Turning his back briefly on his guests, Dante raised an amused brow. ‘I’m really pleased you’re here.’
‘You’ve already said that.’
‘But I want you to know I mean it.’
As Dante stared into her eyes, her heart thundered a warning. Instead of being here and feeling the old magic washing over her, she would have been safer staying at home and banging her head against the wall in the hope of knocking some sense into it.
She had recognised some of the people around the table, and they were quick to bring her into their midst. An older lady pulled out a chair for her between herself and Dante. ‘It wouldn’t be complete without you here, Karina,’ she said, a comment that caused Dante to swing around and stare at her with a frown.
‘Thank you.’ She dipped her head to hide her burning cheeks as Dante continued to scan her face with interest. What she did in her private time was none of his business.
‘What did she mean?’ he asked her with a frown the moment he got a chance.
‘I’m an asset to any gathering?’ she suggested dryly.
‘That won’t cut it,’ he assured her, sitting back so he didn’t exclude their guests.
Tough. She’d told him all she was going to.
Dante had arranged cabs to take everyone home. Before the girls and their relatives left, Karina offered the use of the hotel spa free. The older women protested that this was too much, but she insisted, and all the girls begged their relatives to relent.
‘It’s the least I can do,’ she said. ‘You all work so hard to bring pleasure to visitors from around the world.’
‘And increase the business at your hotel,’ Dante murmured dryly, so that only she could hear.
Ignoring him, she added, ‘Just give my name at the desk and I’ll make sure that you’re expected.’ As Dante helped her on with her jacket, she told him, ‘I can see you now for half an hour to discuss flight details and any other business you might have.’
‘How very good of you.’ His mouth slanted in a mocking smile as he shook his head in disagreement. ‘We’ll talk at the ranch. I’ll have my man collect you at seven prompt tomorrow morning. Don’t be late.’
If looks could kill, she had just murdered the most popular man in Brazil.
CHAPTER SIX
A SECOND NIGHT without sleep was not the best of starts for a research trip. Lack of sleep made her cranky, made her vulnerable, made her brain tick slowly, and she needed her wits about her more than ever this morning. On top of sleep deprivation, being with Dante again last night had rattled her. Instead of checking that she’d got everything she needed for the trip, she was pacing up and down, waiting for dawn, fretting whether it was actually going to be possible to work alongside Dante without telling him everything.
Could she get away without telling him all of the truth? He was already suspicious about what had happened while they’d been apart, but he had no proof and no way of getting any. She wasn’t such a coward that she couldn’t bring herself to tell him, but was there any point in opening Pandora’s box when the past couldn’t be changed?
Pausing by the window, she stared down at the hotel gardens, so calm and beautiful in the moonlight. The gardens had been designed to soothe—an impossibility where she was concerned, because she was flying out of her world and into Dante’s world soon, and that was a raw, unforgiving world where the secrets she was harbouring could eat her up inside.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, she put her head in her hands, thinking back to a time when they had both been wilful and unpredictable and had got away with it. They had enjoyed adventures on the pampas that made her toes curl now she thought back. The bigger the risk, the more likely they had been to take it. Then they’d grown up and life had become complicated, with innocence gone for good.
Seeing Dante again now had upended her feelings for him like a tube of sweets, shaking them out and forcing her to confront all the things she couldn’t change. All the sadness she’d kept safely bottled up. She had never told anyone about losing her baby. Who could she tell? Luc? Dante? The medical team had said she was ‘lucky’ because she had lost her child in the relatively early stages of pregnancy. She hadn’t felt lucky. She’d felt devastated. When she’d left the hospital and even the kind attention of the medical professionals had been taken away, she had felt alone, grief-stricken, with no consolation to be found anywhere. It had been a very long and slow road back to recovery, and she wasn’t even sure she’d reached her destination yet.