Chapter 12

“ T O THE LEFT, MILO. LEFT. LEFT,” Hendricks yells, hands cupped around his mouth for a makeshift megaphone. “LEFT FOR FUCK’S SAKE.”

He’s too far over the field to hear, but let’s call it that twin thing, because Miles spins his pony, leans so far out of his saddle he’s defying gravity, and smacks the ball perfectly between the goalposts.

The crowds go wild; Aspen glitterati cheering, whistling, and, like Lando, sloshing their drinks everywhere as their hands shoot up in the air.

Miles’s team—distinguishable in their navy shirts with pale blue numbers stitched onto the back—has taken the lead at the end of the second chukka, thanks to our baby brother. The umpire’s flag goes up, and the ponies thunder back down the snow-covered field to where their grooms are waiting to lead them off.

“How the fuck did he make that shot?” Lando marvels, with a shake of his head and a broad grin. It’s a grin like the Lando of old, pre-Caroline.

Neither Hendricks nor I answer because it’s a rhetorical question, the same one we ask every time we watch Miles play.

He has this innate ability to get a pony to do whatever he asks of them in situations that seem impossible to anyone else. While all four of us have ridden since we could walk, Miles is the one with the talent inherited from our father.

He would have loved to watch him.

“I’m going to the bar before the next chukka. Same again?” Lando asks but walks off without waiting for a response.

Hendricks lifts a beer bottle to his lips and drains it. “At least we know where Max gets it from.”

Ah yes, Maxwell Burlington—next generation’s future England polo player.

“How is my favorite nephew?” I turn and ask. “Enjoying some time with Granny and Auntie Clementine?”

He rolls his eyes, and his cheeks puff with a dry chuckle.

While Hendricks has a full-time nanny to help with Max, our mother also likes to spend as much time with him as possible, and she’s wrapped around his finger. It’s something we’re all aware of, including my three-year-old nephew. Therefore, it’s highly likely we’ll return to a child hopped up on sugar who’s had far too many late nights.

“ Granny took him to meet Father Christmas yesterday. I swear I’ll get back to Burlington and my son will have put in a parent transfer request or whatever. He’s three, and he already thinks I’m boring as fuck.” He laughs dryly. “Boring father. Absent mother. Poor kid.”

Max is a result of a brief romance Hendricks had with a girl he met one night in London. It wasn’t anything serious, and they’d hook up whenever he was in the city. A couple of months in, she told him she was pregnant, and she was keeping the baby. Once the initial shock wore off, Hendricks, in his typical unruffled fashion, took his impending fatherhood in his stride—supporting Sienna—Max’s mother—as best he could, attending all the pre-baby meetings with doctors and choosing hospitals, and whatever else goes on when you’re about to have a baby.

I wouldn’t know.

However, when Max was six months old, Hendricks came over to my house in what could only be described as an emotional state. Miles was in Argentina playing polo, and I’m the next rung on the ladder for problem solving.

Since they’d discovered Sienna was pregnant, Hendricks had been trying to make a relationship with her work. He reduced his hours at his clinic to spend more time in London, but even during her pregnancy it became clear that the longer he spent with her, the less he liked her. It didn’t help that Hendricks is a country boy through and through. His days comprise of healing sick animals, whereas Sienna seemed to be allergic to being out of London in a way that no amount of antihistamine could help.

But then Max arrived; this blue-eyed, dark-haired baby boy, and we all fell in love with him.

Everyone, except Sienna.

Sienna still wanted to go out and party. She wanted to party with Hendricks’s money, while Hendricks stayed home and looked after their newborn son. Which he did. To say it caused strain in their relationship is an understatement. He wanted her to have her life—he hired help, he gave her everything she needed to feel like she had her life—but Max still needed to be the priority, and it was clear he wasn’t.

The last straw was when she disappeared to Ibiza for two weeks with some friends. Hendricks had gone back to Valentine Nook for the day to help deliver a foal, and Sienna told the nanny to drop Max off at Burlington.

