The Spanish Groom

A curious whirring sound reverberated in Dixie’s eardrums. Her lungs seemed suddenly empty of oxygen. Disbelief paralysing her, she gazed wide-eyed across the room at César Valverde. ‘You can’t be serious… Me,’ she stressed helplessly, ‘pretend to be engaged to…to you?’

‘Jasper will be convinced. People are always keen to believe what they want to believe,’ César asserted with rich cynicism.

As yet uncertain that this weird conversation was actually taking place, Dixie moved her head in a negative motion. ‘But nobody would believe that…that you and I…’ A betraying tide of colour slowly washed up her throat into her cheeks. ‘I mean, it’s just so unbelievable!’

‘That’s where your upcoming hard work and effort will pay off.’ Once again César studied her with that curious considering frown he had worn earlier. ‘I intend to make this charade as credible as possible. Jasper may be naive, but he’s no fool. Only when I’ve finished transforming you into a slim, elegant Dixie Mark Two will Jasper be truly convinced.’

It crossed Dixie’s mind that César Valverde had been at the booze. A slim Dixie Mark Two? She snatched in a short, sustaining breath. ‘Mr Valverde, I—’

‘Yes, I expect you’re very grateful,’ César dismissed arrogantly, a scornful light in his brilliant dark eyes as he surveyed her. ‘In fact I imagine you can hardly credit your good luck—’

‘My good luck?’ Dixie broke in shakily, wondering how any male so famed for his perception could be so wildly off course when it came to reading her reactions.

‘An image makeover, a new wardrobe, all your debts paid and an all-expenses-paid trip to Spain?’ César enumerated with cool exactitude. ‘It’s more than good luck…from where you’re standing now, it’s the equivalent of striking oil in the desert wastes! And you don’t deserve it. Believe me, if I had an alternative choice of fiancée available you’d have been fired first thing this morning!’

‘I was the only choice, wasn’t I?’ Dixie gathered in a wobbly voice. ‘Your type,’ he had said minutes ago, the only woman liked by Jasper that César Valverde knew. A slim Dixie Mark Two? How dared he get as personal as that? Didn’t he even appreciate that she had feelings that could be hurt? But then why should he care, standing there all lean and fit and perfect, probably never having had to watch his appetite once in his entire spoilt rotten life!

‘That’s irrelevant. By the way, I want this arrangement of ours to stay under wraps.’ César scanned her with threatening dark eyes. ‘Do you understand the concept of keeping a secret, Dixie?’

Locked to those spectacular dark eyes, Dixie felt oddly dizzy and out of breath. ‘A secret?’

‘It’s quite simple. If you open your mouth to another living soul about this deal, I’ll bury you,’ César Valverde murmured with chilling bite.

Dixie blenched. ‘That’s not very funny.’

‘It wasn’t meant to be. It was a warning. And you’ve been in here long enough. As soon as you walk out of this office, you can clear your desk and go home. I’ll be in touch this evening so that we can work out the finer details.’

Dixie lifted her chin, her rarely roused temper rising at the arrogance with which he simply assumed that she would do whatever he told her to do, no matter how immoral or unpleasant it might be. ‘Whatever decision I make, I can now consider myself fired…isn’t that right?’

‘Wow, quick on the uptake,’ César derided smoothly. ‘Too dumb to safely operate anything with a plug attached, but reads Nietzsche and Plato in her spare time. According to Jasper, you have a remarkable brain. And yet you never do anything with it. You certainly never dreamt of bringing it into work with you—’

Her lashes fluttered over huge violet eyes. ‘I beg your—?’

‘But then that’s because you’re a lazy, disorganised lump, who contrives to hide behind the front of being a brick short of the full load! Only around me you won’t get away with that kind of nonsense!’

Disbelief roared through Dixie as she reeled from the full impact of that derisive attack, even though on another level she longed to question him about Jasper having said that she had a remarkable brain. However, anger abruptly overpowered that brief spark of surprised pleasure and curiosity. ‘If I can consider myself fired, then I’m free to tell you exactly what I think of you too!’

César gave her a wolfish half-smile of encouragement. ‘I’m enjoying this. The office doormat suddenly discovers backbone. Make my day… Only be warned—I will respond in kind.’

Teeth almost chattering with the force of her disturbed emotions, Dixie drew herself up to her full unimpressive height and hissed, ‘You have to be the most unscrupulous, selfish human being I have ever met! Doesn’t it even occur to you that I might have some moral objection to cruelly deceiving a sweet old man, who deserves better from a male he loves like a son?’

