Consequences of a Hot Havana Night

Kitty laughed. ‘It must be quite a downpour if you got that wet going from the house to the car.’

‘The car wouldn’t start so I had to walk to the station. I missed my train, and then the next train was held up, and the waiting room was closed for renovations, so me and all the other poor sad wage-slaves just had to stand on the platform and get wet.’

‘I thought you were going to get a new car?’

‘And when we need to, we will.’ Lizzie spoke calmly. ‘So stop fretting and tell me why my ears should be on fire?’’

Kitty felt the tightness in her chest ease. Lizzie and Bill had basically supported her, not just emotionally but financially, for the last four years. When Jimmy had been admitted into the hospice she had moved into Lizzie’s spare room, and after his death Bill had asked her to help him with his latest venture—a micro rum distillery.

It had been an act of kindness and love. They hadn’t really been able to afford her salary, and she’d had no experience and nothing to offer except a degree in chemistry.

She could never truly repay them, but after all the sacrifices Lizzie had made the least she could do was convince her sister that they had been worthwhile and that her new life was fabulous.

‘I wanted to know what the Spanish word is for starfish,’ she said quickly. ‘And I thought you’d know.’

‘I do—it’s estrella de mar. But why do you need to know?’ Lizzie hesitated. ‘Please tell me you’re not adding starfish to the rum? Bill and I ate them in China—on sticks like lollipops—and I really don’t recommend it.’

Kitty screwed up her face. ‘That is gross—and, no, of course I’m not going to put starfish in the rum. I just keep seeing them in the sea.’

She heard her sister groan. ‘You’re looking at one right now, aren’t you? Shouldn’t you be at work? Or have I got my times wrong again?’

Kitty grinned. ‘I’m not in the office, but this is work. I’m doing research.’

Lizzie said a very rude word that her mother had once sent Kitty to her room for saying.

‘Well, I just hope you’re covering up. You know how easily you burn.’

Glancing down at her long-sleeved blouse and maxi-skirt, Kitty sighed. ‘The sun isn’t that hot now, but I’m wearing so much clothing and sunblock I’m probably going to come back paler than when I left anyway.’

‘Who knows? You might not come back at all. Not if that gorgeous boss of yours finally decides to pay a visit to his hometown and your eyes meet across a deserted boardroom...’

Hearing the teasing note in her sister’s voice, Kitty shook her head. For all her pragmatism, Lizzie was actually a committed believer in love at first sight—but then she had every reason to be, having met Bill in a karaoke bar in Kyoto on her gap year.

Kitty, on the other hand, had not even had to leave her house to meet Jimmy. He’d lived next door and they’d met before they’d even been able to walk, when his mother had invited her mother over for tea one afternoon when they were just babies.

‘I work in the labs, Lizzie. I don’t even know where the boardroom is. And even if he does come to Havana, I don’t suppose my “gorgeous boss” will even know who I am, much less care.’

After she’d hung up, having promised to call later, Kitty made her way back up the beach to the forest that edged the sand. It was always cooler there than anywhere else.

She wasn’t rushing—and not just because the pine needles were slippery to walk on. It was just how people did things in Cuba. Even at work everyone moved at a pace of their own making, and after a week of replicating her typical English nine-to-five day she’d surrendered to ‘Cuban’ time. It had felt odd at first, but the sky hadn’t come crashing down—and, as Mr Mendoza had told her the first time they’d spoken—she was her own boss.

But as she made her way along a path edged with sea grape and tamarind trees, her cheeks felt suddenly warm. What was she talking about?

Like everything else on this untouched peninsula, these trees, the beach, probably even the starfish, were all part of the Finca el Pinar Zayas estate. A private estate that belonged to el jefazo—the big boss, as his staff referred to him.

César Zayas y Diago.

His name was not so much a name as a spell. Rolling her tongue over the exotic syllables, she felt her stomach tighten nervously, as though even thinking them inside her head might have the power to conjure the man himself to this deserted woodland.

Some hope!

Lizzie might imagine that she was going to cross paths with the Dos Rios boss, but so far she hadn’t even spoken to him on the phone. He’d copied her in on some emails, and she’d received a letter of congratulations allegedly from him when her contract had been finalised, but realistically it was unlikely that he’d even seen it.

Somehow she couldn’t imagine the elusive, work-hungry, publicity-shy CEO sitting in the penthouse office of his company headquarters, chewing his pen and trying to find exactly the right words to toast her success. And that signature that she’d spent so long examining had probably been perfected by one of his personal assistants a long time ago.

Not that she was bothered at his lack of interest. In fact, she was quite relieved.

She had moved from the quiet English coast to the pulsing heart of the Caribbean, but she was still a small-town girl, and meeting her legendary and no doubt formidable boss was an experience she was happy to miss.