It didn’t take long for the judge to award Hendricks full custody. In the eighteen months since Max has lived at Burlington with us, Sienna’s seen him six times. Usually when she wants more money. Hendricks barely left his side while Max settled into his new stability. He’s the sweetest, kindest little boy, usually found covered in mud and with a dog or two following him somewhere. Max loves his life—he doesn’t really know any different—but I know Hendricks carries a huge amount of guilt for choosing the wrong woman, as he often puts it, and denying Max the opportunity for two parents.

But I don’t know anyone who’s a better father than my brother.

“You are pretty boring, Henners.” I ruffle his head with a laugh. “Especially compared to Granny and Auntie Clementine.”

“Yeah, I know.” He grins. “But I guess my son will have to deal with it. At least until he’s eighteen.”

I pick up my beer and sip. “He will.”

“This week is the longest I’ve ever been away from him, you know,” he adds quietly.

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Ready to go home?”

“Absolutely.” He grins wide. “But, I’m glad we came, even if it was under these particular circumstances. I think we all needed this break together.”

I nod in agreement. The pair of us are looking out on the polo field, but I can tell Hendricks is side-eyeing me.

“Are you ready to go home? Or not wanting to leave a certain tree seller quite yet?”

I pause before shrugging, as I think about my answer.

“Because…I know it’s hard for you, Al. Christmas. It’s hard for all of us. We all miss him, we just chose to do it differently. But the past few days, you’ve seemed more relaxed than usual…” He goes quiet. “I thought maybe it was because we’ve all been swept up in the Lando and Caroline drama.”

My answer is, I’m ready to go home. The anniversary of my father’s death is next week, and it always brings an added edge of anxiety to December for me on top of all the Christmas stuff. And on that day, I like to be back home at Burlington, with my family.

But Hendricks is right, we have all been swept up in the Lando and Caroline drama, which could be the reason why I haven’t been quite so bothered about the Christmassy-ness of this week.

Except it’s not.

And it’s not because I was with my brothers—just the four of us together for the first time in a long time.

It’s Haven.

There’s something about this girl. This insanely hot girl, with her insanely hot body—both hard and soft in all the right places. The girl I may possibly have had the best night of sex in my life with, her Christmas nails wrapped around my dick.

I enjoy her company. I like hearing her laugh. I like making her laugh.

And bizarrely, it’s the Christmas thing. Yeah, I know.

I like her love of all things Christmas, because her parents loved it. Her parents died and they loved Christmas, so she loves Christmas.

My dad died, and it killed any love I had for Christmas.

The irony.

I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s why I left her that night, it’s why I didn’t go to the bakery yesterday. It’s why I made her store out of gingerbread.

It had been one of those lightbulb moments where you can’t quite pinpoint exactly where it came from.

Lando, Hendricks, and I had been aimlessly sticking pieces of gingerbread together, trying to decide what to make. Miles had mostly been breaking off chunks and dunking it into his coffee, while banging on about what great work we’d done with decorating the tree we bought. Hendricks was telling us how Max had been playing with Auntie Clementine’s old dolls’ house, but complaining about how there weren’t any Christmas trees in it.

What if we made Haven’s tree shop? I had suggested.

I’d ordered a rush delivery on Amazon, and all the dolls’ house furniture I could find arrived the next morning. I’m still undecided whether it was a totally over-the-top stupid idea.

“Did you see Haven when you dropped the house off?”

I nod. “Yeah, she was in her shop, so I went and told her.”

I can still feel the insane electricity between us, the second it sparked after she looked up and saw me standing there. My dick can feel it too.

“Did we earn first place?” He grins.

“I’m quietly confident we have.” I laugh. “I know you didn’t sign up to make gingerbread, but it was a fun day. I owe you big time for helping. Always useful having someone who can cook.”

He turns to me with knitted brows. “Al, we didn’t cook anything.”

