Page 15 of Virgin's Stolen Nights with the Boss

No need to perform in the incredibly highly skilled art of equestrian ballet.

No management responsibilities.

She could just put her head down and get on with it...

Excitement bubbled in her for the first time since Papá had died.

Malibu!

The hills, the oceans, the horses...

Surely there she would be able to find herself?

Carmen de Luca, stable hand.

Why not?

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOUHAVENOexperience with polo?’

‘None.’ Carmen shook her head as she walked through the impressive stables with Blake, the yard manager. ‘But I have worked with dancing horses.’

‘Dancing horses?’ Blake gave a slight, almost derisive laugh, perhaps thinking her heavy Spanish accent meant she had chosen the wrong word. ‘You mean dressage?’

‘Well, yes, that too, but...’ She shrugged, remembering that she didn’t want to reveal the extent of her real skills or experience. ‘Sort of...’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Blake said. ‘We need someone to stay back on game day. We’ve got a couple of mares in foal, as well as—’

He halted their conversation and called out to one of the grooms to stop letting the horses out.

‘Domitian is out,’ he said, and then explained what he’d meant to Carmen. ‘We have a stallion causing problems. He’s usually taken out later in the day, but Elias wanted him to expend some energy before the vet examines him.’

He stopped discussing the stallion and got on with listing the duties Carmen would be expected to carry out.

‘Exercising, cooling, settling...’

Carmen hadn’t planned to do any riding on her working holiday, so hadn’t brought her gear. In keeping with her attempt at budgeting she wore some dreadful brown cotton trousers she’d found in a thrift store, as well as scruffy second-hand Cuban-heeled boots that were just a little too big. She had topped off the look with her favourite T-shirt from home, which was navy and had boldly written across the chestNO BAILO. As always, she had on dark leather gloves—her biggest expense as she’d had to buy them new. Her hair was pulled back in a low ponytail and her whole look was such that she was glad there weren’t any mirrors around the stable yard.

Furthermore, she had spent alotof hours sitting at a bus stop, so she could arrive fifteen minutes before the start of her early-morning interview ready to prove herself.

Strangely, apart from downplaying her experience of competing and stable management, she felt she was finally being herself—her true and honest self.

So determined was she to get this job that she had packed up her things and given notice on the apartment, knowing they wanted someone who could start immediately. She hoped her backpack indicated as much to the yard manager.

It wasn’t her scruffy attire that was the issue, though. He was clearly in doubt as to her ability to manage these very expensive and tempestuous horses.

‘You’d be...what...all of a hundred pounds?’

Perhaps the equestrian world was the only one where you could get away with asking someone their weight at a job interview, but just then a rider came into the yard on a steaming black stallion and Carmen acknowledged that Blake’s question was possibly merited.

Blake greeted the rider. ‘Hey, Elias, how was he?’

‘Guess,’ came the surly response.

That single word demanded her sudden attention. Because Carmen looked up from the magnificent horse, snorting and blowing, and saw who the rider was.

It was the man from the other night! From the hotel ballroom! Carmen was incredibly grateful that he was too focused on containing the stallion even to notice her.

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