Tender Triumph

"Are you serious?" she breathed, her attention absorbed in the sensuous male lips slowly coming nearer and nearer to hers. Desire was beginning to course through Katie's veins, sweeping aside her doubts and fears.

"Serious about you? You know I am," he mur­mured, his mouth so close now that his warm breath mingled with hers.

"Serious about having to convince Padre Greg­orio that I'd make a good wife for you?" she told his descending mouth.

"Yes," he whispered huskily. "Now convince me."

A hazy smile touched her lips as she curved a hand behind his head, bringing his mouth even closer to hers. "Are you going to be hard to convince?" she teased.

Ramon's voice was hoarse with burgeoning pas­sion. "I am going to try."

Katie's other hand glided up his chest in a deliber­ately tantalizing caress that made his muscles tense and his breath catch. "How long do you think it will take me to convince you?" she whispered seductive­ly.

"About three seconds," he murmured hotly.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Katie rolled over onto her back and opened her eyes, emerging from her deep, exhausted sleep with a queer sensation of unreality. The room in which she had slept was sunny and immaculately clean, spartanly furnished with an old maple dresser and nightstand that had been polished to a mirror shine.

"Good morning," Gabriella's soft voice spoke from the doorway. Katie's memory snapped into focus as Gabriella crossed the room and placed a steaming cup of coffee on the nightstand beside the bed. At twenty-four, Gabriella was strikingly lovely. Her high cheekbones and luminous brown eyes were a magazine photographer's dream. Last night, she had confided to Katie that she had been asked to pose by a famous photographer who had seen her one day in the village, but her husband, Eduardo, had refused to permit it. That, Katie thought ir­ritably, was exactly what she would have expected from that taciturn, handsome man she had met last night. Katie thanked her for the coffee and Gabri­ella smiled. "Ramon came to see you this morning before he left, but when he learned you were sleep­ing, he said not to" disturb you," Gabriella explained. "He asked me to tell you that he will see you this evening when he returns."

"From Mayaguez," Katie put in, merely to keep the conversation going.

"No, from San Juan," Gabriella corrected. A look of almost comic horror crossed her face. "Or perhaps it was Mayaguez. I am sorry I do not re­call."

"It doesn't matter," Katie assured her, puzzled over her obvious distress.

Gabriella brightened with relief. "Ramon left much money for you. He said we should begin our shopping today if you feel ready for it."

Katie nodded and glanced at the plastic alarm clock beside her bed, surprised to see that it was already ten o'clock. Tomorrow she would be sure to be up when Ramon came to see her before he left for work at the failing farm in Mayaguez.

Silence hung like a pall over the seven men seated at the conference table in the boardroom at Galverra International's San Juan headquarters—a silence that was shattered as the baroque grandfather clock began ominously tolling the hour of ten—marking the final, gasping breaths of a dying corporation that had once been a thriving world conglomerate.

From his position at the head of the long table, Ramon's glance raked over the five men on his left who were Galverra International's board of direc­tors. Each man had been carefully selected by his father, and each possessed the three qualities that Simon Galverra required of his board members: intelligence, greed and spinelessness. For twenty years, Simon had drawn on their intelligence, exploited their greed, and ruthlessly taken advantage of their inability to contradict his opinions or challenge his decisions.

"I asked," Ramon repeated in a cold clipped voice, "if any of you can suggest a viable alternative to filing corporate bankruptcy." Two directors ner­vously cleared their throats, another reached for the Waterford pitcher of ice water in the center of the table.

Their averted gazes and continued meek silence ig­nited the rage he was keeping under such tenuous control. "No suggestions?" he asked with silky menace. "Then perhaps one of you who is not incap­able of speech altogether will explain to me why I was not informed of my father's disastrous decisions or his erratic behavior during the last ten months."

