The Spanish Groom

‘Fooled?’ Bruce’s brow furrowed.

‘Now I know why she always looks half asleep—too many late nights.’

In desperation, Bruce shot his last bolt in Dizzy’s defence. ‘I guess Mr Dysart will be upset not to find her here on his next visit.’

‘Jasper’s not well. It’s unlikely that he’ll be in London in the near future.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Bruce studied his employer’s coolly uninformative face warily. Well, that was that, he acknowledged. He couldn’t say he was surprised either. César was not a soft touch. And proof of such foolish extravagance had merely increased his contempt. ‘I’ll pass the information concerning Dixie on to Human Resources.’

‘No. I’ll deal with this personally,’ César contradicted without warning.

Bruce wasn’t quite fast enough to hide his dismay.

‘I’ll see Miss Robinson at four,’ César completed.

‘She’ll be very upset, César.’

‘I think I can handle it,’ César drawled, in the sort of tone that made the younger man flush and go into retreat.

Alone again, César studied that list of creditors, a smouldering look awakening in his narrowed gaze. Jasper was very fond of little Dixie Robinson. In fact, superficially Dixie was exactly the kind of young woman Jasper longed to have César produce as the future Mrs Valverde, the sort of girl who didn’t intimidate an innocent old bachelor totally out of step with the modern world.

So there it was, out in the open. The admission that he had disappointed his godfather, César conceded with exasperated reluctance. Jasper’s deepest and most naive hope had always been that César would marry, settle down and have a family. And live happily ever after, of course, César affixed, scornfully recalling his late parents. His volatile Italian mother and equally volatile Spanish father had between them stacked up half a dozen failed marriages before dying young and anything but happy.

Wincing at the very idea of marital togetherness with any woman, but with his conscience still causing him rare discomfiture, César brooded on the problem of Jasper’s disappointment. Experience had taught César that there was no such thing as a problem without a solution. When shorn of the inhibiting factors of emotion and morality, the impossible could almost always become the possible…

No doubt Jasper fondly imagined that his veiled hints about what a wonderful wife Dixie Robinson would make some fortunate male had been too subtle to be recognised for what they were. In point of fact, Jasper had the subtlety of a sledgehammer, and when César had first picked up on his godfather’s pointed comments on the subject of his protegée he had been anything but amused.

But now César grimly acknowledged that were he to announce that he had got engaged to Dixie Robinson, Jasper would be overjoyed. César visualised Dixie with something less than joy, but Jasper thought the sun rose and set on her. And, as pleasing Jasper was César’s only goal, there would be little point in persuading any other woman into playing his temporary fiancée. What Jasper wanted, César decided there and then, Jasper deserved to receive.

As he pictured how he might sensibly stress the need for a lengthy engagement between two such disparate personalities as himself and the office klutz, César began warming to the exercise. It would make Jasper happy. And Jasper, who could spend hours just choosing a single book, would scarcely expect his godson to leap straight from an engagement into matrimony.

And Dixie Robinson? Dixie was between a rock and a hard place. She would do as she was told. Around him, she was quiet and cowed, which was just as well because César was convinced he would strangle her if she behaved any other way. He would do whatever it took to ensure that the fake engagement appeared credible. He would be nothing less than thorough…

‘AT F-FOUR?’ DIXIE stammered, pale as milk as she stood over the photocopier, striving somewhat hopelessly to conceal the ‘inoperative’ sign flashing above a pile of discarded photocopies printed with impossibly tiny type. ‘But why would Mr Valverde want to see me?’

Already conscious that his attempt to speak up on her behalf had taxed César’s patience, Bruce did not dare utter a word of warning.

‘Is it about that Arab guy whose call I cut off?’

Bruce tensed. ‘He doesn’t know about that.’

‘That file I accidentally took out?’

Bruce paled at the reminder. ‘You got it back from the bus company.’

Dixie gulped. ‘I’ve been trying so hard to stay out of Mr Valverde’s way…it’s just he keeps on popping up in the most unexpected places.’

‘César likes to be visible. What sort of unexpected places?’ Bruce could not resist asking.

‘Like the kitchen…when I was icing the cake for Jayne’s leaving party last week. Mr Valverde went through the roof,’ Dixie recounted, half under her breath, shuddering at the recollection. ‘He asked me if I thought I was working in a bakery and I ended up spelling her name wrong. Then yesterday he walked into that little room the cleaning staff use and found me asleep…he gave me the biggest fright of my life!’

‘César expects all his employees to make a special effort to stay awake between nine and five,’ Bruce responded, deadpan.

Currently working two jobs just to keep a roof over her head, Dixie gave him an abstracted look, her eyes, so dark a blue they were violet, strained with anxiety and tiredness. Fear emanated from her in waves. Small though she was, she seemed to grow even smaller as she hunched her shoulders and bowed her head, the explosive mop of her long curly dark brown hair falling over her softly rounded face. She was terrified of César Valverde, had become acquainted with every hiding place on the executive floor within days of arriving there.

But then she had started out on the wrong foot, hadn’t she? Her big mouth, she conceded glumly. While covering for the receptionist during her afternoon break, Dixie had begun chatting to the gorgeous blonde seated in the waiting area. In an effort to make entertaining conversation, she had mentioned the world-famous model, Mr Valverde had entertained on his yacht the previous weekend. And then her employer had strolled out of the elevator…

And without the slightest warning all hell had broken loose! The blonde, who it later transpired had actually been waiting for César Valverde, had risen to her feet to throw a jealous fit of outrage and accuse him of being a ‘love-rat’.

