Prima Donna (28 page)

But she couldn’t stop. She was too close to it, and he was too close to her, only twenty or so strides behind. If she could just get over it, she’d be safe. She could see the
house’s chimneys already.

She closed her eyes.

Tanner held his breath as he saw Ebony gather herself, tucking her legs up, giving her all for what was undoubtedly the ride of her life. She clipped the far side of it, but she was over. She
had made it!

Tanner exhaled – almost laughed – with relief, before sucking his breath in again as it was suddenly his turn to go over. But Conker was that much bigger and he sailed over,
whickering with delight at the freedom of this run.

Pia raced over the lush lawns and through the orchard, her arms round Ebony’s neck, her head low to avoid the branches.

Ebony had the advantage in the orchard, her smaller frame allowing her a more nimble path, and Pia galloped out of the orchard and across the drive, overtaking a groundsman on his ride-on
tractor.

She pulled Ebony to an abrupt halt outside the double doors and patted her heartily on the neck. She felt ecstatic, elated by her adventure. She’d snatched back some freedom and, in that
moment, she felt fully herself again.

The groundsman ran over – panicked by the sight of Pia on a runaway horse. He held his arms out and lifted Pia off the saddle. She landed on her good leg and, smiling calmly, handed the
reins to the bewildered man.

‘Take him back to the Ludgrove Yard, would you?’ she smiled.

Pia turned for the steps, but Tanner came to a shuddering stop in front of her, spraying gravel everywhere and blocking her path.

She looked up at him, her eyes glittering and defiant. She had won. He hadn’t stopped her, after all. And he couldn’t do anything to her here.

Tanner leapt down, landing just inches from her, but he didn’t step back. He wanted to intimidate her. He could see the victory in her eyes and it made him want to smack her. Trying to
catch his breath, he stared at her contemptuously.

‘What is it?’ she asked in a deliberately calm voice, as though he was a fan hassling her for an autograph.

There was a brief pause as he absorbed the boredom in her voice.

‘What
is
it?’ he bellowed. ‘Are you for fucking real?’

Pia raised her eyebrows but said nothing. She stared at his jaw – which was where she came up to – trying to hide her fear. She saw the sweat glisten at his hairline beneath his hat,
the scratches on his neck he’d endured from his fall in the hedge.

‘You steal Violet’s horse and then ride like a maniac across country you don’t even know? You could have killed yourself ten times over.’

Pia shrugged and looked over his shoulder. He was far closer than she was comfortable with. ‘Ride it like you stole it, I always say. Besides, I needed a ride back.’

Tanner couldn’t speak. This woman just left him dumbfounded. He’d never met anyone so completely unreasonable in his life. She operated on an entirely different planet to everyone
else. ‘More importantly, you could have injured Ebony,’ he bellowed, pulling at his stock and trying to cool down. Sweat was running down his back. He hadn’t had such a ferocious
gallop for years.

‘Well, if I have, I’ll buy her, and you can buy Violet another horse,’ she said coolly.

‘I don’t want to buy Violet another horse,’ he snapped. Tanner put his hands on his hips and shook his head. As if throwing money at the problem made everything all right. She
was perfectly suited to Silk. ‘You are unfuckingbelievable.’

For the first time, Pia raised her head and stared directly at him. He saw himself reflected in her clear green eyes. ‘I know,’ she replied tossing her hair back and letting the
ambiguity hang between them.

Tanner looked at her, taken aback by her sudden change of tone, her change of attack – because that was what it was. A tactic to confuse him. Well, it might work on other men but it
wouldn’t work on him. Any urge to kiss her was well and truly tempered by the urge to hit her.

‘And I suppose you realize that if you’d fallen, you’d have finished your dancing career for good,’ he said aggressively, but with his eyes on her lips.

‘I know,’ she said defiantly, like it didn’t matter, but her voice cracked a little at this truth, and the tremor caught his attention. She was beginning to shake as the
adrenalin surge seeped away.

Tanner stepped towards her, still breathing hard. She could feel the heat coming off him. She closed her eyes suddenly as his scent drifted up to her. It was so . . . familiar, somehow . . . She
looked up at him, confused. Where had she smelt it before?

He blinked down at her once, then walked past her and up the steps, pressing the bell long and hard.

