The Spanish Groom. Lynne Graham

Wiping her damp brow with the back of her hand, she lifted the heavily laden tray. As she straightened, she could not help but focus on the tall, dark male blocking her view of the rest of the cafe. Dixie froze in shock and dismay.

      César Valverde stood six feet away, emanating the kind of lacerating cool which intimidated. Brilliant dark eyes entrapped her evasive ones. As he lifted one ebony brow at her frazzled appearance and coffee-stained overall, Dixie simply wanted to curl up and die. Oh, dear heaven, how had he found out where she worked? And what did he want now, for heaven’s sake?

      But then had she really believed that César Valverde would take no for an answer? He wasn’t accustomed to negative responses. His naturally aggressive temperament geared him to persist and demand in the face of refusal, she reminded herself. A workaholic, he thrived under pressure and lived for challenge. When César Valverde set himself a goal, he went all out to get it. She should feel sorry for him, she told herself. He really didn’t know any other way to behave.

      An exasperated male voice demanded, ‘Where’s our food?’

      ‘It’s coming…it’s coming!’ Dixie promised frantically, rudely dredged from her reverie. She fled without looking where she was going, as to look would have brought César Valverde back into focus again.

      A shopping bag protruding from beneath a table was her undoing. Catching her foot, Dixie tipped forward, and the tray shot clean out of her perspiring hold. Eyes wide with horror, she watched pieces of food, coffee dregs, crumpled napkins, plates and cups go flying up in the air and fall in all directions. The noise of smashing china was equalled if not surpassed by the shaken exclamations of customers lurching from their seats in an effort to escape the aerial bombardment.

      A deathly silence fell in the aftermath. Feverishly muttering incoherent apologies, Dixie bent down to scoop up the tray. The manager removed it from her trembling hands and hissed in her ear, ‘You had your final warning yesterday. You’re fired!’

      Only yesterday, three entire meals complete with accompanying drinks had landed on the floor, because in an effort to speed up Dixie had overloaded a tray and then stumbled. Tears of mortification and defeat stinging her eyes, Dixie scuttled into the back of the café. Ripping off the overall, she reached for her cardigan and bag.

      When she emerged again, the manager stuffed a couple of notes into her hand. ‘You’re just not cut out for waitressing,’ he said ruefully.

      A long, low and expensive sports car hugged the pavement outside the café. The driver’s window whirred down. César surveyed Dixie with an enquiring brow.

      ‘It’s your fault I dropped that tray…you spooked me!’ Dixie condemned unevenly.

      ‘If you hadn’t been so busy trying to ignore me it wouldn’t have happened.’

      ‘You are so smug and patronising. I hate you!’ Dixie gasped truthfully, studying his staggeringly handsome dark features with unconcealed loathing. ‘You always think you’re right about everything!’

      ‘I usually am,’ César pointed out, without skipping a beat.

      ‘Not about deceiving Jasper…so go away and leave me alone!’

      Walking on past, Dixie struggled to swallow the aching thickness of tears in her throat. The car purred in her wake but Dixie was oblivious. In the space of one ghastly day a security that had at best been tenuous had come crashing down round her ears. Jasper was dying, she thought wretchedly, and she was going to end up being prosecuted like a criminal.

      ‘Get in the car, Dixie!’

      Having totally forgotten about César Valverde while she pondered her woes, Dixie nearly died of fright. She glanced round and saw the flash car only feet away. Sticking her nose in the air, she prepared to cross the road to the bus stop.

      ‘Get…in…the car,’ César framed as he climbed out, six foot three inches of towering bully.

      ‘I don’t have to do what you tell me any more!’ Dixie flung chokily.

      A policeman crossed the road. ‘Is there some problem here?’

      ‘Yes, this man won’t leave me alone!’ Dixie complained.

      ‘I saw you curb-crawling,’ the policeman informed César thinly. ‘Are you aware that curb-crawling is an offence?’

      ‘This woman works for me, Officer,’ César drawled icily.

      ‘Not any more, I don’t!’ Dixie protested. ‘Why won’t you just leave me alone?’

      ‘I don’t like the sound of this, sir.’ The policeman appraised the opulent car and then the cut of César’s fabulous dark grey suit with deeply suspicious eyes.

      ‘Look, that’s my bus coming!’ Dixie suddenly gasped.

      ‘Settle the misunderstanding, Dixie,’ César commanded in a tone of icy warning.

      ‘What misunderstanding?’ she enquired in honest bewilderment.

      ‘This gentleman was curb-crawling and employing threatening behaviour. I think we should all go back to the station and sort this out,’ the policeman informed her as he radioed in the registration of César’s car.

      César looked at Dixie. Eyes like black ice daggers dug into her. It was like being hauled off her feet and dropped from a height. She blinked, and then warm colour flooded her drawn cheeks. ‘Oh…you actually think…my goodness, are you kidding?’ she pressed in a strangled voice. ‘He would never bother me like that…I mean, he would never even look at me like that!’

      ‘Then what was this gentleman doing?’ the policeman asked wearily.

      ‘He was offering me a lift home…and we had a slight difference of opinion,’ Dixie mumbled, not looking at either man in her mortification. This policeman had genuinely suspected that César Valverde had been curb-crawling with an intent to…?

      ‘And now she’s going to get in my car and be sensible,’ César completed stonily.

      Dixie slunk round the sports car and climbed in. ‘It’s not my fault that policeman thought you might’ve been making improper suggestions,’ she muttered in hot-faced embarrassment.

      ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. That wasn’t what he was thinking. He thought I might be your pimp,’ César gritted not very levelly, half under his breath, his accented drawl alive with speaking undertones of raw incredulity.

      Dixie nestled into the gloriously comfortable bucket seat and decided that silence was the better part of valour. Flash car, flash suit. In this particular area César probably had looked suspicious.

      ‘How dare you embarrass me like that?’

      ‘I’m sorry, but you were annoying me,’ she mumbled wearily.

      ‘I…was annoying…you?’

      He seemed to find that very difficult to understand. But then an enormous amount of boot-licking went on in César Valverde’s vicinity, Dixie reflected, struggling to smother a yawn.

      People shouldn’t worship idols, but they did. Expose the average human being to César’s intellectual brilliance, immense wealth and enormous power and influence, and they generally behaved in all sorts of undignified ways. They toadied, they talked a load of rubbish in an effort to impress, and went to ridiculous lengths to please and be remembered by him.

      As for the women—that constant procession of gorgeous females who paraded through his life, Dixie reflected sleepily. Well, he had the concentration span of a toddler, always on the look-out for a new and better toy. And he invariably had a replacement lined up before he ditched her predecessor. But he was never available during working hours, and those women who tried to breach that boundary lasted the least time. Possessive behaviour was a surefire way to make César stray.

      César shook her awake outside the building where she lived. ‘As a rule, women do not fall asleep in my company.’