The Spanish Groom

He sounded mesmeric. Dixie couldn’t peel her wet eyes from him either. In the dusk light, his bronzed features were half in shadow, dark eyes glimmering silver beneath the sort of long, incredibly luxuriant black lashes that would drive any sane woman blessed with less to despair.

‘My dog, Spike…’ she muttered uncertainly, so very, very tired it was becoming an effort even to string words together, her mind a confused sea of incomplete thoughts and fears.

‘Spike can come too. One of my staff will pick up the rest of your possessions tomorrow. You won’t have anything to do,’ César asserted gently.

At that moment, the concept of not having anything to do impressed Dixie like the offer of manna from heaven. ‘I…I—’

César slid out of the driver’s seat, strolled round the front and opened the door beside her. ‘Come on,’ he urged.

And Dixie found herself doing as she was told, all the fight drained out of her. ‘A harmless fiction’, César had called it. A pretend engagement to make Jasper’s last days happy. And it would make Jasper happy. She knew how much Jasper longed to see César on the road to creating the family circle that Jasper had never managed to create for himself. Maybe lying wasn’t always wrong…

Her landlady emerged from her small flat on the ground floor. As she broke into angry, accusing speech, César settled a wad of banknotes into her hand. ‘Miss Robinson will be moving out. I hope this takes care of her notice.’

A PHONE WAS RINGING somewhere horribly close to Dixie’s ears. Struggling to cling to sleep, she sighed with relief when the shrill buzz stopped, but her eyes slowly opened on the dawning realisation that she didn’t have a phone in her flat.

Her brain in a fog, Dixie surveyed her unfamiliar surroundings. For a moment she couldn’t even remember where she was. Then her attention fell on the suitcase lying open with miscellaneous garments tumbling untidily out of it. And whoosh, everything came back in a rush; she was in César Valverde’s London home.

The phone by the bed started ringing again. This time Dixie reached for the receiver. ‘Hello?’ she said nervously.

‘Rise and shine, Dixie.’ César Valverde’s rich, dark drawl jerked her bolt upright in the bed. ‘It’s half-six and I want you in the gym by eight, dressed appropriately and fully awake.’

‘The gym?’ Dixie was aghast at the news that she was expected to be up before seven in the morning, particularly on a Saturday. Even Spike was still asleep in his basket. He was as fond of sleeping in as his owner.

‘I’ve engaged a fitness instructor to put you through your paces,’ César completed drily, and rang off.

A fitness instructor? Dixie stared into space with wide eyes, picturing some giant, suntanned musclebound male standing over her like a bullying sergeant-major, bawling instructions liberally splattered with abuse. She shrank. Maybe the instructor would be nice and break her in gently. She tried to imagine César hiring someone nice. Hope dwindled fast. The fitness instructor would be tough and pitiless. César was, after all, the male who had called her a lazy lump.

Scrambling out of bed, Dixie roused Spike and left the bedroom. A short corridor beyond led out to a small enclosed courtyard.

On her arrival the night before, Dixie had been handed over to César’s butler, Fisher, like an unwelcome parcel. The comfortable en suite bedroom she had been assigned on the ground floor was former staff accommodation. Dixie had understood the distinction being made. She was not going to be treated like an honoured guest in César Valverde’s palatial Georgian mansion.

Having attended to Spike’s needs, she went for a shower. Appropriate clothing? Dixie had never been in a gym in her life. A baggy pair of sweat-pants and an oversized T-shirt were all she had to wear. The unflattering combination made her look as wide as she was tall. A slim Dixie Mark Two? But what if the exercise routine worked? a more seductive voice asked, and she dawdled by the mirror then, imagining Scott suddenly recognising her as a member of the female sex…

Her stomach growling with hunger, she was about to go off in search of the kitchen when a quiet knock sounded on the door.

Fisher appeared with a tray bearing a tall glass filled with some strange greyish green liquid. ‘Miss Stevens faxed your diet plan to Cook yesterday,’ the butler explained. ‘I believe this is the lady’s own personal recipe for an early-morning energy boost.’

‘Oh…’ In bewilderment, Dixie accepted the glass. Diet plan? She didn’t like the sound of that. She was willing to exercise, but diet? And who on earth was Fisher talking about?

‘Miss Stevens?’ Dixie queried with a frown.

‘Gilda Stevens, the fitness instructor,’ Fisher supplied expressionlessly. ‘Her instructions regarding your menus were most precise.’

