At the Argentinean Billionaire's Bidding

A self-confessed romance junkie, India Grey was just thirteen years old when she first sent off for the Mills & Boon® writers’ guidelines. She can still recall the thrill of getting the large brown envelope with its distinctive logo through the letterbox, and subsequently whiled away many a dull school day staring out of the window and dreaming of the perfect hero. She kept those guidelines with her for the next ten years, tucking them carefully inside the cover of each new diary in January, and beginning every list of New Year’s Resolutions with the words Start Novel. In the meantime she also gained a degree in English Literature from Manchester University, and, in a stroke of genius on the part of the gods of romance, met her gorgeous future husband on the very last night of their three years there. The last fifteen years have been spent blissfully buried in domesticity, and heaps of pink washing generated by three small daughters, but she has never really stopped daydreaming about romance. She’s just profoundly grateful to have finally got an excuse to do it legitimately!

Recent titles by the same author:

TAKEN FOR REVENGE, BEDDED FOR PLEASURE

MISTRESS: HIRED FOR THE BILLIONAIRE’S PLEASURE

THE ITALIAN’S CAPTIVE VIRGIN

THE ITALIAN’S DEFIANT MISTRESS

Dear Reader

When I was invited to write one of the books in Mills & Boon’s rugby series I was seriously thrilled. I grew up in a family where rugby was a passion, and from a very young age would go with my dad and my older brother to Murrayfield to watch Scotland internationals. Of course at the time I wasn’t old enough to fully appreciate those magnificent, muscular men, but I guess they must have made a pretty lasting impression, because when I began to write my first Mills & Boon® novel at the grand old age of thirteen it featured a hero who was a rugby player!

The book never got finished, and I’ve long since lost the manuscript (handwritten, in a blue exercise book), but I’ve never forgotten the hero, with his aura of constrained power and intense focus. Having the chance to reincarnate him in the form of brooding Argentinean Alejandro D’Arienzo was a bit like rediscovering my first love.

Rugby is such a hard, sexy game. It demands not only phenomenal physical strength (mmm…hold that thought…) but huge amounts of courage and mental endurance, which I think are all essential ingredients for the perfect hero. My heroine, Tamsin Calthorpe, would definitely agree; she lost her heart to Alejandro when she was just fifteen years old, the first time she set eyes on him out on the rugby pitch. Now, after nine lonely years, she’d actually quite like it back, so she can move on with her life… The trouble is, rugby players are also driven to win at all costs—and Alejandro’s not going to give up anything without a fight!

This book was such a lot of fun to write—especially the day I spent at Twickenham with two of the lovely editors from Mills & Boon, seeing some of the places that feature in the book. It was great for research, but not so good for my mud and muscle obsession. Oh, dear. Time to rush off for my meeting at Rugby Players Anonymous…

India

BY

INDIA GREY

For my dad (1940–1981) who loved rugby so much,

and for my mum, who supports me with the same

unfailing enthusiasm as she supports Scotland.

With love and thanks.

PROLOGUE

TAMSIN paused in front of the mirror, the lipstick held in one hand and the magazine article on ‘How to seduce the man of your dreams’ in the other.

Subtlety, the article said, is just another word for failure. But, even so, her stomach gave a nervous dip as she realised she hardly recognised the heavy-lidded, glittering eyes, the sharply defined cheekbones and sultry, pouting mouth as her own.

That was a good thing, right? Because three years of adoring Alejandro D’Arienzo from afar had taught her that there wasn’t much chance of getting beyond ‘hello’ with the man of her dreams without some drastic action.

There was a quiet knock at the door, and then Serena’s blonde head appeared. ‘Tam, you’ve been ages, surely you must be ready by—’ There was a pause. ‘Oh my God. What in hell’s name have you done to yourself?’

Tamsin waved the magazine at her sister. ‘It says here I shouldn’t leave anything to chance.’

Serena advanced slowly into the room. ‘Does it specify you shouldn’t leave much to the imagination, either?’ she croaked. ‘Where did you get that outrageous dress? It’s completely see-through.’

