CHAPTER ONE
A beachside wedding party on a privateisland
off the coast of Italy, owned by Raffa Acosta’s
polo-playing friend Prince Cesar
‘COMETOBEDwith me.’
Rose Kelly’s jaw dropped. If it hadn’t been a familiar voice that just husked in her ear, she’d have retorted with something unprintable. As it was, she swung around, ready to make light of it. ‘Are you tired,señor?’
‘Tired?’ Her boss laughed and ramped up the infamous Acosta charm. ‘Not even slightly. I decided to take pity on you, standing here, looking lost in the shadows.’
‘Pity?’
Rose’s defensive tone of voice made him look twice, but they were both off duty, and Raffa Acosta had broken his own golden rule first. ‘Never fraternise with the employees’ was rumoured to be branded on his buttocks, if tack-room gossip was to be believed.
‘Joke?’ he prompted with the worst attempt at looking penitent Rose had ever seen.
Was it, though? Raffa Acosta carried such a punch of testosterone, it was hard to believe anything he said in relation to the bedroom could in any way be regarded as a joke.
‘I’m not lost, and there’s no need to pity me. I’m just taking it all in,’ she said with a sweeping gesture. ‘The closest I usually get to this sort of thing is when I’m racing past the champagne tent to the pony lines during a polo match.’
‘You’re not missing anything, Rose.’
Rose took a fresh look at her boss. Raffa Acosta was enough to addle any woman’s brains, but there was a new note in his voice. Accustomed to hearing him barking orders on his fabulous ranch in Spain—where, after three challenging, glorious years of proving that a five-foot-two Irishwoman could work the pants off any man, Rose was Head Groom in his polo stables—Raffa’s confiding tone just now had surprised her. Was he as relieved as she was to be out of the post-wedding mayhem? When people had a few drinks, everything could change from decorously happy and polite to rowdy and increasingly wild. The wedding itself had been a fabulous occasion, but the pressure to chat and smile had been unrelenting.
His penetrating look raked her from head to toe. ‘I didn’t realise you and my sister were that close, until I saw you in the role of bridesmaid.’
‘Oh, we’ve been good friends for some time.’ Since around nine o’clock that morning, but she wasn’t going to drop Sofia Acosta in it by admitting Rose had been drafted in at the last minute to fill out a dress. Sofia always made time to chat to the grooms, and it had been a complete surprise, as well as an absolute pleasure, when Sofia had asked Rose to help her out on the morning of her wedding to Cesar. It was also a unique opportunity to experience the sort of high life a groom normally only witnessed from a distance. ‘I hope you don’t object to me being here.’
‘Why should I?’ Raffa queried, frowning.
Because she worked for him? And was supposed to be in the Prince’s stables? Raffa had brought over a team of grooms to help with the horses he’d flown over to the island so the Prince and he could enjoy a few chukkas of polo. Rose had no right to be swanning around at anyone’s wedding, and had switched around schedules to be here. If Sofia hadn’t been so popular, she doubted that would have been possible. ‘I’ll make up the time,’ she promised. ‘And please don’t worry about the ponies. I’d never leave them without organising proper cover for them first.’
‘I don’t doubt your reliability, Rose. Since the day you started work for me, you’ve been one of my most capable grooms.’
Capable?Coming from a sinful delight like Raffa Acosta, that was more a blow than a compliment. Shrugging it off, she concentrated on reassuring him. ‘My colleagues have me on speed dial.’ Producing a phone from the front of her dress, she flourished it in front of him, which, on reflection, was perhaps not the best idea. The bridesmaid’s gown was skimpy, and Rose could be described as well built.
‘I am reassured,’ Raffa said, with a look that swerved her frontage, and landed squarely on her eyes. ‘My sister couldn’t have picked a better bridesmaid.’
‘Well, thank you, kind sir.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
It was impossible not to laugh and relax when the great Raffa Acosta made a mock bow. He was a towering colossus of impossible good looks, with pheromones firing off the scale; it was growing harder by the second to remember that she worked for him, and her job meant everything to Rose. So much depended on her keeping it. Ponies had always been her life, and the money she earned went straight home to Ireland to pay for her father’s keep.
‘Best guess? My sister asked you to be a bridesmaid last minute.’ Raffa’s dark eyes burned into hers. ‘Am I right? I’m thinking you took the place of the bridesmaid who breakfasted on sex and champagne—the woman who wasn’t fit to be seen, according to my sister. I’d say Sofia got a lucky break, ending up with you.’
‘As a sub,’ Rose reminded him. ‘I’m not a real guest. And, on that note—’
‘Not so fast—’
Electricity streaked through her as she stared at his hand on her arm. ‘People will talk.’
‘Let them,’ Raffa dismissed with a shrug.
‘Don’t you care that we’re already attracting interest?’
