CHAPTER TEN

       Hope I can read my writing later with all the turbulence—this must be the messiest diary entry I’ve made in a while.

       Did I have any option but to accept Ruiz’s invitation? Having already messed up my non-existent love life, can I afford to risk my job as well? And then I have to ask myself this: If I can’t trust myself to take a professional approach and write an article about the playboy without wailing, what kind of journalist am I going to make?

       So here I am after a thirteen hour flight, taxiing towards the stand at Aeropuerto Ministro Pistarini airport, more commonly known as Ezeiza after the city close to Buenos Aires in which the airport is situated. Did you hear that? Buenos Aires! Where the weather, according to our hip young captain, is a bikini-basting twenty-eight degrees. Before you get excited, he wasn’t directing that comment at me. With my red hair and freckles I don’t feel a bit out of place amongst all the sultry whip-thin señoritas seated here with me in First Class. As if! I feel more like a suet dumpling than ever—a fact no doubt observed by said captain when he took the precaution of performing a talent-trawl in the First Class cabin before lowering his landing gear. But I will be spending Christmas with the playboy at his family’s fabulous country-sized estancia and no one else can say that. I think you’ll agree this takes ‘Living with a Playboy’ to a whole new level. Buckle your seat belts, my friends; something tells me we’re in for a bumpy ride.

      THE first thing Holly saw in the terminal building was a huge poster advertising the polo match featuring the Band of Brothers. Ruiz Acosta, ten times life size and easily the best looking of four astonishingly handsome brothers, staring down at her. She swallowed deeply. Everywhere she looked there seemed to be another poster—another heart-stopping reminder of the darkly glittering glamour that had so easily attracted her. Even the limousine Ruiz had sent to collect her had a Band of Brothers sticker on the back window. A crowd had gathered round to stare and comment and swoon, and by the time she had collapsed onto the back seat her heart was thundering like a pack of wild mustangs.

      Surely, this had to be a dream …

      But it wasn’t a dream, and as the luxury vehicle ate up the dusty miles between the airport and the Acosta family’s estancia Holly felt her throat grow increasingly tight. Her anxiety wasn’t eased by the sight of numerous billboards advertising the match. Ruiz was a national hero it seemed. But how could this swarthy, dangerous-looking man with his burning stare, earring and tattoos be the same man who had held her in his arms and made love to her—

      Forget that. Forget him. You’re here to do your job, that’s it.

      She couldn’t think of anything but Ruiz. Even this harsh land was right for him. London, with all its neatly packaged districts, felt a lifetime away as the driver took her deeper into the interior. She had been commissioned to write an article and nothing more, Holly reasoned, trying to calm down: ‘Christmas with the Playboy’. She would also have the chance to watch Ruiz play polo, to see this rugged man with his thighs wrapped around the flanks of some prime horseflesh.

      ‘The game will have started by the time we arrive,’ the driver informed her. ‘But you’ll see plenty of it,’ he assured her in heavily accented English. ‘That’s if there’s anyone left alive on the field for you to watch by the time we get there.’

      He laughed. She didn’t laugh.

      Another colossal billboard loomed in front of them like a vivid punctuation mark amidst miles of arid scrubland that seemed to mock her with just how far she was from civilisation and any form of escape. She stared blindly out of the window. What was she doing here? Why had she come? She could have refused.

      She should have refused.

       And lost her job?

      A road that had been deserted for hours was suddenly clogged with vehicles all travelling in the same direction. Hundreds more were already parked up on the roadside and in lines across the fields. Holly gasped with alarm when her driver, using the simple avoidance tactic of pulling onto the wrong side of the road, overtook everything at speed. With a final thump on his horn to warn the other vehicles, he swung the wheel and steered the limousine beneath an impressive archway that led to an immaculately groomed drive lined with trees. ‘Welcome to Estancia Acosta, Señorita Valiant,’ he said, continuing to drive at a speed that had the crowds spraying to either side on the road ahead of them. ‘I’m going to take you straight round to the pony lines where you will find Ruiz, if he isn’t on the polo field.’

      ‘I’ll be fine here. You can drop me anywhere.’ But preferably not beneath this billboard, Holly thought anxiously as they drove through what looked more like a very busy small town than a family ranch.

      ‘You might get lost if I leave you here,’ the driver insisted. ‘And then I’d be in trouble.’

      With whom? she wondered. With Ruiz?

      ‘My orders are quite specific,’ the driver went on. ‘This is the most popular event of the year.’

      It looked like it, and she was thrilled to see real gauchos, the Argentine equivalent of a cowboy, for the first time. Leather chaps to protect their breeches were held up by coin-decorated belts, while their hats were festooned with bands and laces. There were socialites too—the girls as immaculately groomed as the flashy polo ponies they had come to see. While I am more your sturdy hunter, Holly thought wryly. But then she was hunting for a story, not a husband.

      But that didn’t stop her finger-combing her hair as the driver started to slow the car. They were approaching the pony lines now. Mashing her lips together, she decided against lipstick because her hands were shaking too much to put it on. She couldn’t see the polo field as it was hidden by the towering stands, but polo players were stalking about like muscular gods of the game. They wore white, jean-style breeches and either black shirts with a skull and cross-bones embroidered on the pocket, or ‘Acosta’ emblazoned in white in capital letters on the back of red shirts. Some of the players were already mounted with their faceguards down, their dark eyes shielded behind stylish eye-protectors, but so far there was no sign of Ruiz.

      ‘He must be playing,’ the driver said as a cheer went up somewhere out of sight. ‘These men are the reserves—warming up and standing ready in case of injury.’

      Holly’s stomach lurched at the thought of Ruiz being injured.

      ‘Shall I take you to see him play?’

      ‘Would you?’ she said gratefully, though the thought terrified her at the same time.

      The stands were vast and impressive and ran the length of the field, which was about six times the size of a football pitch and packed to the rafters with noisy supporters. Seats had been reserved for them on the front row and as she sat down Holly’s gaze instantly locked onto Ruiz. She’d have known that muscular body anywhere, though she had never seen it at full stretch like this. As he thundered past the stand in a blur of red top, and white mud-streaked breeches, she felt a reckless punch of full-blown lust. Ruiz’s face guard was down, but she didn’t need to see his eyes to know that he was on a mission and everyone had better keep out of his way. The romantic idea of polo was one thing, but seeing Ruiz’s superb horsemanship firsthand, along with his tactical expertise and sheer physical courage, made it impossible to keep her thoughts confined to business. She was ashamed to admit, even to herself, how much she wanted him.

      No, she didn’t, Holly told herself firmly,