‘I altered my Leaver’s Ball dress a bit, that’s all,’ said Tamsin defensively.

‘That’s your ball dress?’ Serena gasped. ‘Blimey, Tamsin, if Mama finds out she’ll go mental—you haven’t altered it, you’ve butchered it.’

Shrugging, Tamsin tossed back her dark-blonde hair and, holding out the thigh-skimming layers of black net, executed an insouciant twirl. ‘So? I just took the silk overskirt off, that’s all.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Well, I shortened the net petticoat a bit, too. Looks much better, doesn’t it?’

‘It certainly looks different,’ said Serena faintly. The strapless, laced bodice of the dress, which had looked reasonably demure when paired with a full, ankle-length skirt, suddenly took on an outrageous bondage vibe when combined with above-the-knee net, black stockings, and the cropped black cardigan her sister was now putting on over the top.

‘Good,’ said Tamsin firmly. ‘Because tonight I do not want to be the coach’s pathetic teenage daughter, fresh out of boarding school and never been kissed. Tonight I want to be…’ She broke off to read from the magazine. ‘“Mysterious yet direct, sophisticated yet sexy”.’

From downstairs they could hear the muffled din of laughter and loud voices, and distant music wound its way through Harcourt Manor’s draughty stone passages. The party to announce the official England international team for the new rugby season was already underway, and Alejandro was there somewhere. Just knowing he was in the same building made Tamsin’s stomach tighten and her heart pound.

‘Be careful, Tam,’ Serena warned quietly. ‘Alejandro’s gorgeous, but he’s also…’

She faltered, glancing round at the pictures that covered Tamsin’s walls, as if for inspiration. Mostly cut from the sports pages of newspapers and from old England rugby programmes, they showed Alejandro D’Arienzo’s dark, brooding beauty from every angle. Serena shivered. Gorgeous certainly, but ruthless too.

‘What, out of my league? You don’t think this is going to work, do you?’ said Tamsin with an edge of despair. ‘You don’t think he’s going to fancy me at all.’

Serena looked down into her sister’s face. Tamsin’s green eyes glowed as if lit by some internal sunlight and her cheeks were flushed with nervous excitement.

‘That’s not it at all. Of course he’ll fancy you.’ She sighed. ‘And that’s exactly what’s bothering me.’

Above the majestic carved fireplace in the entrance hall of Harcourt Manor was a portrait of some seventeenth-century Calthorpe, smiling smugly against a backdrop of galleons on a stormy sea. Across the top, in flamboyantly embellished script, was written: God blew and they were scattered.

Alejandro D’Arienzo felt his face set in an expression of sardonic amusement as he looked into the cold, hooded eyes of Henry Calthorpe’s forebear. There was no discernible resemblance between the two men, although they obviously shared a mutual hatred of the Spanish. Alejandro could just remember his father’s stories, as a child in Argentina, of how their distant ancestors had been amongst the original conquistadors who had sailed from Spain to the New World. Those stories were one of the few tiny fragments of family identity that he had.

Moving restlessly away from the portrait, he ran a finger inside the stiff collar of his shirt and looked around at the impressive hallway, with its miles of intricate plasterwork ceiling and acres of polished wooden panelling. His team-mates stood in groups, laughing and drinking with dignitaries from the Rugby Football Union and the few sports journalists lucky enough to make the guest list, while the same assortment of blonde, well-bred rugby groupies circulated amongst them, flirting and flattering.

Henry Calthorpe, the England rugby coach, had made a big deal about holding the party to announce the new squad at his stunning ancestral home, claiming it showed that they were a team, a unit, a family. Remembering this now, Alejandro couldn’t stop his lips curling into a sneer of savage, cynical amusement.

Everything about Harcourt Manor could have been specifically designed to emphasise exactly how much of an outsider Alejandro was. And he was damned sure that Henry Calthorpe had reckoned on that very thing.

At first Alejandro had thought he was being overly sensitive, that years in the English public school system had made him too quick to be on the defensive against bullying and victimization— but lately the coach’s animosity had become too obvious to ignore. Alejandro was playing better than he’d ever done, too well to be dropped from the team without reason, but the fact was that Calthorpe wanted him out. He was just waiting for Alejandro to slip up.

