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Rio de Santos did not believe in fate.

It was true that life was like a game of cards. You were dealt a hand to play but, in the end, your skill was all that mattered.

Rio was skillful.

When he knew something was right for him, he went after it. It was the way he'd acquired the financial empire that spanned two continents, the ranch high in the hills outside Madrid, the penthouse in New York, the beautiful women who warmed his bed ? although acquiring them required no skill at all.

They had come to him since he'd turned 16, more than a dozen years ago. He'd been working for a rancher in Barcelona. By day, he rode horses. By night, he rode the rancher's wife.

"Gorgeous," she'd whispered, as she'd undressed him.

Rio smiled as his silver Learjet swooped over the Texas landscape. The lady had taught him much. How to please a woman. How to make her want to please him. How to ease himself, gently, out of a relationship when it grew stale, as all relationships eventually did.

His smile faded.

Either she had not taught him enough, or he had not been as good a pupil as he'd imagined. Otherwise, why would Esmé Bennett have been the first woman to leave him before he'd tired of her?

It wasn't ego that made this fact troubling. It wasn't that he wanted her back, either. Hadn't he known it was time to end things? Six months with one woman was three months too many. That had always been his rule; he still had no idea why he'd deviated from it but when he realized he had, he'd begun to wind things down. More flowers, more gifts; fewer phone calls, fewer intimate evenings. That had been the plan, anyway, but somehow, it had gone wrong.

Rio folded his arms, his frown deepening to a glower.

One weekend, when he was away, Esmé had vanished from his life.

What sort of woman left a man without a word? No note. No phone call. Nothing but a recorded voice saying that her telephone number was no longer in service.

Rio had gone to her apartment, in a part of Greenwich Village that was still a slum as far as he was concerned ? she'd refused to give it up even though he'd offered to move her closer to him, on the East Side ?

Señor de Santos?"

? and found the place empty. He'd had to hire a private investigator; after all, she could have been ill, or hurt. It had been the right thing to do. The surprise was not that the P.I. found her but that he found her in Texas. Coolly urbane Esmé Bennett had left the city, had left him, for a ranch called Espada. As it happened, Rio knew of the place. It bred some of the finest horses in the world.

A man who believed in fate would have found that interesting. Rio simply found it convenient.

Among other things, he was a rancher. It was only logical he'd improve the bloodlines of his horses by adding an Espada-bred stallion or mare to his stock.

"Sir? You said you'd want to take the controls when we neared Austin."

Rio looked up. His pilot was standing beside him, a polite smile on his lips.

Rio cleared his throat and rose to his feet. "Thank you, Jack."

He ducked his head as he went through the cockpit door, then buckled himself into the pilot's seat. He liked to fly, liked the combined sense of freedom and control it gave him. It was always a propitious way to start a business trip, and that was all this was.

He'd do a little horse-trading with Jonas Baron and if, in the process, he saw Esmé, if he found himself alone with her, if he were still curious enough to give a damn?maybe then he'd ask her why she had left him.

Not that he wanted her back.

Hell, no, Rio thought grimly, and took the jet down toward Espada and whatever was in store for him there?had he been foolish enough to believe in fate.

To be continued?