Eight years ago Ocean Haven had been his home. For eleven years he had lived above the main stable and worked diligently with the horses—first as a groom, then as head trainer and finally as manager and captain of Charles Carmichael’s star polo team. He’d been lifted from poverty and obscurity in a two-dog town because of his horsemanship by the wealthy American who had spotted him on the hacienda where Cruz had been working at the time.
Cruz gritted his teeth.
He’d been thirteen and trying to keep his family from going under after the sudden and pointless death of his father.
Charles Carmichael, he’d later learned, had ambitious plans to one day build a polo ‘dream team’ to rival all others, and he’d seen in Cruz his future protégé. His mother had seen in him an unmanageable boy she could use to keep the rest of his siblings together. She’d said sending him off with the American would be the best for him. What she’d meant was that it would be the best for all of them, because Old Man Carmichael was paying her a small fortune to take him. Cruz had known it at the time—and hated it—but because he’d loved his family more than anything he’d acquiesced.
And, hell, in the end his mother had been right. By the age of seventeen Cruz had become the youngest player ever to achieve a ten handicap—the highest ranking any player could achieve and one that only a handful ever did. By the age of twenty he’d been touted as possibly the best polo player who had ever lived.
By twenty-three the dream was over and he’d become the joke of the very society who had kissed his backside more times than he cared to remember.
All thanks to the devious Aspen Carmichael. The devious and extraordinarily beautiful Aspen Carmichael. And what shocked Cruz the most was that he hadn’t expected it of her. She’d blindsided him and that had made him feel even more foolish.
She had come to Ocean Haven as a lonely, sweet-natured ten-year-old who had just lost her mother in a horrible accident some had whispered was suicide. He’d hardly seen her during those years. His summers had been spent playing polo in England and she had attended some posh boarding school the rest of the year. To him she’d always been a gawky kid with wild blonde hair that looked as if it could use a good pair of scissors. Then one year he’d injured his shoulder and had to spend the summer—her summer break—at Ocean Haven, and bam! She had been about sixteen and she had turned into an absolute stunner.
All the boys had noticed and wanted her attention.
So had Cruz, but he hadn’t done anything about it. Okay, maybe he’d thought about it a number of times, especially when she had thrown him those hot little glances from beneath those long eyelashes when she assumed he wasn’t looking, and, okay, possibly he could remember one or two dreams that she had starred in, but he never would have touched her if she hadn’t come on to him first. She’d been too young, too beautiful, too pure.
He found himself running his tongue along the edge of his mouth and the taste of her exploded inside his head. She sure as hell hadn’t been pure that night.
Gritting his teeth, he shoved her out of his mind. Memory could be as fickle as a woman’s nature and his aviator glasses were definitely not rose coloured where she was concerned.
‘You okay, hermano?’
Cruz swung around and stared at Ricardo without really seeing him. He liked to think he was a fair man who played by the rules. A forgive-and-forget kind of man. He’d stayed away from Ocean Haven and anything related to it after Charles Carmichael had given him the boot. Now his property had come up for sale and objectively speaking it was a prime piece of real estate. The fact that he’d have to raze it to the ground to build a hotel on it was just par for the course.
Of course his kid brother wouldn’t understand that, and he wasn’t in the mood to explain it. He’d left Mexico when Ricardo had been young. Ricardo had cried. Cruz had not. Surprisingly, after he’d returned home with his tail between his legs eight years ago, he and his brother had picked up from where they’d left off, their bond intact. It was the only bond that was.
‘I’m fine.’ He swung his gaze to Lauren. ‘And I’m not concerned about Aspen Carmichael. Old man Carmichael died owing more money than he had, thanks to the GFC, so there’s no way she can have that sort of cash lying around.’
‘No, she doesn’t,’ Lauren agreed. ‘She’s borrowing it.’
Cruz stilled. Now, that was just plain stupid. He knew Ocean Haven agisted horses and raised good-quality polo ponies, but no way would either of those bring in the type of money they were talking about.
‘She’ll never get it.’
Lauren looked as if she knew better. ‘My sources tell me she’s actually pretty close.’
Cruz ignored Ricardo’s interested gaze and kept his face visibly relaxed. ‘How close?’
‘Two-thirds close.’
‘Twenty million! Who would be stupid enough to lend her twenty million US dollars in this economic climate?’ And, more importantly, what was she using for collateral?
Lauren raised her eyebrows at his uncharacteristic outburst, but wisely stayed silent.
‘Hell!’ The burst of adrenaline he used to feel when he mounted one of his ponies before a major event winged through his blood. How on earth had she managed to raise that much money and what could he do about it?
‘Do you want me to start negotiating with her?’ Lauren queried.
‘No.’ He turned his ordinarily agile mind to come up with a solution, but all it produced was an image of a radiant teenager decked out in figure-hugging jodhpurs and a fitted shirt leaning against a white fencepost, laughing and chatting while the sun turned her wheat-blonde curls to gold. His jaw clenched and his body hardened. Great. A hard-on in gym shorts. ‘You focus on Joe Carmichael and any other offers lurking in the wings,’ he instructed his lawyer. ‘I’ll handle Aspen Carmichael.’
‘Of course,’ Lauren concurred with a brief smile.
‘In the meantime find out who Aspen is borrowing from and what exactly she’s offering as collateral—’ although as to that he had his ideas ‘—and meet me in my Acapulco office in an hour.’
Ricardo waited until Lauren had disappeared before tossing the rubber ball into the air. ‘You didn’t tell me you were buying the Carmichael place.’
‘Why would I? It’s just business.’
Ricardo’s eyebrows lifted. ‘And handling the lovely Aspen Carmichael will be part of that business?’
People said Cruz had a certain look that he got just before a major event which told his opponents they might as well pack up and go home. He gave it to his brother now. ‘This is not your concern.’
His brother, unfortunately, was one of the few people who ignored it.
‘Maybe not, but you once swore you’d never set foot on Ocean Haven again. So, what gives?’
What gave, Cruz thought, was that old Charlie had kicked the bucket and his son, Aspen’s uncle, Joseph Carmichael, couldn’t afford to run the estate and keep his English bride in diamonds and champagne so was moving to England. Cruz had assumed Aspen would be going with them—to sponge off him now that her grandfather was out of the picture.
It seemed he had assumed wrong.
But he had no intention of talking about his plans with his overly sentimental brother, who would no doubt assume there was more to it than a simple opportunity to make a lot of money. ‘I don’t have time to talk about it now,’ he said, making a split-second decision. ‘I need to organise the jet.’
‘You’re flying to East Hampton?’
‘And if I am?’ Cruz growled.
Ricardo held his hands up as if he was placating an angry bear. ‘Miama’s surprise birthday party is