Buch lesen: «Master Of El Corazon»

CHAPTER ONE

THE night the world came tumbling down around Arden Miller’s ears began just like any other, or, at least, like any other during the five months since she’d transferred from McCann, Flint, Emerson’s New York office to the firm’s newest branch in Costa Rica.

She put in her usual eight hours as executive secretary to Edgar Lithgow, bid him a polite good evening, then drove her Ford Escort—a perk of her new job—the few miles to the hotel in which the company housed its small roster of North American employees.

The clerk at the reception desk greeted her pleasantly.

‘Buenas noches, señorita. The cook says to tell you the langosta is especially good tonight.’

Arden smiled. ‘I’m sure it is, but I think I’ll settle for a chicken sandwich in my room. Would you ask Alejandro to bring it up in an hour or so?’

The clerk smiled. ‘With iced coffee, yes?’

‘Please.’

‘Of course, Senorita Miller. It will be my pleasure.’

No, Arden thought, no, all of this is my pleasure. I have never been so fussed over, or made to feel so much at home as I have these last months.

But she didn’t say that, of course. Such an admission would have been far too personal and out of keeping with her carefully honed professional image. Instead she gave him another smile, scooped up the few messages and letters that had been left for her, and made her way to the lift. She stabbed the button, then turned her attention to the envelopes in her hand.

There was an advertisement from Macy’s, urging her to take advantage of a sale on shoes, and a form letter from a candidate for local office, pleading for her vote in an election that had taken place a month before. Arden smiled. It was amazing, the mail the post office re-routed so it followed you all these thousands of miles.

The third letter was from her mother, and Arden opened it eagerly. Evelyn wrote that she was feeling fine and still happy in her new job as live-in housekeeper to the Carsons, up on the Hill in Greenfield. Did Arden remember them? Arden’s mouth turned down. Yes, she certainly did. They’d had a couple of sons who’d thought it was their absolute right to sexually initiate girls from the Valley in the back seats of their cars, and if there were any complaints they’d had the money and the clout to hush them up.

Her gaze dropped to the next paragraph. There was good news about Emma Simms, her mother said. She’d just finished a course in beauty school and she was head over heels in love with that nice Evans boy, the one who was working over at Destry’s Plumbing. They planned to get married in February and honeymoon in Disneyworld. And Nan Richards was pregnant with her third baby and working weekends for a caterer so she and her husband could buy a house.

Arden shook her head. Some things never changed, nor did the expectations of some people. She loved her mother dearly, but how Evelyn could be content working as a servant for the rich was beyond her to understand. As for the news about the girls she’d grown up with—well, if Emma and Nan were happy, that was wonderful, but for Arden happiness had always meant establishing herself in a career. You had to have goals in life, and the higher, the better.

As for falling head over heels in love and getting married—well, that sort of nonsense made for catchy song titles, but it had little place in——

‘Señorita.’

Arden’s head lifted sharply. The lift had arrived, the door had slid open, and she saw that a man was lounging in the far corner, watching her. His arms were folded across his chest, his feet were crossed at the ankle, and he had a lazy smile on his beard-stubbled face.

His eyes—surprisingly green in his sun-darkened face—met hers, and she took an unexpected step back. For barely an instant she’d felt—she’d felt as if the ground had suddenly tilted under her feet...

She gave herself a mental shake. That was what came of skipping lunch. But Mr Lithgow had asked her if she’d mind working through, so she could finish up the reports he’d needed for an afternoon meeting—

‘Espera usted a alguine?’

She looked at the man again. Are you waiting for someone? he’d asked, his husky voice and little smile adding a twist to the simple words so that she knew he was asking more than the reason she hadn’t yet stepped into the lift. The knowledge made her hazel eyes turn cool.

Did he really think she could possibly be interested in someone like him? Yes, she thought, her mouth tightening with distaste, he probably did. He had to know there were women—lots of women—who’d look at such a man and like what they saw. He was tall, wide in the shoulders and narrow in the hips, with a classically handsome Spanish face that was made even more attractive by a nose that seemed to have been broken some time in the past. A canvas backpack leaned against his leg, its age and condition matched by his dusty leather boots. He wore jeans and a denim work shirt with the sleeves rolled back to show tanned, muscular forearms.

But any woman with half a brain would see beyond the blatantly macho good looks. Arden had seen others like him several times since she’d arrived in San José, the sort of man who’d come to Central America from any of a dozen other places with nothing but a passport and a handful of colones in his pocket. Some people called them adventurers, but what was the sense in using romantic euphemisms to cover the truth? He was a tramp and a drifter, a man who never planned beyond tomorrow and earned what money he needed by signing on for a day’s manual labour here and there in his travels. Heaven only knew how he’d scraped together enough to rent a room here for the night.

‘Que pasa, señorita?’

