The Spanish Groom

Sick with apprehension, Dixie knocked on the door of her lofty employer’s office and walked in, a band of tension tightening round her head, her mouth bone-dry and her palms damp.

César Valverde spun lithely round from the wall of glass which overlooked the City skyline and studied her. ‘You’re late,’ he delivered icily.

‘I’m really sorry…I just don’t know where the time went.’ Dixie studied the deep-pile carpet, wishing it would open up and swallow her and disgorge her only when the interview was safely over.

‘That is not an acceptable excuse.’

‘That’s why I apologised,’ Dixie pointed out in a very small voice without looking up.

There was really no need to look up. In her mind’s eye she could still see César Valverde standing there, as formidable and unfeeling as a hitman. And close to him she always felt murderously awkward, not to mention all hot and bothered. Yet he was physically quite beautiful, a little voice pointed out absently inside her head.

He had the lean dark face of a fallen angel, blessed with such perfect bone structure that at first glance he knocked women flat with his spectacular sleek Mediterranean looks. Hair thick and glossy as ebony. Eyes the same colour as dark bitter chocolate, which blazed into the strangest silver in strong light. Mouth mobile, wide and sensual. A sensationally attractive male animal, but at second glance he had always chilled Dixie to the marrow.

Those stunning eyes were hard and cold, that shapely mouth rarely smiled, except at someone else’s misfortune, and those sculpted cheekbones stamped his features with a quality of merciless unemotional detachment which intimidated. He might radiate raw sexuality like a forcefield, but Dixie still prided herself on being the only woman in the whole building who was repulsed by César Valverde. The guy could give a freezer pneumonia just by arching one satiric brow.

Belatedly conscious of the dragging silence, Dixie emerged from her own reflections and glanced nervously up. Her pupils dilated, her heartbeat quickening as she stared. A decided frown on his striking dark features, César Valverde was strolling in a soundless circle round her, his piercing gaze intent on her now shrinking figure.

‘What’s wrong?’ she breathed, thoroughly disconcerted by his behaviour and the intensity of his scrutiny. ‘Dio mio…what’s right?’ His frown deepened as her slight shoulders drooped. ‘Straighten up…don’t slouch like that,’ he told her.

Flushing, Dixie did as she was told. She was relieved when he positioned himself against the edge of his immaculately tidy glass desk.

‘Do you recall the terms of the employment contract you signed before you started work here?’

Dixie thought about that and then guiltily shook her head. She had had to fill in and sign an avalanche of papers at speed that first day.

‘You didn’t bother to study the contract,’ César gathered with a curled lip.

‘I was desperate for a job…I would have signed anything.’

‘But if you’d read your contract, you would have known that getting into debt is grounds for instant dismissal.’

That unexpected revelation struck Dixie like a sudden blow. She stared at him in horror, soft full lips falling apart, what colour there was in her cheeks slowly, painfully draining away. César studied her the way a shark studies wounded prey before moving in for the kill. In silence he extended a computer printout.

With an unsteady hand, Dixie grasped at the sheet. Her heart felt as if it was thumping at the foot of her throat, making it impossible for her to breathe. The same names and figures which already haunted her every waking hour swam before her eyes and her tummy flipped in shock.

‘Security turned that up this morning. Regular financial checks are made on all staff,’ César informed her smoothly.

‘You’re sacking me,’ Dixie assumed sickly, swaying slightly.

Striding forward, César reached for a chair and planted it beside her. ‘Sit down, Miss Robinson.’

Dixie fumbled blindly down into the chair before her knees gave way beneath her. She was waiting for him to ask how such a junior employee could possibly have amassed debts amounting to such a staggering total. Indeed, in that instant of overwhelming shock and embarrassment, she was actually eager to explain how, through a series of awful misunderstandings and mishaps, such a situation had developed through no real fault of her own.

‘I have not the slightest interest in hearing a sob story,’ César Valverde delivered deflatingly as he lounged back against his desk again, his impossibly tall, lean and powerful length taking up a formidably relaxed pose.

