The Spanish Groom

‘That’s not good enough. I want one hundred and five per cent commitment from you.’ As César studied her with fulminating intensity, his jawline squared. ‘Keep in mind what this is costing me. The sum total of your debts was considerable. And if you haven’t learnt it yet, learn it now. There is no such thing as a free lunch.’

Having paled during that crushing speech, Dixie could no longer meet his ruthlessly intent gaze. ‘I…I—’

‘I paid for the right to expect you to stick to your side of this deal. Start slacking and you’ll have me standing over you with a stopwatch! And if you think Gilda’s bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet!’ César swore in unapologetic threat.

THAT EVENING, SCOTT’S welcoming, ‘Am I glad to see you!’ was balm to Dixie’s low self-esteem when she arrived on his doorstep.

Shyly pushing her heavy fringe off her brow, Dixie smiled up at him. Tall, slim and fair-haired, Scott responded with a friendly punch that hurt her shoulder, and showed her straight into his kitchen.

‘I had some friends staying for a couple of days. What a mess they left this place in!’ he complained.

‘I’ll soon have it sorted out,’ Dixie told him eagerly.

On his way back out again, Scott glanced at her and then frowned slightly. Pausing in the doorway, he stared at her. ‘Have you done something to your hair or changed your make-up or something?’

Dixie tensed. ‘No…I don’t wear make-up.’

‘It must be the colour in your cheeks. You look almost pretty.’ Scott shook his handsome head over this apparently amazing development, frowned as if he was rather surprised to have noticed the fact, and departed, leaving her to the mounds of dishes stacked on every available surface.

Almost pretty. In real shock at the very first compliment Scott had ever deigned to pay her, Dixie hovered in the centre of his filthy kitchen with a dreamy look on her face. Colour in her cheeks? It was the effect of the exercise, it had to be! Maybe the detoxifying diet was starting to work already! Scott had finally noticed that she was female…

Suddenly feeling like a woman on a mission that might just miraculously transform her life, Dixie swore to herself that she would be up early the next day and into the gym to work out. Humming happily, she washed dishes, scrubbed the floor and cleaned the cooker.

‘I don’t know how you do it!’ Scott exclaimed appreciatively as he paused by the kitchen door in the act of donning his jacket. ‘What would I do without you, Dixie?’

Like a starved plant suddenly plunged into water and sunlight, Dixie blossomed and beamed at him.

‘I’m off now, but there’s no need for you to hurry home,’ Scott assured her. ‘And if you could find the time to run the vacuum cleaner round the sitting room, I’d be really grateful.’

‘No problem,’ Dixie hurried to tell him. ‘Is the washing machine fixed yet?’

‘No, the mechanic’s coming on Wednesday.’ Scott grimaced. ‘He says I must have one of those rogue machines.’

Dixie followed him to his front door with the aspect of someone walking on hallowed ground. ‘Hot date?’ she asked with laden casualness.

‘Yeah. A real stunner too,’ Scott chuckled. ‘See you, Dixie!’

‘See you,’ she whispered, closing the door in his wake.

It was after ten when Dixie and Spike got back to César Valverde’s imposing home. She had to use the front door and press the bell to gain entry. She just hadn’t been able to bring herself to leave Scott’s apartment sooner, not until she had polished every piece of furniture and vacuumed every inch of carpet. As Fisher said goodnight to her, Dixie gave him a vague smile and drifted away.

She was ludicrously unprepared for César Valverde to stride out of one of the reception rooms off the lofty ceilinged hall and demand harshly, ‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘I…I b-beg your pardon?’ Dixie stammered.

‘I expected a report on your progress at six and you’d already gone out,’ César imparted grimly.

‘Oh…I was with Scott.’ Dixie studied him vaguely, as if she couldn’t quite manage to get him into focus. In fact, she was striving to superimpose Scott’s beloved features onto César, to make him more bearable, but for some strange reason the attempt wasn’t working. And instead she somehow found herself making all sorts of foolish comparisons between the two men…

César was much taller, more powerfully built, his skin a vibrant gold where Scott’s was fair. César’s luxuriant black hair was perfectly cut to his well-shaped head, not endearingly floppy like Scott’s…oh, heavens, what was she doing, and why was she studying César Valverde like this, noticing every tiny thing about him where once she had been afraid to look at him?

