The Spanish Groom. Lynne Graham

we’re in Spain, will you?’

      ‘I’m not going to Spain.’

      ‘Then you can send Jasper cute “glad you’re not here” postcards from prison.’

      Dixie sat up, full wakefulness now established, and turned aghast eyes on him.

      César gave her a faint smile. ‘It’s your first offence, but who knows? Women often get weightier sentences than men when they transgress.’

      Her tummy tying itself into petrified knots, Dixie whispered shakily. ‘Maybe we should talk this over.’

      ‘I think we ought to,’ César agreed smoothly. ‘A female who said she was your landlady was furious when I knocked on the door of your flat earlier and a dog started barking. She came upstairs to investigate.’

      Dixie sat bolt upright, horror now etched on her face. ‘Oh, no, she heard Spike and now she knows he’s there!’

      César released an extravagant sigh. ‘And pets aren’t allowed. I gather it’s going to be a question of moving out or getting rid of the dog.’

      Dixie shook her head in anguished disbelief. This was truly the very worst day of her entire life. ‘Why did you have to knock on the door? You must’ve frightened Spike! He’s usually as quiet as a mouse.’

      ‘I think Spain’s beckoning,’ César remarked lazily. ‘You have one very angry landlady waiting to pounce.’

      ‘Oh, no…’ Dixie groaned.

      ‘Life could be so different,’ César drawled smoothly. ‘All those debts settled…no nasty hanging judge to face in court…relaxing trip to Spain…Jasper happy as a clam and the comforting knowledge that you are responsible for giving him the best news he’s ever heard. Wrong? I don’t think so. I don’t think anything that could give Jasper pleasure at this trying stage of his life could possibly be wrong.’

      Hanging on every specious word, Dixie watched him with a kind of eerie fascination. He was so damnably clever, so shockingly good at timing his verbal assaults. Here she was, her whole life in ruins and on the very brink of being thrown out on the street because she couldn’t possibly give up Spike, and a living, breathing version of the devil was holding out temptation without shame.

      ‘I couldn’t…’

      ‘You could,’ César contradicted softly. ‘You could do it for Jasper.’

      Dixie’s soft full mouth wobbled as she thought of Jasper dying and never, ever seeing him again. Her eyes began to prickle and she sniffed.

      ‘You can pack right now. It’s that simple,’ César stressed in the same low-pitched deep, dark tone.

      He sounded mesmeric. Dixie couldn’t peel her wet eyes from him either. In the dusk light, his bronzed features were half in shadow, dark eyes glimmering silver beneath the sort of long, incredibly luxuriant black lashes that would drive any sane woman blessed with less to despair.

      ‘My dog, Spike…’ she muttered uncertainly, so very, very tired it was becoming an effort even to string words together, her mind a confused sea of incomplete thoughts and fears.

      ‘Spike can come too. One of my staff will pick up the rest of your possessions tomorrow. You won’t have anything to do,’ César asserted gently.

      At that moment, the concept of not having anything to do impressed Dixie like the offer of manna from heaven. ‘I…I—’

      César slid out of the driver’s seat, strolled round the front and opened the door beside her. ‘Come on,’ he urged.

      And Dixie found herself doing as she was told, all the fight drained out of her. ‘A harmless fiction’, César had called it. A pretend engagement to make Jasper’s last days happy. And it would make Jasper happy. She knew how much Jasper longed to see César on the road to creating the family circle that Jasper had never managed to create for himself. Maybe lying wasn’t always wrong…

      Her landlady emerged from her small flat on the ground floor. As she broke into angry, accusing speech, César settled a wad of banknotes into her hand. ‘Miss Robinson will be moving out. I hope this takes care of her notice.’

      A PHONE WAS RINGING somewhere horribly close to Dixie’s ears. Struggling to cling to sleep, she sighed with relief when the shrill buzz stopped, but her eyes slowly opened on the dawning realisation that she didn’t have a phone in her flat.

      Her brain in a fog, Dixie surveyed her unfamiliar surroundings. For a moment she couldn’t even remember where she was. Then her attention fell on the suitcase lying open with miscellaneous garments tumbling untidily out of it. And whoosh, everything came back in a rush; she was in César Valverde’s London home.

      The phone by the bed started ringing again. This time Dixie reached for the receiver. ‘Hello?’ she said nervously.

      ‘Rise and shine, Dixie.’ César Valverde’s rich, dark drawl jerked her bolt upright in the bed. ‘It’s half-six and I want you in the gym by eight, dressed appropriately and fully awake.’

      ‘The gym?’ Dixie was aghast at the news that she was expected to be up before seven in the morning, particularly on a Saturday. Even Spike was still asleep in his basket. He was as fond of sleeping in as his owner.

      ‘I’ve engaged a fitness instructor to put you through your paces,’ César completed drily, and rang off.

      A fitness instructor? Dixie stared into space with wide eyes, picturing some giant, suntanned musclebound male standing over her like a bullying sergeant-major, bawling instructions liberally splattered with abuse. She shrank. Maybe the instructor would be nice and break her in gently. She tried to imagine César hiring someone nice. Hope dwindled fast. The fitness instructor would be tough and pitiless. César was, after all, the male who had called her a lazy lump.

      Scrambling out of bed, Dixie roused Spike and left the bedroom. A short corridor beyond led out to a small enclosed courtyard.

      On her arrival the night before, Dixie had been handed over to César’s butler, Fisher, like an unwelcome parcel. The comfortable en suite bedroom she had been assigned on the ground floor was former staff accommodation. Dixie had understood the distinction being made. She was not going to be treated like an honoured guest in César Valverde’s palatial Georgian mansion.

      Having attended to Spike’s needs, she went for a shower. Appropriate clothing? Dixie had never been in a gym in her life. A baggy pair of sweat-pants and an oversized T-shirt were all she had to wear. The unflattering combination made her look as wide as she was tall. A slim Dixie Mark Two? But what if the exercise routine worked? a more seductive voice asked, and she dawdled by the mirror then, imagining Scott suddenly recognising her as a member of the female sex…

      Her stomach growling with hunger, she was about to go off in search of the kitchen when a quiet knock sounded on the door.

      Fisher appeared with a tray bearing a tall glass filled with some strange greyish green liquid. ‘Miss Stevens faxed your diet plan to Cook yesterday,’ the butler explained. ‘I believe this is the lady’s own personal recipe for an early-morning energy boost.’

      ‘Oh…’ In bewilderment, Dixie accepted the glass. Diet plan? She didn’t like the sound of that. She was willing to exercise, but diet? And who on earth was Fisher talking about?

      ‘Miss Stevens?’ Dixie queried with a frown.

      ‘Gilda Stevens, the fitness instructor,’ Fisher supplied expressionlessly. ‘Her instructions regarding your menus were most precise.’

      At that point, Dixie’s tummy gave an embarrassing gurgle. So her fitness instructor was a woman. Taking a sip of the noxious brew, Dixie tried not to grimace. A cruel woman. The drink tasted like dishwater with bits of floating weed, but, remembering her manners, Dixie drank it down and waited eagerly to be told when she might receive her first meal of the day.

      ‘Mr Valverde