Susan Stephens - The Acostas Box Set - The Shameless Life of Ruiz Acosta / The Argentinian's Solace / A Taste of the Untamed / The Man From her Wayward Past / Taming the Last Acosta / Christmas Nights with the Polo Player

‘You’ve given the dog a name?’ Nacho interrupted sharply.

‘Not just a name—a home. Bouncer is part of the furniture now.’ Ruiz ruffled the big dog’s ears.

‘This is so typical of you, Ruiz,’ Nacho rapped, reverting to elder brother mode. ‘You always were a sucker for waifs and strays. If anyone needs TLC, you’re there before they know they need help. Dios! Get rid of the mongrel!’ Nacho thundered.

‘Butt out!’ Ruiz fired back. They weren’t boys now for Nacho to push him around. His brother should know that where animals were concerned Ruiz cut no corners.

‘See you at the polo match,’ Nacho growled, ‘without the mutt!’

‘Goodbye to you too, brother,’ Ruiz murmured, staring at the silent receiver in his hand.

Nacho had issues. Having taken responsibility for his siblings when their parents died, Nacho sometimes forgot they were all adults now and that, having made his home in London rather than the pampas, Ruiz was independently successful.

Sensing his irritation, Bouncer whined. He stroked the dog to reassure him. ‘I should make allowances for Nacho?’ Ruiz queried as Bouncer’s expressive eyes invited him to take a walk. His brother ran an estancia in Argentina the size of a small country and Ruiz supposed Nacho was entitled to have his off days. ‘Okay, boy, you’re right. Let’s go,’ he said, standing up.

A big dog like Bouncer needed hours of exercise. Not unlike his master, Ruiz reflected, catching sight of his swarthy, unshaven face in the mirror. It had been another long and ultimately disappointing night. None of the women he’d met in London appealed to him with their bony figures, heavy make-up, and uniformly dyed blonde hair. It would be fair to say he had become more than a little jaded. Perhaps Nacho was right and he should return to Argentina to find some sophisticated, black-eyed siren, full of the fire and passion of South America who could not only match him in the bedroom but who would share his zest for life.

That was the type of woman his brother Nacho could do with, to shake him out of permanent warrior mode, Ruiz reflected wryly as he locked the front door. It didn’t occur to Ruiz that a similar wake-up call might be waiting for him just around the corner …

CHAPTER ONE

I’ve always kept a diary. I’m a compulsive writer some might say. I’ve heard that in the absence of anyone else to confide in people often record their thoughts.

This is day one of my new life in London and my train is just pulling into the station, so I have to keep this short. To make sure everything is in line with the K.I.S.S. principle—which, just in case my journal is discovered a thousand years from now, stands for Keep It Simple Stupid, there are only two rules:

Rely on no one but yourself.

No men—at least, not until you are established as a journalist and can call the shots!

THERE was sleet dripping down her neck and a really old man had just decided Holly was the one who needed help. Was she trying to work out which bus would take her to the station? ‘No, but thank you for asking—I just got here,’ she explained. Chin up. Jaw firm. Smile big. Stop tapping diary notes into your phone and put it away. ‘I’m waiting for a friend,’ Holly added to reassure the elderly Samaritan. Well, it was almost true. She was waiting to get hold of a friend on the phone.

The old man wished her well and went on his way but with the brief moment of human contact snatched away again she felt doubly lost. It was the noise in London, the constant traffic and the mobs of people that took some getting used to when you had just arrived in the capital from a small market town. It didn’t help that her winter coat was soaked right through, she was frozen, and her long red hair hung in sodden straggles down her back.

How could things go so wrong?

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t made the most meticulous plans before coming to London to take up the job at ROCK! magazine, carefully tallying her start date with an amazing offer from her best friend from school to stay in her central London garden flat until Holly could sort out her own accommodation. So how was it that the black cab that had brought her from the station to this faceless part of town had left her in front of a door that should have been flung wide in welcome but had instead been opened by a stranger who didn’t even know her name?

Wiping the rain from her face, Holly pulled out her phone and tried to call her friend Lucia again.

‘Lucia?’ Holly exclaimed excitedly, forced to execute a little unplanned dance as she dodged spray from the traffic. ‘Lucia—Can you hear me?’ Holly yelled over a deafening soundtrack of horns tooting, grinding gears, and steel drums—

Steel drums?

‘Holly!’ Lucia shrieked with equal excitement. ‘Is that really you?’

‘Where are you, Lucia?’

‘St Barts. Can’t you hear the sea? Holly, it’s incredible here. You’d love it—’

‘St Barts in the Caribbean?’ Holly interrupted, shivering as she bowed her head beneath a fresh onslaught of wind and icy sleet. Lucia was from a very wealthy Argentinian family, so anything was possible. ‘Isn’t it some unearthly hour there?’

‘Dunno … Still partying!’ Lucia shrieked as if to confirm this with a thousand friends.

‘So … didn’t you get my text?’ Holly asked carefully.

‘What text?’ Lucia sounded bewildered.

‘The one I wrote confirming I’d love to accept your invitation to stay with you this week until I find a place to live down here?’

‘Breaking up … breaking up.’ Lucia was shrieking with laughter now with her hand over the phone. ‘This line is terrible, Holly,’ she confided in a slurry voice. ‘Why don’t you just catch a plane and come over here?’

Er, zero cash? Zero bikinis? Zero desire to cop out of a life that had already been through the shredder …

Holly held back from explaining to Lucia that they might have attended the same school but, while Holly had been a full scholarship pupil, Lucia had been a new sports hall, an Olympic-sized swimming pool and a riding stables complete with indoor arena. Oh, yes, St Bede’s School for Girls had had a very shrewd headmistress.

‘So, where are you now, Holl?’ Lucia demanded to the accompaniment of clinking glasses.

‘Outside your flat. “Meet u apt 12/20th Nov”,’ Holly read the text from her phone, leaving out the bit about how Lucia ‘cdnt wait’, followed by ‘:-D’ and a dozen exclamation marks.

‘Did I send that?’

‘Yes, but no problem,’ Holly lied brightly.

Lucia groaned. ‘I did! I said it would be okay for you to stay. I remember now. And it is okay. At least, it would be if I were there. And I sublet my part of the house. Oh, you poor darling, I completely forgot. Were they awful to you?’

‘Actually—’

‘But you can book into a hotel, right?’ Lucia chirped before Holly could explain that the woman who had opened the door to her had been quite nice, if a little bewildered to find a stranger with a suitcase standing on her doorstep looking hopeful. ‘Of course I can,’ Holly soothed. ‘I’m really sorry I interrupted your break, Luce—’

‘No. Wait.’

‘What?’

‘The penthouse!’

‘The penthouse?’ Holly queried.

‘The family’s London penthouse is free! I’m sure it is.’

‘The penthouse, where?’ Holly said, frowning.

‘Right there at the same address,’ Lucia explained triumphantly. ‘There’s a spare key in the key box by the side door. Give me ten minutes to ring someone to make sure the penthouse is empty and find out what the code is.’

‘Are you sure?’