‘She’s gone!’ His mother’s shaking voice froze him. ‘Sh-she has gone home to Santa Rosa, querido. She—’
All his life he had loved this woman, without exception, but when he turned on her now Anton understood why his mother took a jerky step back.
‘If you’ve talked her into leaving me I will never forgive you,’ he grated.
‘She left of her own volition, I promise you,’ Maria vowed painfully. ‘I might be a foolish woman, Anton, but I—’ She stopped to swallow thickly. ‘She said for me to tell you that she will be in touch with you to explain when she feels that she can.’
‘Feels that she can what?’ he bit back as an old bitterness began to well up inside him.
Then it sank in. Cristina had gone. The tension holding him released its grip and he turned from his mother as a violent shudder racked his frame.
Gone—again. Left him—again.
‘She claims that Miss Lane is your lover,’ Maria explained unsteadily. ‘Anton, has learning about your real father meant a thing to you? Enrique flipped from woman to woman! He enjoyed them—yes! But he died an unhappy and lonely man!’
‘I don’t want to hear about him,’ he gritted.
‘Yet it is because of him that you are here!’
‘What a joke.’ He laughed, swinging back round again. ‘You know, querida, I never so much as clapped eyes on Enrique Ramirez but I think he knew me better than you do or even than I know myself!’ He took in a deep breath. It hurt to do it. ‘I am here for Cristina. I’m in love with Cristina. I have always—damn always been in love with Cristina!’
A hand shot up to cover his mouth.
It was an act so unfamiliar to both of them, ‘Oh, Meu Dues,’ his mother choked, and sank down into the chair.
Anton dragged the hand away again. ‘I’m going after her—’
‘No, Anton, please wait!’ She shot up again. ‘There are some things I need to explain to you before you do that…’
CHAPTER NINE
CRISTINA was busy by the main barn when a sound made her look up to watch a helicopter fly overhead. It circled the homestead a couple of times before deciding to drop down into an empty paddock out of her field of sight.
It had to be Luis. She did not do much as even consider the possibility that it could be anyone else. He would be arriving for their last big confrontation, though she had not expected him to get here quite so soon.
A frisson slid through her. She had to give her determination a hard tug not to react to the sting of electric excitement and, tightening the softness of her mouth, she returned to what she had been doing. But she felt his approach like long icy fingers curling themselves around her until she could not take in a single breath.
Anton came to a halt several feet away, watching in silence as she hefted bales of hay from the barn to the truck while Pablo, her helper, eyed them both warily from beneath the brim of his hat. She was wearing work-faded jeans and a check shirt. Heavy work gloves protected her hands. Her hair was lost beneath a red spotted headscarf and her face was bare of everything but its smooth golden skin. She looked too delicate to touch, yet she hefted those bales of hay like a man.
Clenching his body across the rush of anger that hit it, he stepped closer, flicked the helper a look that sent him scuttling away, then turned his attention to Cristina.
‘Look at me,’ he commanded.
Her response was to bend, with the intention of hefting up yet another bale, and in biting frustration Anton stepped forward and placed his foot down on it. He watched her go still, watched her eyelashes flicker when she took in his black leather hand-stitched shoes and the cut of his black silk trousers. The tension between them heightened the higher those eyes drifted, taking in the black silk dinner jacket hanging open to reveal the fine white dress-shirt he still wore beneath.
If looks could paint a picture then the expression on her face was a masterpiece of a woman totally riveted by what she was seeing.
‘Impressed?’ he said, bringing her eyes up that bit further, to the open collar of his shirt, where the rich golden skin at his throat was glossed with the sheen of sweat. His bowtie still hung there, like a trailing piece of black ribbon.
‘It took hours of negotiation to get the helicopter charter company to let me fly myself,’ he supplied, with hard, harsh, husky bite. ‘Before that I had to get to Sao Paulo—and I was right on your stubborn tail until then, meu querida,’ he informed her. ‘Count yourself lucky that I was delayed, or you might have found yourself prostrate by now on this bale with my fingers wrapped around your slender throat. Instead I find I don’t have the energy. I’m hot, I’m tired, and I’m in dire need of a shower and a shave—’
Her eyes flicked to the stubble covering the cleft in his chin. Her lips parted, that vulnerable upper lip just begging—begging for it.
His own lips flexed.
‘I need a drink so badly my throat thinks it’s been cut, and some food inside me would be pleasant, since you effectively ruined dinner last night…’
Then, just to make sure that his next point went home, he bent low enough to bring his eyes into full contact with her darker than black eyes, vulnerable, wishful—sad.
His teeth came together. ‘In other words, sweetheart, what you see here is a man at the end of his rope. So be warned that ignoring me right now is a very—very dangerous thing to do.’
She blinked, she swallowed, and her lips quivered as she took in a small breath. He nodded, held her eyes for a moment longer, and thought about kissing her utterly, totally—punishingly breathless, but then straightened up and took his foot off the bale.
It was then that she saw his overnight bag, dumped on the ground. He watched her look at it, then pull in a breath. ‘Luis—’
‘Anton,’ he corrected, turning his back on her to take an interest in his surroundings. ‘I don’t feel much like Luis right now.’
He could almost hear her lips snapping shut before they opened again.
‘I will not marry you.’
‘Fine.’ He shrugged. ‘Now, show me round this heavy investment I’ve bought into.’
‘Will you listen to me?’
He swung back, everything about him hard like iron. ‘Only when you have something to say that I want to hear.’
‘I don’t need your money any more! Did your mother not tell you?’
‘About my father’s bequest to you?’