Alejandro hoped Calthorpe was a patient man, because he had no intention of obliging. He was at the top of his game and he planned to stay there.

Draining the champagne in one go, he put the glass down on a particularly expensive-looking carved chest and glanced disdainfully around the room. There was not a single person he wanted to talk to, he thought wearily. The girls were identikit blondes with cut-glass accents and Riviera suntans, whose conversation ranged from clothes to the hilarious exploits of people they’d gone to school with, and whom they assumed Alejandro would know. Several times at parties like these he’d ended up sleeping with one just to shut her up.

But tonight it all seemed too much effort. The England tie felt like a noose around his neck, and suddenly he needed to be outside in the cool air, out of this suffocating atmosphere of complacency and privilege. Adrenalin pounded through him as he pushed his way impatiently through the groups of people towards the door.

And that was when he saw her.

She was standing in the doorway, her head lowered slightly, one hand gripping the doorframe for support, giving her an air of shyness and uncertainty that was totally at odds with her short black dress and very high heels. But he didn’t notice the details of what she was wearing. It was her eyes that held him.

They were beautiful—green perhaps, almond shaped, slanting—but that was almost incidental. What made the breath catch in his throat was the laser-beam intensity of her gaze, which he could feel even from this distance.

His footsteps slowed as he got closer to her, but her gaze didn’t waver. She straightened slightly, as if she had been waiting for him, and her hand fell from the doorframe and smoothed down her short skirt.

‘You’re not leaving?’

Her voice was so low and hesitant, and her words halfway between a question and a statement. He gave a twisted smile.

‘I think it would be best if I did.’

He made to push past her. Close up, he could see that behind the smoky eye make up and the shiny inviting lip gloss she was younger than he’d at first thought. Her skin was clear and golden, and he noticed the frantic jump of the pulse in her throat. She was trembling slightly.

‘No,’ she said fiercely. ‘Please. Don’t leave.’

Interest flared up inside him, sudden and hot. He stopped, looking down at her sexy, rebellious dress, and then let his gaze move slowly back up to her face. Her cheeks were lightly stained with pink, and the eyes that looked up at him from under a fan of long, black lashes were dark and glittering. Seductive, but pleading.

‘Why not?’

Lowering her chin, she kept them fixed on his, while she took his hand and stepped backwards, pulling him with her. Her hand felt small in his, and her touch sent a small shower of shooting stars up his arm.

‘Because I want you.’ She smiled shyly, dropping her gaze. ‘I want you to stay.’

CHAPTER ONE

Six years later.

LEANING against the wall of the players’ tunnel at Twickenham when the final whistle went was a bit like being trapped inside the body of a giant beast in pain. Tamsin hadn’t been able to face watching the game, but she knew from the great, roaring groan that shook the ground beneath her feet and vibrated through her whole body that England had just fallen.

St George might have slain the dragon, but he’d certainly met his match in the mighty Barbarians.

Not that Tamsin was bothered about that. The team could have lost to a bunch of squealing six-year-old girls for all she cared, as long as they looked good while they were doing it.

She let out a shaky breath, pushing herself up and away from the wall, and discovering that her legs felt almost too weak to hold her up. This was the moment when she had to find out whether all the work of the past few months—and the frantic damage-limitation panic of the last eighteen hours—had paid off.

Like a sleepwalker she moved hesitantly to the mouth of the tunnel and looked out into the stadium, which stretched around her like some vast gladiatorial arena. Heads bent against the thin drizzle, shoulders stooped in defeat, the England team was making its way back towards the dressing room. Tamsin looked anxiously from one player to the next and, oblivious to the de¬ jection and bewilderment on their exhausted faces, felt nothing but relief.

The players might not have performed brilliantly, but as far as she could see their shirts had, and to Tamsin—designer of the new and much-publicised England strip—that was all that mattered. She had already been on the receiving end of numerous barbed comments about what a coincidence it was that such a prestigious commission had been landed by the daughter of the new RFU chairman, so any whisper of failure on her part would be professional suicide.

