Master Of El Corazon

Arden straightened up slowly. ‘You’ll have to leave now, Mr Lithgow.’

“I agree with you, my dear. Business can wait until morning.’ He smiled again. ‘Why don’t you get us some glasses, hmm?’

‘Mr Lithgow—’

‘Edgar.’

‘Mr Lithgow,’ she said firmly, ‘you’re going to regret this tomorrow. Now, why don’t you—?’

‘What I regret,’ he said, moving towards her, ‘is all the time I’ve wasted, watching you slip around the office, waggling your hips in my face, showing off those breasts, and not doing what a man ought to do when faced with what was offered.’

Arden’s hazel eyes widened. ‘That’s a lie! I never—’

‘Temptation was put in my path,’ he said solemnly, putting the gin bottle on the night stand as he walked slowly towards her, ‘and for months I thought it was a test of my virtue.’ He laughed softly. ‘And then I realised that I’d misunderstood. You weren’t here to tempt me, you were a gift.’

‘Now, wait just a damned minute,’ Arden said, moving backwards.

‘A gift from my maker, Arden.’ He was standing almost on top of her now; his breath was a cloud of gin, rising like an evil miasma to her nostrils. ‘His way of thanking me for my years of dedication to charitable works.’

He’s crazy, Arden thought frantically. Either that, or he’s suddenly developed a sick sense of humour. But the hot weight of his hand at her breast was no joke. Arden skidded away.

‘Get out of my room,’ she said, hoping he could not hear the fear in her voice.

His face took on a look of cold calculation. ‘You forget yourself. I have a perfect right to be here. I pay the bills for this suite, remember?’

‘The company pays the bills.’

‘A matter of semantics.’

‘This is sexual harassment,’ Arden said quickly. ‘You must know there are laws against this sort of—’

‘Laws!’ Lithgow laughed. ‘Stuff and nonsense, pushed through American courts by damned fool feminists. But we’re not in America now, we’re in a place that looks like Paradise.’

It was no time to argue that the laws still applied, Arden thought desperately. He was either crazy or crazy drunk, and all that mattered was getting away from him while she still could. She looked past him to the door, measuring the distance, wondering if she could reach it before he did, but before there was time to make a move Lithgow lunged for her and grabbed her. Arden cried out and struggled to free herself, but he was a man with a strength fuelled by equal parts desire and alcohol.

‘You son of a bitch,’ she panted, and somehow she wrenched free, but Lithgow was still holding on to her sash so that the robe swung open, revealing her.

He moaned as if he’d just seen the Grail.

‘Lovely,’ he said, and the huskiness of that one word told her this would be her last chance at escape.

Arden gave a sob, spun around and raced not for the door but for the night table. The gin bottle crashed to the floor as she reached for the phone, but her fingers closed around thin air. Lithgow grunted, tackled her from behind, and they fell to bed together in a whirl of legs and arms while the stink of gin filled the air in the bedroom.

‘Little wildcat,’ he said, grinning into her face.

She fought as be tried to pin her beneath him. ‘Let go of me, you bastard,’ she panted. Her leg came up; she wanted to knee him in the groin but he moved suddenly, feinting to the side. Arden opened her mouth to scream and Lithgow’s lips clamped on to hers. The vile taste of him made her gag. She beat against his shoulders, the breath whistling through her nostrils, and suddenly she heard the door slam against the wall and a male voice said, ‘Just what in hell is going on here?’

Lithgow went still as a corpse above her. ‘Get off me,’ Arden said in a voice that shook, as much with rage as with fear. The pupils in his eyes contracted, his mouth narrowed, and suddenly he was Edgar Lithgow again, cool and removed and as proper as a Sunday afternoon in the country.

He rose to his feet and Arden scrambled off the bed in one swift motion, turning to her saviour with a tremulous smile of relief.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘You got here just in—’

The words caught in her throat. The man standing in the bedroom doorway was the man she’d met in the lift, and he was looking at her as if she’d just climbed out from under a rock.

‘It would seem you were telling the truth when you said you had a prior engagement this evening,’ he said with a cool smile.

Arden felt a crimson flush rise beneath her skin. ‘I’d hardly call this a prior engagement,’ she said stiffly.

His gaze was slow and insolent as it skimmed her tangled hair and flushed face, then dropped lower. Her flush deepened as she realised her robe was still hanging open, and she grasped the lapels quickly and drew them tightly together. He looked away from her, his glance moving around the room, and Arden’s eyes followed his, taking in, as he was, the tangled bedclothes, her clothing lying carelessly across the chair. When his nostrils flared, hers did, too, and filled with the heavy aroma of gin.

‘What would you call it, señorita?’ he asked, his face expressionless.

Arden grabbed her sash and knotted it tightly at her waist. ‘My God,’ she said, ‘anyone with half a brain can see what—’

‘An excellent question, sir.’ Arden and the stranger both turned and looked at Edgar Lithgow. He was standing beside the bed, his thin mouth narrowed with disgust, his hair smoothed down across his head, his shirt tucked neatly into his trousers, looking as out of place as a robed jurist in a prison cell. ‘Perhaps she’ll explain this little scene to us both.’

Arden stared at him. ‘What are you talking about?’ she said angrily.

Lithgow’s eyes never left the other man’s face. ‘This young woman—Miss Miller—has been my secretary for months now, and in all that time I’ve chosen to ignore the hints she’s given me as to her baser nature.’

‘What?’ Arden slammed her hands on to her hips. ‘What are you saying, you—you—?’

‘I’m a family man, sir, a devoted husband and father, a leader in my church and community.’ Lithgow shook his head. ‘Perhaps that’s why I gave Miss Miller the benefit of the doubt, why I pretended not to notice the way she brushed against me whenever she could. But tonight, when she invited me to her room—’

‘It’s a lie! I never—’

‘We had a drink together,’ Lithgow said. He sighed. ‘More than one, to be honest. And I weakened, heaven forgive me, and she—she—’

‘You bastard!’ Arden started towards him, but the stranger stopped her, reaching out and catching her by the arm. ‘He’s lying,’ she said furiously. ‘I never asked him here, and I certainly never offered him a drink.’ She swung towards Lithgow, her eyes flashing. ‘You—you forced yourself on me, you pig!’

The stranger let go of her, laughed softly, and leaned back against the door, his hands shoved lazily into his pockets. He had shaved, Arden noticed in some still-logical part of her mind, and changed from his worn denims to a pair of white duck trousers and a pale blue shirt.

‘A modern-day version of Rashomon,’ he said. ‘The Japanese play—do you know it? A woman claims rape, a man claims seduction, and it’s up to the audience to determine the truth.’

Colour leaped into Arden’s cheeks again. ‘I was not raped.’

‘Indeed she was not,’ Lithgow said.

The man nodded. ‘At least you agree on that. As for me, I don’t know what happened here tonight, but—’

‘No,’ Arden snapped, ‘you certainly do not, but I can tell you one thing for certain. This man—’

‘This man,’ he said with a little smile, ‘is the reason you were too busy to join me this evening, señ

orita.’ His gaze went to Lithgow, sliding over the pale face, the fine English wool suit, the gold Rolex winking from beneath a hand-tailored cuff. ‘And I can easily see why he would be more to your liking.’

Arden flushed darkly. ‘I’ve no idea what that’s supposed to mean.’