‘But I want to explain—’

‘There is no need for you to explain anything. Debts of that nature are self-explanatory. You have a taste for living above your means and you like to party—’

Cringing at the knowledge that he knew about those shameful debts in her name, and her equally shameful inability to settle them, Dixie broke back into speech. ‘No, Mr Valverde. I—’

‘If you interrupt me again, I won’t offer you my assistance,’ César Valverde interposed with icy bite.

Struggling to understand that assurance, Dixie tipped back her wildly curly head and gaped at him. ‘Assistance?’ she stressed blankly.

‘I’m prepared to offer you another form of employment.’

In complete confusion, Dixie blinked.

‘But if you take on the role, it will entail a great deal of hard work and effort on your part.’

Sinking ever deeper into bewilderment, but ready to snatch at any prospect of continuing employment like a drowning swimmer snatches at a branch, Dixie nodded eagerly. ‘I’m not afraid of hard work, Mr Valverde.’

Obviously he was talking about demoting her. Where did you go from office junior? Dixie wondered frantically. Scrubbing the floors in the cafeteria kitchen?

César sent her a gleaming glance. ‘You’re really not in a position to turn my offer down.’

‘I know,’ Dixie acknowledged with total humility, suddenly starting to squirm at the reality of how much she had always disliked him. Evidently she had completely misjudged César Valverde’s character. Even though he had a legitimate excuse to sack her, he seemed to be willing to give her another chance. And if that meant scrubbing the canteen kitchen floor, she ought to say thank you from the bottom of her heart and get on with it.

‘Jasper hasn’t been well.’

The switch in subject disconcerted Dixie. Her strained face shadowed. ‘By what he’s said in his letters he still hasn’t quite got over that chest trouble he had in the spring.’

César looked grim. ‘His heart is weak.’

Dixie’s eyes prickled. That news was too much on top of all her other worries. Her stinging eyes overflowed and she dug into the pocket of her skirt to find a tissue. But the horrible news about Jasper did make sudden sense of César Valverde’s uncharacteristic tolerance, and his apparent willingness to allow her to remain in his employment by fixing her up with another job. He might not approve of her, or of her friendship with Jasper Dysart, but clearly he respected his godfather’s fondness for her. Presumably that was why he wasn’t going to kick her when she was already down.

‘At his age, Jasper can’t hope to go on for ever,’ César gritted, his unease with her emotional breakdown blatant and icily reproving.

Fighting to compose herself, Dixie blew her nose and sucked in a deep, steadying breath. ‘Will he be coming over to London this summer?’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’

Then she would never see Jasper again, she registered on a powerful tide of pain and regret. The struggle to stay abreast of the debts Petra had left behind made a trip to Spain as out of reach as a trip to the moon.

‘It’s time we got down to business,’ César drawled with perceptible impatience. ‘I need a favour, and in return for that favour I’m prepared to settle your debts.’

‘Settle my debts…what favour?’ Dixie echoed, lost as to what he could possibly be talking about and stunned by the idea of him offering to pay off those appalling bills. A favour? What sort of favour? How could her staying employed in any capacity within the Valverde Mercantile Bank be any kind of a favour to César Valverde?

César moved restively away from the desk and strode over to the window, the clear light of early summer glittering over his luxuriant hair and hard, classic profile. ‘In all probability, Jasper doesn’t have long to live,’ he spelt out harshly. ‘His dearest wish has always been that I should marry. At this present time I have no intention of fulfilling that wish, but I would very much like to please him with a harmless fiction.’

A harmless fiction? Dixie’s bemusement increased as she strained to grasp his meaning.

‘And that is where you come in,’ César informed her drily. ‘Jasper likes you. He’s very shy with your sex, and as a result he only warms to a certain type of woman. Your type. Jasper would be overjoyed if I announced that we had got engaged.’

‘We…?’ Dixie whispered weakly, certain she had missed a connecting link somewhere in that speech and beginning to stand up, as if by rising from the chair she might comprehend something that she couldn’t follow while still sitting.

César wheeled round, a forbidding cast to his lean features. ‘Your job would be to pretend that you’re engaged to me. It would be a private arrangement between us. You would play the role solely for Jasper’s benefit in Spain.’