Wearily, she dragged a hand through her short platinum- blonde hair and rubbed her tired eyes. That was why it was kind of important that news of last night’s little crisis with the pink shirts didn’t get out.

At the entrance to the tunnel, the bitter east wind that had made kicking so difficult for the players all afternoon almost knocked her over, slicing straight through her long ex-army greatcoat to the flimsy cocktail dress she wore beneath it. She’d left last night’s charity fashion-gala early and gone straight to the factory, and hadn’t had time to go home and change. Ten hours, numerous therapeutic phone-rants to Serena and a lot of very black coffee later, they’d had just enough newly printed shirts for the squad, but she’d spent the whole match praying there would be no substitutions. Only now did she feel she could breathe more easily.

The feeling lasted all of ten seconds.

Then she felt her mouth open in wordless horror. Looking up at the huge screen at the top of the south stand, the air was squeezed from her lungs and replaced with something that felt like napalm.

It was him.

So that was why the England squad had lost.

Alejandro D’Arienzo was back. And this time he was playing for the opposition. Tamsin’s heart seemed to have jumped out of her ribcage and lodged somewhere in her throat. How often in the last six years since that wonderful, devastating night at Harcourt had she thought she’d seen Alejandro D’Arienzo? Even though in her head she knew that he’d gone back to Argentina, how many times had she found herself turning round to look again at a tall, dark-haired man on a London street? Or felt her pulse start to race as she caught a glimpse of a sculpted profile through the tinted windows of a sportscar, only to experience a sickening thud of disappointment and simultaneous relief when she’d seen that it was some less charismatic stranger?

Now, staring up at the vast screen, she knew there was no such respite, and no mistaking that powerfully elegant body, the broad, muscular shoulders beneath the black-and-white Barbarians’ shirt, and the arrogant tilt of that dark, dark head.

The crowd broke out in spontaneous applause as the TV cameras closed in on him, and the image of his beautiful, unsmiling face filled the screen, above the words Man of the Match. He was still wearing a gum shield which accentuated the sensual fullness of his contemptuous mouth—bloodied from the game— and the hollows beneath his high cheekbones. A red bandana held back his damp black hair, and for a second his restless, gold- flecked eyes glanced into the camera.

It felt like he was looking straight at her.

She wanted to take her eyes from the screen, but some in-built masochistic streak prevented her, and she was left staring helplessly up at him. Six years dissolved away and she was eighteen again, incandescent with fear and excitement as his eyes had met hers and he had walked across the hall at Harcourt towards her…

The England players had lined up on either side of the tunnel and were clapping the Barbarians in, but suddenly Ben Saunders, a young England player who’d been playing in the number-ten position for the first time, broke away and began to walk back across the field. Numbly Tamsin watched as he pulled his shirt over his head and held it out to Alejandro in a gesture of respect.

For a second the proud Argentinean didn’t move. A tense hush seemed to fall over the stadium as the crowd watched. It was as if they were holding their breath, waiting to see whether Alejandro D’Arienzo, former England golden-boy, would accept the shirt he had played in with such glorious finesse before turning his back on the team so suddenly all those years ago.

The cameras zoomed in, but the sinister stillness of his face gave nothing away.

And then a huge roar of delight and excitement went up as Alejandro took hold of the hem of his own shirt and brought it slowly upwards over his head. Every hollow, every perfectly defined muscle beneath the bronze, sweat-sheened skin of his taut stomach filled the huge screens at both ends of the ground. And then, as he pulled the Barbarians shirt right off, the crowd screamed and whistled as they saw the tattoo of the sun—the symbol on the Argentine flag—right over his heart.

Vaguely aware that her chest hurt with the effort of breathing, and her fists were clenched so tightly that the fingernails were digging into her palms, Tamsin turned away with a snort of disgust.

Sure, Alejandro D’Arienzo was gorgeous. That was indisputable. But so was the fact that he was the coldest, most arrogant bastard who had ever breathed. It was just that most people hadn’t been unlucky enough to see that side of him.

