice, she had to consider the demands of the ranch, as well as the Thunderbolts’ polo fixtures.

      ‘Did you check on the team’s games?’

      ‘Of course.’ Tiago drilled a stare into her eyes, as if the choice between a polo match and their wedding was no contest. ‘All we need for this wedding is you and me and a couple of witnesses.’

      ‘I never expected anything more,’ she said, angry to think Tiago imagined she craved some sort of grand ceremony to accompany her pay-out.

      Nothing could be further from the truth. It was bad enough knowing she had to make promises that she would only keep for a year, without attempting to fool wedding guests into believing theirs was a romantic love match.

      ‘We’ll get married here on the ranch,’ Tiago said, to her relief. ‘But I want everyone to share the celebrations. This won’t be a quiet wedding. I’m not ashamed of what we’re doing, and neither should you be. When Chico and Lizzie return from their honeymoon we’ll fly to Scotland and have a blessing at the kirk in the village, with a party afterwards. You can have whatever you want, then—ten dresses and a dozen bridesmaids, if you like.’

      Tiago