Pride (In Wilde Country Book 1) (5 page)

“It took me by surprise.”

“That’s the thing about bats. They almost always take you by surprise.”

“I’m not really afraid of them.”

“No. I didn’t think you would be.”

“I don’t believe in all those old wives’ tales. You know, that bats will get into your hair…”

It was an inane conversation.

Equally inane was the fact that he was still holding her. That she was still letting him hold her. That he could smell her shampoo or maybe it was her perfume, something that reminded him of wildflowers, and it seemed to be scrambling his brain.

Her pupils were wide and dark. Her lips were parted. Her breathing had quickened….

And then she stepped back. Or he let go of her. Perhaps both things happened at once. Either way, they moved apart. She went out the door. He waited a couple of seconds before following.

The sun, blazing down from the cloudless sky, was very, very hot.

Cheyenne turned toward Luca.

“Well?” she said briskly, “what do you think?”

“I told you what I think.” He sighed. “But it isn’t what you want to hear.” He hesitated. “I haven’t seen the second floor.”

“Neither have I, but the realtor said that it probably needs—”

“Work.
Si
. I am sure that it does.” Luca shrugged his shoulders. “The house can be rebuilt.”

“You see? I told you it could!”

“Understand me. It can be rebuilt. I’m not making that recommendation, and that it can be rebuilt is not the same as it being salvageable.”

“What’s the difference between the two?”

“Money,” Luca said briskly, as he started downhill toward the outbuildings. “It will cost you more to rebuild than to tear the house down and start from scratch.” He frowned as the barns and sheds came into better view. “As for these buildings…”

“The first barn, that big one, is fine,” she said as she hurried to keep up with him. Her legs were long, but she was having trouble matching his stride. The gentlemanly thing to do was to slow down, but he was not in the mood to behave like a gentleman.

“I’ll determine that.”

“I don’t like your attitude, Mr. Bellini!”

“You are not paying for my attitude, Ms. McKenna, you are paying for my expertise.” Luca stopped outside the first barn. “In fact, you are not paying me at all, which is even more reason that I don’t have to put up with
your
attitude. Am I making myself clear?”

Her face flamed.

“That’s enough,” she said sharply. “I’m taking you back to El Sueño. Travis can come here instead of you.”

“He can. But he’ll tell you the truth, just as I am.” Luca’s smile was all teeth. “And after you finish explaining that you aren’t interested in the truth, he’ll shake your hand, wish you well, and say goodbye.”

She glared at him. Then she marched past him into the barn.

He hesitated. Then he thought, what the hell. She was his ride back to El Sueño. He might as well see this through.

This time, she was right. The barn was in excellent condition. It was old, probably older than the house, but the timbers were strong and the floor, walls and ceiling were all intact. The structure needed a good cleaning, but not much beyond that.

“How many horses will you keep?”

“I’m not sure. Ten. Twelve. Why?”

“You can easily put in stalls for that many.”

They moved on to the other buildings—the second barn and several storage sheds.

All had to go.

Even what remained of the paddocks was a joke. The rails and pickets still standing looked as if a kid could topple them with a touch.

The bottom line was that Sweetwater Ranch was what an American client of Luca’s had rightfully called a money pit after Luca had explained the cost differences between gutting and rebuilding a summer house outside Florence, or putting up one that was new.

Cheyenne McKenna had already made herself clear on how she felt about that.

The best Luca could hope was that she had paid for the land, not what stood on it. Not that it was his money; he just hated to see anybody scammed by a snake oil salesman passing himself off as a realtor.

Finally, they’d seen everything. They headed for the truck.

He would tell her, one last time, something she didn’t want to hear, but he’d built his career and reputation on honesty, starting a decade ago when he’d started Bellini Design and Construction on a shoestring. Now, the company was worth millions, but honesty was still its cornerstone.

Damn, it was hot!

Luca peeled off his jacket—why in hell he hadn’t done that sooner was beyond him—undid his shirt cuffs and collar, loosened his tie, pulled it off and dumped it and his jacket into the truck.

Then he looked at Cheyenne McKenna.

She was feeling the heat, too.

Her hair was damp.

Straight as it was, tiny tendrils curled delicately at her temples.

Her T-shirt was damp, too. It clung to her like skin. Was she wearing a bra? He could see the faint outline of her breasts through the cotton.

He could see the sweet thrust of her nipples.

She was a desirable woman. Even a fool would see that, but so what? He didn’t like her.

He liked his women soft, comforting and accommodating. This woman would never be that. She would always be a challenge and why would a man want a challenge in his bed? Challenges were for boardrooms.

Still, she would be interesting. For an hour. A night. Not more than that—she would surely become an irritant fairly quickly—but for a little while, she would be…

Interesting.

She had turned away from him; she stood in profile as she looked at the house and all his logic fled.

What a sight she was!

Eyes narrowed in concentration, hands on her hips, feet apart, head tilted back. Every part of her, all her intensity, was focused on that ruin of a house.

Was she that focused when she was with a man?

She would be, if he were that man.

He knew things that would make her universe contract until he, and what he was doing to her, were all that mattered…

Dio
. He was going to embarrass himself if he kept this up.

Luca shifted his weight, frowned and cleared his throat.