She had. And she still bore the scars. So why was she turning round again, and staring like some moon-struck adolescent as he walked back across the pitch, pulling on the white shirt? The crowd were on their feet, turning the stands into a rippling sea of red and white as they waved their flags joyously at seeing their unforgotten hero back in an England shirt.

And suddenly it hit her; the implication of what she had just witnessed finally penetrated her dazed brain.

An England shirt.

Alejandro D’Arienzo in an England shirt.

A precious, produced-at-the-last-minute, paid-for-in-blood-sweat- and-tears England shirt… One of the ones she absolutely couldn’t afford to lose.

‘No!’

With a horrified gasp, Tamsin leapt forward, her four-inch heels sinking into the mud as she desperately tried to push her way through the crush of journalists, coaches, physios and groupies to reach the mouth of the tunnel before he did.

‘Please, I have to…’

It was as if she was invisible. There were too many people, and the noise from the ecstatic crowd was too great. The moment he stepped from the pitch, journalists closed around Alejandro like iron filings around a magnet, and Tamsin was forced backwards by an impenetrable wall of bodies. Her heart was hammering, her body suddenly pulsing with heat beneath her heavy coat, and all thoughts but one had been driven from her shocked brain.

The shirt. She had to get the shirt back, or else…

With a whimper of horror, she tried again, taking advantage of her relative slightness to duck beneath the arm of a muscular ground official in a fluorescent jacket. Someone behind grabbed her coat and tried to pull her back, but panic gave her strength, and with a desperate lunge Tamsin broke free.

The England number two in front of her turned round and, recognising her, moved aside to let her through. At the same moment Alejandro finished talking to a journalist and stepped forwards.

There was hardly time to register what was happening, much less to stop it. Already unsteady on last night’s killer heels, Tamsin felt herself hurtling forwards into open space, where she’d expected to encounter a solid and immovable row of muscular bodies, but just as she was falling strong arms seized her and she was lifted off her feet.

‘Tamsin! Steady, darlin’.’ It was Matt Fitzpatrick, the England number five. He grinned at her good-naturedly, revealing a missing front tooth. ‘Don’t tell me—when you saw my glorious try in the first half you finally realised you couldn’t live without me?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m…I need…’ Her voice came out as a breathless croak, and she looked wildly around, just in time to see Alejandro disappearing into the tunnel. ‘Him,’ she said in a hoarse whisper.

Matt shrugged his shoulders and gave a theatrical sigh of regret. ‘I see. Can’t argue with that, I suppose.’ And with that he hoisted her into his muscular arms and pushed easily through the crowd before she could protest. ‘D’Arienzo!’

Horror flooded her and she let out a squeal, which bounced off the walls of the tunnel. ‘Matt, no!’ she shrieked, wriggling frantically in his giant’s arms, aware that her coat had fallen off her shoulders and the skirt of her tight black-satin cocktail dress was riding up to mid-thigh, showing the lacy tops of her stockings. But it was too late. As if in slow motion, she watched Alejandro stop.

Turn.

Look at her.

And then look away, without the slightest flicker of interest or recognition.

‘Yes?’

He was talking to Matt, his eyebrows raised slightly.

‘Someone wants you,’ grinned Matt, setting her down on her feet. Tamsin ducked her head. Her blood felt like it had been diluted with five parts of vodka as misery churned inside her, mixing uneasily with wild relief. He didn’t recognise her. Of course he didn’t—her hair had been darker then, and longer. She’d been younger.

And she’d meant absolutely nothing to him.

It was fine. It was good. The humiliation of facing him again if he’d remembered that night would have been terminally appalling. Some in-built instinct for self-preservation told her not to look up, not to meet the eyes of the man who had blown her world to smithereens and walked away without a scratch, to keep her head down.

Oh, God. Her self-preservation instinct hadn’t reckoned on the effect of looking at the length of his bare, muscular thighs.

‘Really?’ he said in a quiet, steel-edged voice. ‘And what could Lady Tamsin Calthorpe possibly want with me?’