An odd shivery sensation Dixie had never experienced before ran through her when she collided with those striking dark eyes of his…so piercing, so brilliant, so alive. A definable five o’clock shadow roughened his jawline, accentuating the wide, sensual shape of his mouth, the perfect whiteness of his teeth. And he still looked so incredibly, impossibly immaculate, she reflected in growing wonderment. How did he do it? Here she was, with wind-tousled damp hair, a stain of cleansing fluid on her T-shirt and shoes spattered from puddles.

‘How do you do it…how do you look so perfect all the time?’ Dixie heard herself ask wistfully, desperate for the magic secret, the miracle formula which might transform her appearance as well.

‘Are we on the same planet?’ César enquired with satiric bite.

‘I don’t think so.’ Dixie reddened with sudden discomfiture.

‘Who’s Scott? A boyfriend?’ César demanded with a chilling edge to his dark, deep-accented voice.

‘Oh, I don’t have a boyfriend… Scott’s just…Scott…well, Scott…’ Suddenly Dixie was having some difficulty in quantifying her relationship with Scott, because tonight she had rediscovered hope, and to write Scott off as merely a friend now felt like acknowledging defeat again.

‘Scott?’ César queried with an impatient flare of one ebony brow.

‘Scott Lewis…’ Her blue eyes became even more abstracted. ‘I love him, but he hasn’t really noticed me that way yet, but I think he might be on the brink—’

César clenched his even white teeth. ‘I’m getting closer to the brink too—’

Dixie heaved a sigh, shoulders down-curving. ‘So I suppose I still have to say that Scott’s just a friend.’

‘Dixie…I asked a straight question. I didn’t request an outpouring of girlish confidence,’ César informed her with withering cool. ‘I hope you’re more circumspect with him than you are with me. I don’t expect to find out that you’ve confided in him about our private arrangement.’

‘Scott and I don’t have those kind of conversations.’ Inexplicably the happy shine on Dixie’s evening was now beginning to drain away, leaving her feeling rather down in the dumps. ‘Nothing deep—’

‘He’s got his head screwed on, then, hasn’t he?’ César sent her a winging glance of burning exasperation. ‘You’re not grounded enough for a deep conversation. Inside that flighty, vacant head of yours, you’re up in the bloody clouds with the angels most of the time!’

But then there was no room for magic or love in César Valverde’s world. He was so grounded in reality he didn’t know what it was to dream. Well, he was missing out on an awful lot, Dixie decided, determined not to be affected by his censure.

Without warning the door of the room César had emerged from opened again. A gorgeous blonde in an elegant strappy black dress peered out and frowned at Dixie. ‘Staff problems, César?’

Taken aback by the appearance of the other woman, Dixie stiffened with discomfiture.

César dredged his frustrated attention from Dixie and turned with a slashing smile. ‘Nothing that need concern you, Lisette.’

Lisette. Frisky name for a frisky lady, Dixie thought nastily, and then was genuinely shocked by her own bitchiness. Lisette was probably a very nice woman, and was undoubtedly far too good for César Valverde. He was a real rat, the kind of guy who didn’t phone, always put work first, cancelled dates last-minute and strayed without conscience the instant he got bored. Poor Lisette. She was more to be pitied.

Dixie went to her room and settled Spike into his basket. She fed César the goldfish, still feeling guilty about him being alone in his bowl. But he obviously preferred being alone. He was an aggressive fish. But possibly the two companions he had eaten had been the wrong sex, she reflected with a considering frown. Maybe he would be transformed by the arrival of a female fish… Could she risk adding to the body count?

As Dixie pulled on her shortie pyjamas, she struggled against the conviction that if she didn’t eat some proper food soon her stomach would meet her backbone. After all, now she had a goal, a real goal. Scott was worth that one hundred and five per cent commitment César had demanded from her. She would throw herself heart and soul into Gilda’s fitness schedule.

But hunger kept Dixie tossing and turning, unable to sleep. At one in the morning she rolled out of bed in sudden decision. An apple, a slice of toast, a cup of tea with the merest drop of milk…surely such a meagre snack wouldn’t show on the scales?

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