Dixie’s co-workers had very decently acknowledged that that charge might well have some basis in fact, but it was not an allegation César had expected to face within the hallowed portals of the bank because one of his own staff had been recklessly indiscreet. Indeed what César had had to say about Dixie’s gossiping tongue had been, as one of the directors had frankly admitted while trying hard not to smile, unrepeatable. Since then she had been banned from manning Reception.

‘Is César dating any nice girls at present?’ Jasper always asked hopefully in his letters to Dixie, not seeming to appreciate that at the threat of what his godfather deemed a ‘nice girl’ César Valverde would undoubtedly run a mile. It was a well-worn joke in the bank that César’s answer to commitment was escape.

But Dixie’s troubled face softened at the thought of Jasper Dysart. He was a dear old man, but she hadn’t seen him in months because he lived in Spain most of the year, having found the hot climate eased his arthritic joints.

Dixie had met Jasper the previous summer. She had been walking down the street when a thuggish bunch of youths had carelessly pushed him aside when he didn’t get out of their way fast enough. Jasper had fallen and cut his head. Dixie had taken him to the nearest hospital. Afterwards, she had treated him to tea and buns in the cafeteria, because he had looked so poor and forlorn in his ancient tweeds and shabby old overcoat.

They had been firm friends from that moment on. She hadn’t once suspected that Jasper might be anything other than he appeared: an elderly academic living on a restricted income. So she had been quite honest about being unemployed, sharing her despair at not even being able to get as far as an interview for a clerical job. She had also told him how horribly guilty she felt about being dependent on her older sister Petra’s generosity.

They had arranged to meet up again, and Jasper had escorted Dixie to his favourite secondhand bookshop, where they had both promptly lost all track of time browsing through the shelves. The following weekend she had returned the favour by taking him to a library sale, where he had contrived to buy a very tattered copy of an out-of-print tome on butterflies that he had been trying to find for years.

And then quite casually Jasper had announced that he had fixed her up with an interview at the Valverde Mercantile Bank. ‘I put in a word for you with my godson,’ he had informed her cheerfully. ‘He was very happy to help.’

She hadn’t had a clue that Jasper’s godson was the chief executive. And she had been utterly appalled to be confronted by César Valverde that first day, and coldly interrogated about exactly how she had met his godfather. He had made little attempt to conceal his suspicions about her motives in fostering such a friendship with an elderly man, and had coolly enjoyed informing her that Jasper would be returning to his home in Spain at the end of September. Dixie had found that encounter deeply humiliating.

‘César always had a head for figures…very clever chap with that sort of stuff,’ Jasper had conceded vaguely when Dixie had later gently taxed him with his failure to tell her that his godson ran Valverde Mercantile and was, in fact, a super-rich and very powerful legend of thrusting success in the financial world. ‘It’s in his blood.’

Jasper was a genius at understatement. The Valverdes had been in banking for generations. César was the last of the dynasty, and reputedly the most brilliant. He also had very high expectations of his staff. All Dixie’s colleagues had a university degree in financial management, economics or languages, and thrived on the cracking pace of a high-powered mercantile bank with an international list of hugely important clients and companies.

Dixie knew that she was a fish out of water at Valverde Mercantile, only fit, it sometimes seemed, to run messages, ensure the coffee machines stayed filled and perform the most humble of tasks. She worked really hard at keeping busy, but the kind of lowly work she did rarely produced results that other people could appreciate.

And Bruce Gregory’s announcement had thoroughly shaken Dixie. The threat of a face-to-face meeting with César Valverde kept her stomach churning throughout the day. What had she done? What had she not done? Well, if she had made some awful mistake or oversight, she would have to grovel on her knees and promise to do better in the future; she had no choice.

Right now, the only thing keeping Dixie going through exhaustion was the knowledge that she had a steady salary coming in as well as what she earned working as a waitress several nights a week. That long talk she had had with the helpful lady at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau had suggested that as long as she could prove an honest intent to pay back those creditors in instalments, her offer to do so should be acceptable, and would hopefully protect her from the threat of legal proceedings.

And, in the meantime, there was always the hope that her sister Petra would phone to say that she was back in funds again and able to send the money to clear her debts. Petra had always had terrific earning power as a model, Dixie reminded herself bracingly. All she herself was really doing was holding the fort until her sister could pick up the financial slack. Petra had been upset when Dixie called her to tell her about the bills she had neglected to pay before she flew out to Los Angeles in the hope of starting an acting career.

In the restroom, minutes to go before the encounter, Dixie freshened up and morosely surveyed her reflection. Plain and wholesome, that was her. The loose beige top and long gray cotton skirt at least concealed the worst of her deficiencies, she told herself in consolation. But as always it seemed particularly cruel to Dixie that she should have been endowed with hatefully large breasts and generous hips but only a height of five feet two inches.

As often happened at times of particular stress, Dixie drifted off into her own thoughts. Was it any wonder that Scott saw her as a good sport and a mate, rather than a possible girlfriend? Scott Lewis, handsome, extrovert and the love of Dixie’s life. Momentarily, self-pity filled her to overflowing. And then she scolded herself for being so foolish. Hadn’t she always known she didn’t have a hope of attracting Scott?

She had met Scott at one of her sister’s parties. Having just moved into a new apartment, he’d been giving a comic description of his less than successful efforts to get organised on the domestic front. His frank admission that his mother had spoilt him rotten had impressed Dixie, and before she had even thought about what she was doing she had found herself offering to come round and give him a hand…

When Dixie presented herself for her appointment, César Valverde’s secretary, a svelte brunette in her thirties, gave her a pained look. ‘It might have been a good idea to be on time, Dixie.’

‘But I am on time.’ Dixie checked her watch and then her face fell. Once again time had run on without her.

‘You’re ten minutes late.’ The other woman didn’t wince but she might as well have done.