The Spanish Groom

‘I usually am,’ César pointed out, without skipping a beat.

‘Not about deceiving Jasper…so go away and leave me alone!’

Walking on past, Dixie struggled to swallow the aching thickness of tears in her throat. The car purred in her wake but Dixie was oblivious. In the space of one ghastly day a security that had at best been tenuous had come crashing down round her ears. Jasper was dying, she thought wretchedly, and she was going to end up being prosecuted like a criminal.

‘Get in the car, Dixie!’

Having totally forgotten about César Valverde while she pondered her woes, Dixie nearly died of fright. She glanced round and saw the flash car only feet away. Sticking her nose in the air, she prepared to cross the road to the bus stop.

‘Get…in…the car,’ César framed as he climbed out, six foot three inches of towering bully.

‘I don’t have to do what you tell me any more!’ Dixie flung chokily.

A policeman crossed the road. ‘Is there some problem here?’

‘Yes, this man won’t leave me alone!’ Dixie complained.

‘I saw you curb-crawling,’ the policeman informed César thinly. ‘Are you aware that curb-crawling is an offence?’

‘This woman works for me, Officer,’ César drawled icily.

‘Not any more, I don’t!’ Dixie protested. ‘Why won’t you just leave me alone?’

‘I don’t like the sound of this, sir.’ The policeman appraised the opulent car and then the cut of César’s fabulous dark grey suit with deeply suspicious eyes.

‘Look, that’s my bus coming!’ Dixie suddenly gasped.

‘Settle the misunderstanding, Dixie,’ César commanded in a tone of icy warning.

‘What misunderstanding?’ she enquired in honest bewilderment.

‘This gentleman was curb-crawling and employing threatening behaviour. I think we should all go back to the station and sort this out,’ the policeman informed her as he radioed in the registration of César’s car.

César looked at Dixie. Eyes like black ice daggers dug into her. It was like being hauled off her feet and dropped from a height. She blinked, and then warm colour flooded her drawn cheeks. ‘Oh…you actually think…my goodness, are you kidding?’ she pressed in a strangled voice. ‘He would never bother me like that…I mean, he would never even look at me like that!’

‘Then what was this gentleman doing?’ the policeman asked wearily.

‘He was offering me a lift home…and we had a slight difference of opinion,’ Dixie mumbled, not looking at either man in her mortification. This policeman had genuinely suspected that César Valverde had been curb-crawling with an intent to…?

‘And now she’s going to get in my car and be sensible,’ César completed stonily.

Dixie slunk round the sports car and climbed in. ‘It’s not my fault that policeman thought you might’ve been making improper suggestions,’ she muttered in hot-faced embarrassment.

‘Oh, don’t worry about that. That wasn’t what he was thinking. He thought I might be your pimp,’ César gritted not very levelly, half under his breath, his accented drawl alive with speaking undertones of raw incredulity.

Dixie nestled into the gloriously comfortable bucket seat and decided that silence was the better part of valour. Flash car, flash suit. In this particular area César probably had looked suspicious.

‘How dare you embarrass me like that?’

‘I’m sorry, but you were annoying me,’ she mumbled wearily.

‘I…was annoying…you?’

He seemed to find that very difficult to understand. But then an enormous amount of boot-licking went on in César Valverde’s vicinity, Dixie reflected, struggling to smother a yawn.

People shouldn’t worship idols, but they did. Expose the average human being to César’s intellectual brilliance, immense wealth and enormous power and influence, and they generally behaved in all sorts of undignified ways. They toadied, they talked a load of rubbish in an effort to impress, and went to ridiculous lengths to please and be remembered by him.

As for the women—that constant procession of gorgeous females who paraded through his life, Dixie reflected sleepily. Well, he had the concentration span of a toddler, always on the look-out for a new and better toy. And he invariably had a replacement lined up before he ditched her predecessor. But he was never available during working hours, and those women who tried to breach that boundary lasted the least time. Possessive behaviour was a surefire way to make César stray.

César shook her awake outside the building where she lived. ‘As a rule, women do not fall asleep in my company.’

‘I don’t fancy you,’ Dixie mumbled, barely half awake, and then aghast at the sound of what she had just said.

‘Then you won’t develop any ambitious ideas while we’re in Spain, will you?’

‘I’m not going to Spain.’

‘Then you can send Jasper cute “glad you’re not here” postcards from prison.’

Dixie sat up, full wakefulness now established, and turned aghast eyes on him.

César gave her a faint smile. ‘It’s your first offence, but who knows? Women often get weightier sentences than men when they transgress.’

Her tummy tying itself into petrified knots, Dixie whispered shakily. ‘Maybe we should talk this over.’

‘I think we ought to,’ César agreed smoothly. ‘A female who said she was your landlady was furious when I knocked on the door of your flat earlier and a dog started barking. She came upstairs to investigate.’

Dixie sat bolt upright, horror now etched on her face. ‘Oh, no, she heard Spike and now she knows he’s there!’

César released an extravagant sigh. ‘And pets aren’t allowed. I gather it’s going to be a question of moving out or getting rid of the dog.’

Dixie shook her head in anguished disbelief. This was truly the very worst day of her entire life. ‘Why did you have to knock on the door? You must’ve frightened Spike! He’s usually as quiet as a mouse.’

‘I think Spain’s beckoning,’ César remarked lazily. ‘You have one very angry landlady waiting to pounce.’

‘Oh, no…’ Dixie groaned.

‘Life could be so different,’ César drawled smoothly. ‘All those debts settled…no nasty hanging judge to face in court…relaxing trip to Spain…Jasper happy as a clam and the comforting knowledge that you are responsible for giving him the best news he’s ever heard. Wrong? I don’t think so. I don’t think anything that could give Jasper pleasure at this trying stage of his life could possibly be wrong.’

Hanging on every specious word, Dixie watched him with a kind of eerie fascination. He was so damnably clever, so shockingly good at timing his verbal assaults. Here she was, her whole life in ruins and on the very brink of being thrown out on the street because she couldn’t possibly give up Spike, and a living, breathing version of the devil was holding out temptation without shame.

‘I couldn’t…’

‘You could,’ César contradicted softly. ‘You could do it for Jasper.’

Dixie’s soft full mouth wobbled as she thought of Jasper dying and never, ever seeing him again. Her eyes began to prickle and she sniffed.

‘You can pack right now. It’s that simple,’ César stressed in the same low-pitched deep, dark tone.