‘You’re right. That thought didn’t occur to me,’ César confessed, without a shade of discomfiture or remorse. ‘Considering that you’re currently on the brink of being taken to court for obtaining goods and services by fraudulent deception, I’m not remotely impressed by the sound of your moral scruples!’

Dixie shrank and turned white. ‘Taken to c-court?’ she stammered, aghast, her eyes nailed to him in the hope that she had somehow misunderstood.

CHAPTER TWO

‘DIO MIO…’ César raised a winging ebony brow to challenge Dixie’s stricken expression. ‘Didn’t you read that printout I gave you either? The interior designer, Leticia Zane, has instigated proceedings. Did you expect her to be sympathetic towards a client who took advantage of her services without the slightest hope of being able to pay for them?’

Numbly, Dixie shook her pounding head, her stomach curdling. ‘But I haven’t got any more money to give Miss Zane…I’ve already offered instalments.’

César Valverde shifted a broad shoulder in an unfeeling shrug. ‘The lady may well have decided to make a public spectacle of you to deter other clients who are reluctant to settle up. You’re a good choice—’

‘A good choice?’ Dixie parroted, scarcely believing her ears.

‘You don’t have socially prominent friends likely to take offence on your behalf and damage her business prospects.’

‘But…but a court prosecution.’ Dixie squeezed out those words, breathless with horror, utterly appalled by what he was spelling out to her. Her own naivety hit her hard. She stared down at the printout, belatedly reading the small type beneath the debt to Leticia Zane’s firm. ‘Prosecution pending’, it said. Her blood ran cold with fear and incredulity. The interior designer knew very well that all the work on her sister’s apartment had been done at Petra’s behest. Dixie had merely been the mouthpiece who’d passed on the instructions.

‘Delusions of grandeur have a price, like everything else,’ César Valverde sighed.

‘I can’t think straight,’ Dixie mumbled sickly.

‘Sharpen up. I haven’t got all day to wait for an answer that is already staring you in the face,’ César breathed with callous cool.

Dixie gave him a speaking glance from tear-filled eyes and fumbled with the crushed tissue still clutched between her shaking fingers. ‘I just couldn’t deceive Jasper like that, Mr Valverde. I couldn’t live with lying to him. It would be absolutely wrong!’

‘You’re being selfish and shortsighted,’ César drawled crushingly, dealing her a look of hostile reproach. ‘Getting engaged to you is the one thing that I can do to make Jasper happy. What right have you to say that it would be wrong or immoral?’

‘Lies are always wrong!’ Dixie sobbed helplessly, and turned away from him in embarrassment.

‘Jasper won’t ever know it was a lie. He’ll be delighted. I plan to leave you with him in Spain for a few weeks…assuming he’s well enough for me to leave, even temporarily,’ César adjusted flatly.

‘I couldn’t…I just couldn’t!’ Dixie gasped strickenly, already plotting a weaving path towards the door, barely able to see through her falling tears but determined not to be swayed by his specious arguments. ‘And it’s wicked of you to call me selfish. How can you do that?’

‘For Jasper’s sake…easily. I’ll call on you tonight to get your final answer. I think you’ll have seen sense by then.’

Dixie hauled open the door with a trembling hand and shot him an angry, accusing glance. ‘Go to hell!’ she launched thickly as she walked out.

Only as she shut the door behind her did she notice the little gathering of staff standing with dropped jaws further down the corridor.

‘Are you OK, Dixie?’ Bruce Gregory enquired kindly.

One of the directors put his arm round her in a very paternal way to walk her away. ‘We’ll get you sorted out with a job some place else.’

‘Not in a bank,’ someone whispered ruefully.

‘Ever thought of cooking for a living?’ another voice asked brightly. ‘You’re a great cook.’

‘A restaurant kitchen could be very stressful, though.’

‘And I drop things,’ Dixie muttered, a sense of being a total failure creeping over her.

‘Imagine you telling César to go to hell!’ the director remarked bracingly.

‘But he’ll never let Human Resources give her a decent reference now,’ Bruce groaned as the older man slotted her into a seat in the office she shared with a couple of the secretaries. Just about everybody on the whole floor seemed to crowd around her then.

‘He tried to blackmail me,’ Dixie mumbled sickly.