Running a finger between his shirt collar and his throat, one of the men said, "Your father said you were not to be bothered with matters here. He speci­fically said that to us, didn't he, Charles?" he asked, nodding for confirmation at the Frenchman seated beside him. "He told us all 'Ramon is going to be overseeing the operations in France and Bel­gium for six months, then he is addressing the World Business Conference in Switzerland. When he leaves there, he will be busy entering into negotia­tions with people in Cairo. He is not to be bothered with the little decisions we are making here.' That is exactly what he said, isn't it?" Five heads nodded in unison.

Ramon looked at them as he slowly rolled a pen­cil between his fingers. "So," he concluded in a dangerously soft voice, "not one of you 'bothered' me. Not even when he sold a fleet of oil tankers and an airline for half their worth... not even when he decided to donate our South American mining interests to the local government as a gift?"

"It—it was your money, and your father's, Ramon." The man on the end held up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "All of us combined own only a small percentage of stock in the corporation. The rest of the stock is your family's. We knew what he was doing wasn't in the best interest of the cor­poration, but your family owns the corporation. And your father said he wanted the corporation to have some tax write-offs."

Fury boiled up inside of Ramon, pouring through his veins; the pencil in his hand snapped in two. "Tax write-offs?" he bit out savagely.

"Y—yes," another said. "You know—tax deduc­tions for the corporation."

Ramon's hand crashed down on the table with the impact of an explosion as he surged to his feet. "Are you trying to tell me that you thought it was rational for him to give away the corporation's assets so we would not have to pay taxes on them?" A muscle rioted in his clenched jaw as he passed a final murderous look over them. "I am sure you will understand that the corporation will not be able to reimburse you for your travel expenses to attend this meeting." He paused, maliciously enjoying their stunned looks. "Nor will I approve the payment of your annual retainer fees for your services as 'di­rectors' during this past year. This meeting is ad­journed!"

Unwisely, one of them chose that moment to be­come assertive. "Er, Ramon, it is in the bylaws of the corporation that directors are paid the annual sum of—"

"Take me to court!" Ramon spat. Turning on his heel, he stalked through the doorway into his ad­joining office, followed by the man who had been seated on his right, silently observing the proceed­ings.

"Fix yourself a drink, Miguel," Ramon gritted as he st

ripped off his suit coat. Jerking his tie loose, he walked over to the windows.

Miguel Villegas glanced at the elaborate drinks cabinet against the paneled wall, then quickly sat down in one of the four gold velvet armchairs facing the baronial desk. His brooding eyes were dark with suppressed sympathy as he looked at Ramon, who was standing at the windows with his back to him, one arm braced high against the frame, his hand clenched into a fist.

After several tense minutes, the hand unclenched and the arm came down. In a gesture of weary resig­nation, Ramon flexed his broad shoulders, then ran his hand around the back of his neck, massaging the taut muscles. "I thought I had accepted defeat weeks ago," he said on a bitter sigh as he turned. "Apparently I had not."

Moving over to the desk he sat down in the massive, high-backed chair behind it and looked at Rafael Villegas's eldest son. With an expressionless face, he said, "I take it that your search turned up nothing encouraging?"

"Ramon," Miguel almost pleaded, "I am an ac­countant with a local practice; this was a job for your corporate auditors—you cannot rely on my findings."

Ramon was undeterred by Miguel's evasiveness. "My auditors are flying in from New York this morning, but I will not give them the access to my father's personal records that I gave you. What were your findings?"

"Exactly what you expected," Miguel sighed. "Your father sold off everything the corporation owned that was making a profit, and kept only those companies that are currently operating at a loss. When he couldn't find anything else to do with the proceeds from the sales, he donated millions to every charity imaginable." He took several ledger sheets out of his briefcase and reluctantly slid them across the huge desk to Ramon. "The item that is the most frustrating to me is the high-rise office towers you were building in Chicago and St. Louis. You have twenty million dollars invested in each one. If the banks would just loan you the rest of the money so you could finish them, you could sell them, get your investment back, and make a sizable profit besides."