Master of El Corazon

Arden moved quickly, but not quickly enough. Conor caught hold of her wrist before she could strike him, the fingers of one hand encircling it like steel.

‘Don’t,’ he said, very softly, ‘not unless you’re prepared to pay the consequences.’

She stood facing him, her face white, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. Her voice trembled when she spoke.

‘I hate you!’ she said.

He laughed. ‘What has that to do with anything?’

She stared at him while her brain worked desperately for words that would tell him, once and for all, how despicable he was but before she could think of anything, he cupped the back of her head, drew her towards him, and kissed her hard on the mouth.

‘I won’t buy you,’ he whispered, stroking his thumb over her bottom lip. ‘I’m a patient man. I’ll wait until you find your way to my bed on your own.’

He gave her a last, quick kiss, then turned and began strolling down the shore as casually as if he’d done nothing more than stop to comment on the weather. Arden stood trembling, watching as his figure grew smaller and smaller, and then she cupped her hands around her lips.

‘Conor!’ The wind picked up her cry and carried it in a flurry of powdery sand. When he stopped and swung in her direction, she took a deep, deep breath. ‘You can’t afford me,’ she shouted. ‘Do you hear? Never, not in a million years!’

She turned on her heel and strode towards the house.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE nerve of the man! Just who did he think he was?

Arden batted a vine out of the way as she marched up the overgrown path that led back to the gardens. The answer was obvious. He was the man who called the shots, who could talk to her any way he pleased, treat her any way he liked, because he was the master of El Corazon, no matter what Felix said.

You had to give him credit, though. She’d never met anyone who could go from a chest-beating display of male arrogance and Latin machismo to tugging on the heartstrings as deftly as Conor. All that sappy stuff about his childhood, his mother’s desertion, his father’s death, those little hints about his having run off in his teen years—she had no idea if any of it was true or not and frankly, she didn’t much care. Lots of people had unhappy childhoods. Hers hadn’t exactly been a fairy-tale, either.

The bottom line was that Conor had made the most of growing up rich. He had all the characteristics of his class with none of the responsibilities. The world was his—and that included whatever females took his fancy. Women were supposed to tumble happily into his bed with wide-eyed appreciation just for the asking—or for the seducing. Arden blew out her breath. Conor had come on to her so smoothly that she’d been in his arms before she’d realised what was happening, her traitorous body responding to his expert touch, her blood pounding...

A startled workman shot to his feet as she pushed aside a tangle of wild rose and strode into the garden.

‘Buenos dias,’ he said, doffing a sweat-stained cap.

She mumbled a reply as she stomped past him. Actually, she probably owed Conor a vote of thanks. What had happened minutes ago had been like being doused with a pail of iced water. She felt as if she were shaking off the last remnants of the malaise that had gripped her ever since the night Edgar Lithgow—with Conor’s generous help—had turned her world upside down.

What was she doing here, at El Corazon?

Taking this job had made sense—but staying on, now that circumstances had changed, didn’t. She hadn’t earned enough money to buy a ticket home but she had earned enough to spend a week or two in San José. By now, Lithgow would be back at his office. She would go there and confront him, demand that he give her her severance money and a ticket home and the best damned letter of reference that had ever come out of the offices of McCann, Flint, Emerson!

She felt sorry to have to leave Felix without any notice, but there were such things as honour and respect, things the Edgar Lithgows and Conor Martinezes of this world thought were owed exclusively to them. Well, they were wrong. Dead wrong. She had rights, too, and it was time she exercised them.

She took a deep breath, then marched into the library where Felix sat reading.

He took the news of her abrupt departure well. In fact, he smiled, said he’d thought all along it was nonsense for a woman as young and pretty as she to waste time in the company of an old man.

‘What is more,’ he said, ‘I would not have needed your services eventually.’

Arden smiled a little. ‘You mean, you were going to fire me?’

‘I mean that I am in my ninety-third year,’ he said, ‘and one grows weary.’

‘Oh, but surely—’

‘Please,’ he said with a grimace of disdain, ‘do not waste my time with platitudes, Miss Miller. I have lived a long time—and although I am not particularly religious, I believe that there is something after this life. A new beginning, as it were. Don’t you agree?’

‘Well...’ Arden hesitated. ‘It’s an interesting thought, sir.’

A sly smile tugged at Felix’s lips. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it is, indeed. Vaya con Dios, Miss Miller. Pablo will drive you to San José.’