At that point, Dixie’s tummy gave an embarrassing gurgle. So her fitness instructor was a woman. Taking a sip of the noxious brew, Dixie tried not to grimace. A cruel woman. The drink tasted like dishwater with bits of floating weed, but, remembering her manners, Dixie drank it down and waited eagerly to be told when she might receive her first meal of the day.

‘Mr Valverde will be in the gym in five minutes,’ the butler informed her as he retrieved the glass and returned to the door.

‘What about breakfast? Do I eat later…or something?’

‘That was breakfast, Miss Robinson.’ At her aghast look of disbelief, the older man averted his eyes.

‘A drink…a drink is all I’m allowed on this plan?’ Dixie breathed shakily.

In silence, the older man nodded.

Fisher gave her directions to the gym. On her way there she caught tantalising glimpses of magnificent paintings, marble floors and wonderful rugs. She was not surprised to walk into a superb purpose-built gymnasium worthy of the most élite health club.

At the far end of the spacious room, César was lounging elegantly back against a piece of machinery that looked like an instrument for torture. He was talking to a brunette wearing less clothing than Dixie wore in bed. Presumably Gilda Stevens. A tiny white crop top adorned the lady’s dainty bosom. Skintight white shorts hugged her impossibly slender hips. Every inch of visible skin was tanned and satin smooth.

Oh, no, why does she have to be so gorgeous? Dixie thought, cringing from such a cruel comparison, such an impossible peak of feminine perfection.

Tall and supremely authoritative in a dark designer suit, sunglasses dangling from one brown hand, César spoke without turning his dark, arrogant head. ‘Don’t skulk, Dixie. Come and join us. Gilda’s done us a very special favor in agreeing to devote her personal attention to you at such short notice.’

The very thin brunette studied Dixie critically as she walked towards her.

Dixie flushed, her soft mouth tightening with embarrassment. César swivelled round, as light as a dancer on his feet in spite of his size. His winged brows pleated as he took in her appearance with frowning dark deep-set eyes. ‘Haven’t you got anything more suitable to wear?’

‘Dixie would probably feel too self-conscious in more revealing garments. I’ve seen this so many times before,’ Gilda Stevens informed them both. ‘Fortunately, diet and exercise can work real miracles—’

‘Look…’ Dixie began. ‘I’m not an inanimate object you can discuss—’

‘I’ll send out for some gear for you,’ César cut in, lean bronzed features already distant as he strode towards the door.

Gilda gave Dixie a cool, assessing appraisal from glassy blue eyes, and a panicky sensation twisted Dixie’s empty tummy. Before she could even think about what she was doing, she raced in César Valverde’s wake. Suddenly he felt like her only friend.

‘César!’ she gasped strickenly.

At the door he wheeled round, brilliant eyes glittering with impatience.

‘César…she’s not a normal woman,’ Dixie whispered almost pleadingly. ‘When she stands sideways on she’s only about six inches wide! I didn’t know anybody could be that thin and still live…and of course I look enormous to her, but I can’t help the shape I was born with!’

After a stunned pause, César threw back his arrogant head and burst out laughing.

‘It’s not funny,’ Dixie hissed in severe mortification. ‘When you talked about hard work and effort, you didn’t mention depriving me of food and putting a stick-insect in charge of me. Did you see how she looked at me? Like I was the size of an elephant and she wanted to skin me?’

César pivoted round to the wood-panelled wall and braced one lean hand against it as he struggled to contain his mirth. Turning his head back to her, silvered dark eyes still vibrant with reluctant amusement, he murmured drily, ‘It’s the deal, Dixie. Gilda has an international reputation in the fitness field.’

‘I’m hungry,’ Dixie mumbled tightly, but, disorientatingly, she found that she couldn’t take her eyes off him. With laughter dying out of his lean, strong face and his cool, dark brooding air of detachment banished, she glimpsed a different César Valverde. A devastatingly masculine male with megawatt charisma, she recognised in some shock. Colouring with discomfiture, she dragged her eyes from him and stared at the wall instead.

‘Tough…no pain, no gain,’ César rhymed without pity.

‘Have you ever been on a diet, César?’ Out of the corner of her eye she could see his classic profile, and she found her head easing round towards him again without her own volition.

‘I’m too disciplined to over-indulge.’

Dredging her attention from a profile worthy of a Greek sculptor, Dixie decided it would be safer to study the natural wood floor.

‘Don’t do that…it always winds me up!’ César imparted with startling abruptness. ‘Look at me when I’m speaking to you!’