“This place,” he said brusquely, “is a mess. Did you actually see it before you bought it?”

She looked at him as if he were an idiot. What did it matter how she’d bought it? The property was hers. It had nothing to do with him.

The problem was that he just couldn’t seem to keep quiet.

“Or did you purchase it, sight unseen, after finding it advertised in the back of a magazine published by the rich for the rich?”

She folded her arms.

“Published by the rich for the foolish,” she said with sugar-sweet sarcasm. “Isn’t that what you mean?”

“What I mean,” he said, “is that you wasted your money. Aside from the one barn, there are no sound structures.”

“I already knew that.”

“Then, why…?”

“I don’t see that as any of your concern.”

No sarcasm this time. Her tone was frigid. She had put him in his place, and she had every right to do so.

Still, it angered him.

He wasn’t accustomed to being talked to this way, as if he were a peasant and she a queen. It angered him, too, that even though he liked her less and less, he wanted her more and more. There was something about her that demanded conquering in the most basic, most primitive way.

Hell.

What did that say about him?

He had been raised on his father’s tales of warriors who had raided their way across Europe; his mother had done her fair share, telling stories of Roman legionnaires whose blood flowed in their Sicilian veins.

As boys, he and Matteo had played soldiers, using branches in place of swords.

As men, they played on a different kind of battlefield, wielding power and money rather than swords.

Luca knew the adrenaline rush that went with facing down a business opponent and bringing him to heel. It was the same kind of rush that went with finally bedding a woman he wanted, but he’d never felt this, the desire to take a woman, this woman, in his arms, bear her down into the grass, ignore her protests as he undressed her, as he touched her everywhere until, at last, she wound her arms around his neck, pleaded for him to finish what he had started, to make her his, make her want only him, cry out only for him….

Shocked, appalled at the ferocity of the primitive images, at the sudden rush of blood to his groin, he turned away from her, grabbed his jacket, jammed his tie in a pocket and got back in the truck. She did, too, and they headed for the road.

She drove the way she’d driven before, fast but with complete control. He suspected she was someone for whom control was a necessity.

He was the same.

She was stubborn. Or determined, depending on your point of view.

So was he.

They were more alike than different, and yet she had seized command of the situation. Of him. Of their relationship. A business relationship, certainly; still, she was dominating it.

He was, literally and figuratively, simply along for the ride.

There had to be a way to turn things around. He was not a male chauvinist—not really—but a man was a man and a woman was a woman. It was the normal course of things. He needed to reestablish that.

Luca cleared his throat.

“We passed a café on our way here, just where we got off the main road. If you take the turnoff ahead…”

She zoomed past the turnoff.

His jaw tightened.

Minutes went by. They were nearing another turnoff. A billboard loomed ahead.
Fancy’s Home Cookin’. Biscuits ‘n Grits Like Mama Made
. Not much of a recommendation. Biscuits were all right. Grits were an alien food product. And his own mama had been among the world’s worst cooks, but what did any of that matter?

“How about this place?” he said. “
Fancy’s Home
…”

Zip. They flew past the sign and the turn-off.

Luca folded his arms over his chest.

“Exactly where are we going? Because I have to get back to El Sueño. My brother, my sisters and I are flying to—”

“You’re related to the Wildes.”

A statement, not a question. He frowned. No way was he ready to discuss the ugly intricacies of the Wildes’ connection to the Bellinis and the Bellinis’ connection to the Wildes.

“You all resemble each other.”

“Do you recall what you said when I asked why you’d bought that ranch we just left?”

She looked at him.

“I said it was none of your concern.”

“An excellent answer to an unnecessary question.”

“Actually, you didn’t ask why I’d bought it, you asked if I’d been stupid enough to buy it out of an ad.”

“I didn’t say you were stupid.”

“You didn’t have to. And you haven’t answered my question. Are you and the Wildes cousins or what?”

“Or what,” Luca said. “And I repeat, it is none of your concern.”

“Why are you so uptight?”

“Why am I so what?”

“Upright. Tense. You look as if you’re about to explode.”

Enough, he decided. A quick check in the side view mirror confirmed that theirs was the only vehicle in sight. No chance of an accident—and, after this, no chance that he might explode.

He reached across the console, wrapped his hand around the steering wheel and wrenched it to the right.

The pickup swerved toward the shoulder, and she gasped.

“What are you doing? Are you crazy? We’ll roll over!”

“We will unless you stop fighting, let go of the wheel, and slow down.”

“The hell I will! This is my tr—”

“Do it or regret the consequences!”

She called him a name. Under other circumstances, it would have made him laugh. Then she lifted her hands from the steering wheel and took her foot from the gas pedal.

The truck bounded onto the gravel shoulder.

“Slow down,” Luca ordered.

She braked.

The pickup rolled to a stop.

Silence, unbroken except for the tick-tick-tick of the cooling engine, filled the cab.

Luca undid his seat belt and turned to her.

“You want my advice? Here it is. Unload that property as quickly as you can. Sell it at a loss if you have to, but that’s better than paying taxes on something that should be left to die on its own.”

She undid her seat belt, too, turned toward him and folded her arms over her breasts. Not ‘over.’ Not exactly. The angle at which she’d crossed her arms lifted her breasts, made them an offering, and his damnable body wanted to respond to it.