“Yeah, but you know what I mean. You helped with all the icing and shit. And cutting the shapes. That’s cooking in my book.”

“It’s literally the opposite of cooking.” He shakes his head. “Are you seeing her again?”

I shrug. “Maybe.”

I don’t want to admit how much I want to, because I really want to.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a night like that. Not sure I’ve ever had a night like that.

Uninhibited fucking, brought on by an attraction I’ve never experienced.

“Running out of time.”

I nod. “Yeah, I know.”

“We don’t have plans tonight. Go and see her, Al. Have some fun.”

“Milo will have plans for us after he wins this match.” I laugh, as the ponies all charge back out onto the snow. I turn around in my seat. “Where’s Lan?”

“There.” Hendricks glances over in the direction of the bar and nods to Lando, who’s carrying three bottles of beer and pushing through the densely packed crowds.

“It’s a bloody scrum in there,” he grumbles, sitting down in his vacant seat. “Worse than Twickenham.”

“Told you we should have sat in the seats Miles left for us.”

“They’re too far away. I like to be next to the action.” Lando passes a bottle each to Hendricks and me as one of Miles’s teammates gallops down the edge of the field, so close to us that I feel the wind in my face.

“You won’t like it if you get smacked in the head by a flying ball.”

He lifts his bottle to his lips. “If that happens, I’ll just pull you in front of me as a shield. The ball can hit you instead.”

“Touché.”

“Hey, who’s that guy over there?” Lando nods toward the stands farther down the field, where a guy dressed head to toe in black is walking in our direction. He’s surrounded by women—short, tall, blonde, brunette, redhead—all working to keep up with his long strides. “He looks familiar.”

The three of us watch as the guy passes in front of us, eyes straight ahead. He’s almost menacingly still, completely ignoring anyone around him, while they all part like the Red Sea to let him pass. Two-thirds of the way down the field, a Rolls-Royce SUV pulls up between the spectator stands, where the guy swaps out with the driver, and leaves.

“Santiago Torres,” replies Hendricks, his tone dripping in scorn and disapproval. “The Argentinian number three.”

“Him? That’s the guy Milo got in a fight with last year when he nearly got trampled on?”

“The very same.”

“What’s he doing here? I thought he was banned from polo for two years.”

Hendricks shrugs. “He was. Is.”

“Does Miles know?”

Hendricks shrugs again. “He wasn’t here yesterday, he would have mentioned it.”

“Bloody hell, he won’t be pleased,” I reply, just as Miles scores another goal and the crowd once more whoops and hollers. “Shit, need to pay attention to this. Miles will definitely quiz us on ‘what we feel were his best moments of his game.’”

“Definitely that second goal,” adds Lando.

Miles’s team wins four goals to two.

As predicted, the party starts immediately after. Champagne is freely poured into anyone’s empty glass. Burgers and fried chicken are offered around on platters. Polo fans are everywhere. Miles disappears with a girl. The evening draws in and nighttime descends like a set of blackout blinds. Fire pits are lit, industrial heaters are turned on, and a plethora of blankets are handed out.

I spend most of the next few hours with Lando and Hendricks, my mind drifting back to Haven every couple of minutes, wondering what she’s doing and where she is. I ruminate on whether to go and find her or leave our night for what it was. One night of glorious fucking.

Because what’s the point in going back for more when I leave in two days?

But the pull of seeing her again becomes too strong, and I find myself calling a driver to take me up to her house.

I don’t have her phone number, I don’t even know if she’s there.

I second-guess myself for the entire journey until I knock on the front door, and know that coming here was possibly the best decision of my life to date.

She answers wearing sleep shorts, a thick pair of woolly socks, and a hoodie with Wylder Ranch on the front, along with a smile and green eyes as wide as dinner plates. Her hair is loose, tumbling down her shoulders, and all I want to do is wrap it around my fist.

“I’m here to bribe the judge,” I manage to say before she tugs on the front of my jacket, pulling me into the house, and my lips crash to hers.