‘No me interesa,’ she said, her voice cutting sharply across his.

His smile tilted. ‘Ah,’ he said in unaccented English, ‘you are North American, not a Tica.’

‘That’s right, I’m not Costa Rican.’ Why did it irk her that her accent had given her away, despite her excellent command of the language? ‘And I’m not—’

‘Interested. Yes, so you said.’ His gaze moved over her in frank appraisal and he smiled lazily. ‘But you misunderstood me, señorita. It’s not that I mind waiting. You’re worth it. A pretty woman always is. It’s just that a lift’s whole purpose is to go up, and this one hasn’t moved for the past five minutes.’

It took her a moment before she understood that he’d somehow turned the tables on her. Of course he’d been coming on to her; you didn’t have to be interested in such ridiculous games in order to know when you’d been invited to play. But she’d made him feel foolish by putting him down and now he was repaying her in kind.

Arden’s eyes narrowed. She wanted to tell him that as far as she was concerned, he could have the damned lift all to himself for the rest of the evening, if he wanted it, but she knew it was more important to show no reaction.

‘Sorry,’ she said with a cool smile.

She stepped into the car and turned her back to him. The door slid shut and the lift jerked to a start. It rose slowly, as it always did, although this evening it seemed to be taking forever to make the journey to the third floor. She could feel the man’s eyes on her, burning a hole in her back. After a moment, he cleared his throat.

‘Are you new to Costa Rica?’ he said pleasantly.

Arden rolled her eyes to the ceiling. He was going to try again! Well, she wasn’t going to be drawn in this time. Her chin lifted; she stared at the door as if she expected to see a message flash on the dark wood.

‘Because, if you are,’ he said, ‘I’d be more than happy to—’

Lord, he was persistent! ‘Thank you,’ she said in a voice that would have turned warm water to ice, ‘but I’m busy.’

‘—buy you a drink and tell you a bit about—’

She swung towards him, and her voice grew even more frigid. ‘I said I’m busy.’

‘There’s a cocktail party this evening, beside the pool. Just give me half an hour to shower and change,’ he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. His hand lifted, went to his face, and he rubbed his knuckles lightly over the dark stubble that covered his chin. ‘And to shave, of course,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’ve been in the back country for days, and—’

How would the faint roughness of his beard feel against her skin? The question sprang into her mind with no warning at all. A flush rose in her cheeks and she swung away and jabbed her finger at the floor button, trying futilely to speed the lift’s sloth-like progress.

‘You’re wasting your time,’ she said, her anger at herself and at him making her voice hard-edged and brittle. ‘I’m sure this town’s full of women who’ll be delighted by your story, but I’m not one of them.’

He chuckled softly, as if she’d said something amusing instead of insulting. ‘Tales of the jungle don’t turn you on?’

‘If you mean,’ she said, giving him a look of absolute distaste, ‘do I think there’s charm to being a bum, the answer is no, I do not.’

Her sharp words had the desired effect this time. His eyes narrowed, and the smiling, handsome face took on a look of coldness.

‘Your honesty does you credit, señorita.’

‘Yes,’ Arden said, just as coldly, ‘I’ve been told that before.’

The lift jogged to a stop. Finally! she thought, and she stepped briskly into the hall. After a second or two, the man’s footsteps followed after her. Arden gritted her teeth. He wasn’t just persistent, he was impossible! She took a deep breath and spun around to face him. ‘Listen here,’ she said fiercely, ‘if you think—’

Her words sputtered to silence. The stranger wasn’t following her, he was unlocking the door to what was obviously his room. He looked up, and his eyes, as green and cold as those of a jungle cat, met hers.

‘Adios, señorita. Don’t think it’s been charming, because it hasn’t.’

Arden’s mouth dropped open. She wanted to make a sharp, clever rejoinder, but her mind was a blank. Instead, she tossed her head, turned on her heel, and strode down the corridor to her room. She stabbed her key into the lock, shoved the door open, then slammed it after her.

Before you knew it, this hotel would be renting rooms to just about anybody!

She marched stiffly through her small sitting-room to the bedroom and tossed her key on the table. After a moment, she sighed and sank into a chair. There was no reason to let such a silly encounter upset her. She’d had a long, hard day, she’d been looking forward to a relaxing evening, and she certainly wasn’t going to let a run-in with an arrogant fool snatch that away from her!

She kicked off her beige pumps, stretched out her legs, and began leafing through the remaining messages still clutched in her hand.

There was one from Julie Squires, the newest New York transfer. Would Arden like to take the train ride to Limon on Saturday? Arden sighed again. Sure, she would, even though she’d already made the near obligatory trip to the coastal town. Julie was feeling displaced, something Arden understood all too well. Costa Rica was beautiful and the people were warm and friendly, but it was hard not to feel at a loose end your first few weeks.

