Page 36 of Virgin's Stolen Nights with the Boss

‘Three months,’ Carmen said. ‘Well, I guess there are only a few weeks left now...’

Her voice faded away as it dawned on Carmen that she was going to miss being here too.

Miss moments like this...

‘She’s tired,’ Carmen said, referring to Capricorn, whose pace had started to drop off. ‘I should get her back.’

‘Sure.’

But in her stable Capricorn refused to settle.

‘Lie down for me, girl,’ Carmen said to the mare.

But even when she got the pregnant mare to lie down, she was still unsettled—as though the second Carmen left she might stand up again.

‘I used to be like that,’ Carmen said, and she lay down with the tired mare.

She told her about the nanny who had raised her after her mother left.

‘As soon as Paula tried to turn out the light I would sit up and ask her a question or ask for some water.’

She lay there, remembering, but was brought suddenly back to the present as the little foal within Capricorn moved. Carmen smiled, as the mare lay quietly, accepting the movement and completely unfazed.

‘You’re going to be a wonderful mother,’ Carmen said, and Capricorn responded with a breathyhmmph. ‘Better than mine, anyway.’

It was Carmen who hmmphed this time.

She could hear the yard quietening down as the soft light of evening fell. She took out her phone and saw that there was another message from Emily, which included some more photos of her little niece.

Josefa was eight months old now, but she had been born twelve weeks early, so was still tiny. She was catching up fast, though, and for the very first time Carmen saw herself in her niece. She was blonde, like Emily, but she had dark almond-shaped eyes and was starting to get fat cheeks...

Carmen loved little Josefa with all her heart, but this evening the sight of her niece made her want to cry. The little girl was so close to the age Carmen had been when her mother had walked out...

‘How could you leave a little girl like that?’ she asked a dozing Capricorn, who of course didn’t reply.

How could her mother have just decided, when Carmen had been less than a year old, that she wanted no part in her life?

And then twenty-five years later decide to return?

She heard hooves then, and the sound of boots. She sat up, only realising then that she’d been crying.

‘Maldito,’she cursed, and quickly wiped her eyes as she stood up, certain that Elias wouldn’t appreciate finding her lying down with one of the horses—or ponies, or whatever they were called here.

‘Carmen?’ he said, frowning when he glanced in and saw that she was there.

‘Capricorn took a while to settle,’ Carmen said, letting herself out.

He looked at the straw in Carmen’s hair and she knew he’d guessed she’d been lying down with the pregnant mare. He looked as if he was about to tell her off, but perhaps he saw how red her eyes were, and that her lashes were damp and decided she did not need scolding right now.

‘She looks peaceful,’ Elias said.

‘Yes,’ Carmen agreed.

She took a deep breath to calm herself, and it was at that very second that she fully encountered his scent. Cologne, she guessed, left over from his day spent in meetings in LA. She picked up little notes of citrus and wood—or was it wood smoke? The kind you encountered when you rode through the hills in winter? And there was another scent...one she had never really been aware of before...which she knew had to be the potent edge of masculinity, because it made her want to step closer and breathe deeper.

And then she recalled the chest and back and flat stomach she had seen that first morning...

‘I’m just going to do a final check and then head to bed,’ Carmen croaked. ‘It’s good to finally be tired.’

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