The Spanish Groom

‘Get those tables cleared,’ he urged impatiently.

Scurrying over to her section of the busy café, Dixie began to load up a tray. She was so tired that she could feel her knees wobbling whenever she stood still. Wiping her damp brow with the back of her hand, she lifted the heavily laden tray. As she straightened, she could not help but focus on the tall, dark male blocking her view of the rest of the cafe. Dixie froze in shock and dismay.

César Valverde stood six feet away, emanating the kind of lacerating cool which intimidated. Brilliant dark eyes entrapped her evasive ones. As he lifted one ebony brow at her frazzled appearance and coffee-stained overall, Dixie simply wanted to curl up and die. Oh, dear heaven, how had he found out where she worked? And what did he want now, for heaven’s sake?

But then had she really believed that César Valverde would take no for an answer? He wasn’t accustomed to negative responses. His naturally aggressive temperament geared him to persist and demand in the face of refusal, she reminded herself. A workaholic, he thrived under pressure and lived for challenge. When César Valverde set himself a goal, he went all out to get it. She should feel sorry for him, she told herself. He really didn’t know any other way to behave.

An exasperated male voice demanded, ‘Where’s our food?’

‘It’s coming…it’s coming!’ Dixie promised frantically, rudely dredged from her reverie. She fled without looking where she was going, as to look would have brought César Valverde back into focus again.

A shopping bag protruding from beneath a table was her undoing. Catching her foot, Dixie tipped forward, and the tray shot clean out of her perspiring hold. Eyes wide with horror, she watched pieces of food, coffee dregs, crumpled napkins, plates and cups go flying up in the air and fall in all directions. The noise of smashing china was equalled if not surpassed by the shaken exclamations of customers lurching from their seats in an effort to escape the aerial bombardment.

A deathly silence fell in the aftermath. Feverishly muttering incoherent apologies, Dixie bent down to scoop up the tray. The manager removed it from her trembling hands and hissed in her ear, ‘You had your final warning yesterday. You’re fired!’

Only yesterday, three entire meals complete with accompanying drinks had landed on the floor, because in an effort to speed up Dixie had overloaded a tray and then stumbled. Tears of mortification and defeat stinging her eyes, Dixie scuttled into the back of the café. Ripping off the overall, she reached for her cardigan and bag.

When she emerged again, the manager stuffed a couple of notes into her hand. ‘You’re just not cut out for waitressing,’ he said ruefully.

A long, low and expensive sports car hugged the pavement outside the café. The driver’s window whirred down. César surveyed Dixie with an enquiring brow.

‘It’s your fault I dropped that tray…you spooked me!’ Dixie condemned unevenly.

‘If you hadn’t been so busy trying to ignore me it wouldn’t have happened.’

‘You are so smug and patronising. I hate you!’ Dixie gasped truthfully, studying his staggeringly handsome dark features with unconcealed loathing. ‘You always think you’re right about everything!’

‘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.

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!’

Blinking in hot-faced bewilderment that he had actually noticed she almost never looked directly at him, Dixie glanced up.

César’s aggressive jawline eased only slightly. ‘That’s only one of your most annoying habits.’

As he turned away, Dixie cleared her throat awkwardly. ‘What did you tell Miss Stevens to explain why you are hiring her for my benefit?’

Complete surprise flared in his stunning eyes. ‘I don’t explain my actions to anyone. Why should I?’

Why should I? The baseline on the way César Valverde lived his entire life, Dixie registered. He was so self-contained, so unapologetic about guarding his privacy. Naturally he wouldn’t have the slightest inhibition about snubbing people who exercised their curiosity.

‘Dixie…we’d better get started,’ Gilda Stevens called. ‘We’ll begin with a weigh-in.’

Dixie hadn’t been on the scales since she was sixteen, and inside herself she simply cowered.

‘I’LL SEE YOU TOMORROW,’ Gilda told Dixie.

Face-down on a mat, perspiring freely, Dixie tried to nod, but even that took muscle power and she decided not to bother. After all, at some stage she would have to get up, walk…well, maybe crawl, she decided. She was beyond caring about putting a proud face on her exhaustion.

‘You’re out of condition,’ her torturer sighed as she took her leave. ‘But now I’ve shown you the ropes you’ll be able to follow through on your own every day.’

Every day. Dixie suppressed a groan but she forced a grateful smile. Gilda might be tough, pitiless and completely lacking in the humour department, but she had worked out alongside her and had been tireless in her efforts to ensure that Dixie did every single exercise correctly. Horribly, hatefully tireless.

Left alone, Dixie slowly slid into a comfortable doze. The sound of footsteps made her stir. Tipping back her head, she focused sleepily on Fisher’s polished shoes.

‘Where would you like to eat lunch?’ the butler asked.

‘Here will do.’

A tray was set on the floor. A plate piled high with salad greens and raw slivers of vegetable awaited her.

‘I never liked salad,’ Dixie confided guiltily.

‘It’s a detoxifying diet, I believe,’ Fisher commented. ‘You do get a whole grapefruit mid-afternoon.’

Dixie’s tastebuds shuddered, but she was so hungry she munched at a piece of celery. ‘I like starchy food. I like meat, pasta with lashings of cheese…chocolate fudge cake,’ she enumerated longingly, mouth watering as she fantasised.

Another pair of shoes appeared in her field of vision. Italian leather casuals with handstitched seams. She froze.

‘But you’re not allowed to cheat,’ César Valverde drawled.

‘I thought you were at the bank,’ Dixie said accusingly.

‘I intend to keep an eye on this project. Just as well,’ César condemned. ‘Gilda’s gone, and here you are lazing about like you’re on holiday!’

‘I’m so weak I can’t move!’ Dixie gasped in disbelief.

César crouched down to her level with athletic ease. Hard dark eyes assailed her dismayed orbs in a head-on collision. ‘I checked your staff medical. You’re healthy. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t follow a structured fitness regime. Why didn’t you change into one of the exercise outfits I had sent over?’

They had all looked so incredibly small, and Dixie hadn’t fancied struggling to squeeze herself into figure-hugging garments with Gilda around.

‘You’re over-tired because you let yourself get far too hot.’

‘I need to eat to have energy,’ Dixie muttered self-pityingly.

César dealt her a chilling glance of reproof. ‘Your attitude to this is all wrong. In fact your attitude to life in general is your biggest flaw. You’re so convinced you’re going to fail you won’t even bother trying!’

‘I’ll follow the schedule…OK?’