The second message was from the hotel, a gaily coloured flyer reminding guests of tonight’s poolside party. Arden rose to her feet, stripped off her suit jacket, and tossed it across a chair. The Lift Lothario would certainly be in attendance, but she would not.

Not that she’d ever had any intention of attending, she thought as she unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it. She’d never liked parties, always felt shelf-conscious at them, half waiting for another guest to point a finger at her and ask people who had invited her?

Arden smiled a bit grimly as she peeled off her blouse and underwear and dropped them on the chair. And it didn’t take a psychologist to figure out that little scenario, she thought as she padded into the bathroom and turned on the shower. When you spent your teenage years passing hors-d’oeuvres and drinks to people you saw every day, you could easily end up with a very different attitude about partygoing.

‘It’s an easy way to make a little extra money,’ her mother had always said when she pressed Arden into serving at weekends at the Potts mansion where she’d worked as a maid, and Arden would never have hurt her by arguing, but the truth was that it was a terrible way to earn money, wearing a black uniform with a tiny white apron and trying not to react when kids from your English or mathematics classes looked straight through you as if they’d never seen you before.

Actually, she thought as she pinned her dark auburn hair into a top knot and stepped under the shower, she had gone to one of the hotel’s parties a couple of months ago, after her boss had urged her to do so for weeks.

‘It’s simply an act of sociability, Miss Miller,’ Mr Lithgow had said crisply. ‘I have no interest in such nonsense either, but the New York office has made a special point of asking us all to do our part in being friendly to the Costa Ricans.’

Arden had thought that being friendly to a bunch of hotel guests hardly qualified, but she’d kept her opinion to herself. Edgar Lithgow had selected her for this job personally, choosing her instead of two other equally qualified applicants because, he’d said sternly, he knew he could count on her to put the interests of the firm before her own, and she wasn’t about to give him reason to think otherwise.

And so, with great reluctance, she’d agreed to go to the party. But she’d felt even more out of place than usual, in the midst of vacationers partying at an almost frantic pace while she’d stood there in a grey business suit, trying to look at ease, and not even Mr Lithgow’s attempts at sociability had helped. In fact, Arden thought, wincing at the memory, she’d been so stiff and uncomfortable that she’d almost made a damned fool of herself when her boss had come striding towards her with two tall, frosted glasses in his hands.

‘No, thank you, sir,’ she’d said, when he’d held one of the glasses out to her.

‘Don’t be silly, Miss Miller,’ he’d said with a frown. ‘It’s only punch.’

And so she’d taken the glass, then a sip from it, just to be polite. It hadn’t tasted bad at all, sort of fruity and cool and sweet, but there must have been enough rum in it to have gone straight to her head because moments later, she’d imagined Mr Lithgow looking at her in a way he never had before, with a sharp brightness glinting in the pale blue eyes behind their tri-focal lenses, and then she’d thought he’d moved closer to her than he had to, so that his arm kept brushing against her breast each time he lifted his glass.

But the final moment of foolishness had come when she felt his hand settle on her hip, the fingers lightly cupping her buttocks. Arden still shuddered when she thought of it.

‘Mr Lithgow,’ she’d said, loudly and sharply enough to have made a couple of heads turn in their direction, but before she could make a complete ass of herself, thank God, her boss had frowned and nodded towards the pool and said that it was a good thing he’d grabbed her in time or the jostling crowd would have tumbled her straight in. Arden had blushed with embarrassment at what she’d been thinking, claimed a headache, and fled to her rooms where she’d reminded herself that one of the reasons she’d accepted this transfer was not just because it could well lead to a promotion but because Edgar Lithgow, while rich, was as harmless as a dodo. He had a wife, five children, a paunch and a shiny scalp, and he was on the board of half a dozen religious and charitable organisations.

Arden turned off the shower and stepped from the tub. In five months here, she thought as she wrapped herself in a floor-length towelling robe, working side by side all day, bumping into each other with regularity in the hotel dining-room or reading lounge in the evening, he had never given her the slightest reason to find fault with him. In fact, she doubted he’d ever really noticed if she were male or female. She shuddered as she unpinned her hair, then combed it out until it lay in darkly curling abundance on her shoulders.

‘Thank your lucky stars you didn’t make a fool of yourself that night, Arden,’ she whispered to her reflection in the misted mirror. The last thing she wanted was to lose this job and the chance it offered of a better future.

There was a knock at the door to her suite. Had an hour gone by already? Not that it mattered; she’d eat just as she was, in her robe at the little table by the window in the sitting-room, and then she’d curl up in bed with the book she’d started last evening.

The knock came again, just as she reached the door and unlocked it.

‘Buenas noches, Alejandro,’ she said—and stared in surprise.

It was not the bellman with her dinner tray who stood in the hallway.

It was her boss, Edgar Lithgow.