Will opened the door, puzzled to find Tanner – looking resplendent and thoroughly pissed off in his hunting garb – standing in front of Pia, who was flushed and trembling. His heart
dropped. Oh God, no. Not again.

‘Try to keep your girlfriend under control, Silk,’ Tanner said tersely. ‘She’s been making a bloody nuisance of herself again,’ he said dismissively, striding back
to Conker and jumping back into the saddle. Pia frowned as he brushed past, confounded that the only reaction she’d elicited from him was that of exasperated parent. ‘And make sure that
horse is returned to the yard by the time I get back,’ he ordered, before cantering back up the drive, leaving both Pia and Will mute in his wake.

Tanner had his back to her when she walked in. Everyone had finished for the day and he was going round doing his final checks on the horses. She watched him as he tested the
self-regulated plumbing system. Ricky had said there’d been a leak in this stall. He was still wearing his hunting kit, with only his jacket off, and she admired the contours of his long
legs, strong waist and powerful shoulders.

She shut the stable door and pulled the bolt over.

Tanner turned at the sound.

‘Oh hello,’ he said distractedly, turning back to the tap.

‘Oh hello yourself,’ she replied archly, bemused by his bumbling.

He heard the mirth in her voice. ‘What’s up?’ he asked, over his shoulder.

Violet shrugged. ‘Nothing. Just came to see where you were.’

‘I’m here.’

‘Yes. I see that.’

There was a pause as he struggled with the washer. ‘I’m sorry about today. I don’t know why I didn’t think to go back to the yard to get another horse for you. Ebony
practically needed to be wheeled back she was so tired.’ He shook his head bitterly and tightened the wrench around the loose nut.

‘It’s okay,’ she said quietly, though in truth it had been anything but. For a start, she’d felt ridiculous driving around with the car supporters, dressed in her
habit.

‘It’s not, though. You should have ridden today. That stupid bloody girl . . . the arrogance of it all . . . Who does she damned well think she is?’

‘I said it’s fine. She’s just playing to type. It doesn’t even surprise me,’ she said casually, though it had.

‘Well . . . she doesn’t deserve your understanding.’ He finished what he was doing and stood up, wiping his hands on his trousers. ‘Anyway, what’s for
supper?’

Violet shrugged.

Tanner rolled his eyes. ‘Fine, we’ll get a take-away then.’

‘You know, what happened today could just play into our hands,’ she said, completely ignoring his new line of conversation.

‘What?’ he sighed, sensing trouble.

‘Well, Will’s live-in girlfriend just stole our horse. He’s lucky we’re not pressing charges. At the very least it should give you leverage against him.’

‘What on earth are you talking about?’

‘You could agree to keep his horses, but increase the fees by twenty, thirty per cent.’

‘Violet! How many times do I have to say it? I’m not taking his business any more. I don’t want it. We’re moving on without him.’

‘But we can’t, Tanner.’

Tanner fixed her with a glare. ‘Why?’

‘We need his money.’

‘No, we don’t. There are plenty of people out there who want what I can do for them.’

‘Name one.’ Violet stood there, looking particularly forbidding in her habit.

Tanner couldn’t, not yet anyway. Polo patrons were busy men and difficult to pin down, but those that he had were suspicious about why he should be letting the successful Black Harbour
stable loose. He’d managed to get one meeting tabled but nothing more than that, and the grass season was just weeks from opening now. The window was fast closing on him and all the big-money
teams would be set up till the autumn.

‘I just think you’re making a big mistake,’ Violet said, softening her voice a little.

‘No. You just don’t have any faith in me,’ Tanner said, looking back at her and shaking his head. ‘You never have. If I decide to do anything that you don’t agree
with one hundred per cent then it’s always a Big Fucking Mistake. I’m fed up of it, Violet. It’s always the same.’

The silence hung heavily between them, and they both recognized the first steps of the conversation that had been delayed, deferred and silenced for too many months now.

He looked at the floor. He hadn’t been intending to do this now, but when was the right time? ‘Look, Vi . . . we need to talk.’ He looked back up at her.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, even though it was blatantly clear she was unbuttoning her jacket. ‘No, don’t do that! Put it back on. We need to talk.’

She threw it on the ground. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and she looked unspeakably erotic bare-breasted with just her stock around her neck. She walked towards him, her full breasts swaying
slightly, her hair swinging around her shoulders.

‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Violet, you know this isn’t—’ She silenced him with a hungry kiss, reaching for his hands and bringing them up to her breasts. She groaned,
pulling her mouth away, as he instinctively caressed them, and she buried her face in his neck, fiddling with his belt.

She yanked his trousers down, her hand straight in his boxers. He was already hard. He’d never once disappointed her. She reached over and unbuttoned her skirt, letting it billow down to
her ankles. She stood up, naked apart from the stock, and started walking backwards, her ripe breasts hypnotizing him, beckoning him towards her, forcing every other thought out of his head, except
getting his mouth on them.

They lay together for a long while afterwards, dazed and silent, the hay flattened beneath them, horses snuffling and hoofing the floor in the neighbouring stalls. Tanner
closed his eyes, frustrated to have been so easily led off course, but his whole body hurt – the fall into the hedge had jarred his back – and he craved some physical comfort. It had
been a long day and he didn’t have any more fight in him. He closed his eyes, content to skip dinner altogether and just sleep there.

It was getting dark when he awoke, disturbed by a distinctive low beating sound. He sat up, frowning, ears pricked like a spaniel’s.

‘If Silk’s landing his bloody chopper on my land . . .’ he growled, pulling on his trousers. Violet watched him. He always seemed so tightly coiled, as though he was
perpetually ready to fight. He went outside to check, and she followed him, pulling on his shirt.

She was buttoning it up when she emerged into the yard. A helicopter had landed in the paddock, but it wasn’t Silk’s. Two figures were jumping out. A man and a woman.

The shirt flapped and lifted in the wake of the rotor blades and Violet quickly batted it down.

‘Ay-ay,’ shouted one of the figures in a jaunty voice. ‘You two living up to the country clichés, then?’

Tanner looked back at Violet, gobsmacked, and she laughed. It had been – what? Two, three years since his brother had been home.

The figures drew nearer, the man breaking into an athletic run, hurdling over the post-and-rail fencing and hurtling into the yard. He and Tanner hugged roundly, smacking each other hard on the
back, before crouching low and sparring with each other, laughing all the while.

‘Achopper?’ Tanner exclaimed, motioning to the helicopter, which was rising back up into the sky.

‘It’s only chartered.’

‘Oh well that’s all right then,’ Tanner quipped. ‘It’s good to see you, anyway. Why didn’t you say you were coming? We’d have got a meal ready for
you.’

‘What? And risk missing the chance of catching you two at it? I’m just sorry I stopped to buy that case of fizz on the way over.’ He looked at Violet, beguiling as ever.
‘And how’s the great beauty? I can’t believe you’re still putting up with him,’ the man said, leaning down to kiss her and pulling a twig of straw from her hair.

‘How are you, Jonty?’ she smiled. He was tall – a good three inches taller than Tanner – and rangy, with black hair and even blacker eyes. ‘The Prince of
Darkness’ Tanner had always called him as a boy, and it was true. The two brothers were like night and day: Tanner’s face so open and earthy, always flushed and grubby from his days
spent working the horses; Jonty brooding and mysterious, his head always stuck in a book or up a pretty girl’s skirt.

‘God, I think you’re even better-looking than when I last saw you,’ Jonty grinned, taking in Violet’s dishevelled appearance. Violet flashed him a delighted smile. She
knew her eyes looked electric after sex and no man could resist a woman barely dressed in his clothes.

There was a soft cough, and they all looked round. Another figure was standing in the shadows. Jonty bounded over to her, draping a lazy arm over her delicate shoulders.

‘Lu – this is Tanner, my rakish brother I’ve been warning you about, and his pretty-much-wife, Violet, if only he’d ever get his arse in gear and ask her. Guys, I want
you to meet Lulie.
My
wife.’

Violet and Tanner’s jaws dropped simultaneously.

‘Your
wife
?’ They looked at the coltish blonde. She was lightly tanned, with clear aquamarine eyes and long tousled sun-bleached hair. She looked like she’d been
brushed with gold dust. She was wearing indigo skinny jeans and a black glossy astrakhan coat that made her hair gleam, and she looked just altogether too impossibly glamorous to be standing in
this mucky yard. Next to her Violet felt mannish and . . . well, as wild as Pia’s proverbial gypsy.