Master of El Corazon (Harlequin Presents)

by Sandra Marton

  ‘He was going to paint,’ Arden said softly, her eyes on his face.

  ‘Yes. He told that to Felix. Felix disowned him, and when my mother realised that she’d married a man who’d given up the Romero money to pursue a dream, she packed her things and went back to the States.’

  ‘But—but surely you’ve seen her since. I mean, she’s your mother. Mothers don’t just—’

  ‘She was never a mother, except for the nine months it took her to carry me.’ He swung towards her, his eyes cold. ‘She was a woman who knew what she wanted and did what she had to do to get it.’

  Arden stared at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, after a moment. Her hand lifted, went out to him. ‘Conor, I—’

  ‘It’s too bad she didn’t stick around,’ he said in that same cold voice. ‘She’d have been proud of me. I’m not at all like my old man. Hell, here I am, part of everything he turned his back on.’

  Her hand fell to her side as reality returned. ‘Even if you have to shoulder Felix out of the way to do it.’

  Conor laughed. ‘Suppose I told you I ran as far and as fast as I could from all of this when I was a kid?’

  She hesitated. ‘The banana boat?’

  ‘The banana boat—and half a dozen other ways to earn just enough money to get me from one day to the next.’ He smiled tightly. “The only thing any of those jobs had in common was that you didn’t need a brain to do them. All you needed were muscles.’

  She could believe that. His body was hard and welltoned; the times he’d taken her in his arms, she’d felt the heated power of it...

  A flush rose in her face and she turned away. ‘That explains a lot,’ she said. ‘After you realised you couldn’t get anywhere on your own, you decided to make a grab for El...’

  The breath whooshed from her lungs as Conor spun her towards him. ‘By the time Felix began accusing me of trying to snatch this ranch from him, I’d made a fortune half a dozen times over!’

  ‘How? By hauling bananas?’

  Conor’s teeth flashed in an angry smile. ‘Among other things.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I’ll just bet!’ Arden twisted free of his hand. ‘You’re wasting your time if you think that sad story of yours would make me understand why you care more for El Corazon than you do for your uncle.’

  ‘I told it to you so you’d understand that I know all about women like you. And I’m tired of you pointing a finger at me. You’ve accused me of being everything from a bum to an opportunist, you’ve called me a liar, you’ve twice attempted to slap my face—have I left anything out?’

  ‘I only gave you what you deserved!’

  The anger that had been gleaming in his eyes faded and was replaced by another kind of light.

  ‘You almost did, the other night.’

  Something in his tone sent a flush to Arden’s cheeks. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  He smiled crookedly. ‘We agreed to be civil to each other, but—’

  ‘I’ve been trying to be civil! You’re the one—’

  He reached out and cupped her cheek with his hand. His fingers burned against her flesh, hotter than the heat of the sun.

  ‘—but when I kissed you,’ he said softly, his eyes on hers, ‘1 got the feeling we might manage more than that.’

  Arden felt the leap of her pulse, but her voice was steady. ‘You thought wrong.’

  Conor smiled lazily. ‘I don’t think so. Otherwise, why would you be turning such a bright shade of crimson right now?’

  ‘I’m not doing any such thing! I’m simply—’

  ‘No, sweetheart, you’re not “simply” anything. There’s nothing simple about you at all.’ His arms went around her. ‘Hell, no wonder the old man’s so taken with you.’

  ‘Conor, this is nonsense. You can’t just—’

  ‘We could agree to start with civility and work up from there.’

  Arden put her hands on his wrists. ‘I’ve no intention of—’

  He bent his head and kissed her quickly, the brush of his lips against hers surprisingly gentle.

  ‘Is that civil enough for you?’ he asked softly.

  Arden stared up into his eyes. They weren’t emerald at all, she thought crazily, they were far deeper in colour than that, they were the shade of the jungle...

  He lowered his head again, his mouth settling on hers harder than before, his lips parted so she could feel not his warmth but his heat, a heat as hot as the tropic sun blazing down from the cloudless blue sky.

  A soundless whimper rose in her throat. Her mouth moved under his, her hands lifted, her palms flattened against his bare chest. He whispered something against her lips and his arms tightened around her, drawing her closer, until they were pressed tightly together. The tip of his tongue darted into her mouth and heat washed through her, rising like a flame from somewhere low in her belly, sizzling through her blood and to her breasts.

  ‘Conor,’ she said shakily, ‘Conor, listen—’

  ‘I like the way you say my name,’ he whispered.

  Arden closed her eyes. She was melting against him. His mouth was at her throat; he was whispering to her in Spanish, words she only half-understood. But there was no mistaking what he wanted, what she wanted...

  No. No! What was the matter with her? He was an egotistical bastard, the kind of man she’d always despised, and he believed her possible of the worst kind of avarice...

  She gave a little sob of anger and twisted her face away from his.

  ‘All right,’ she said. Her voice was thin; she inhaled, then tried again. ‘All right, Conor, enough.’

  He looked down at her, his eyes still clouded with desire, and nodded his head.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said thickly, ‘there’s no sense in this.’ He shifted his weight, putting her off balance so that she had to lean against him for support. ‘It’s time we got down to basics.’

  ‘I know you’re determined to make me quit this job, but—’

  ‘Job?’

  ‘Intimidation didn’t work, so now you’re trying seduction. But—’

  ‘To hell with your job!’

  Arden’s laughter was sharp. ‘I wish to God I could echo that sentiment—but I can’t, thanks to you and what you did that night at the hotel. When I think back—’

  ‘When I think back,’ he said softly, ‘I know that if I’d done what I should have, none of this would have happened. You were standing outside that lift, looking as cool as a queen, and I had just returned from three weeks in the back country—’

  ‘I know this is hard to believe, but I’m not the least bit—’

  ‘My truck broke down half a dozen miles outside town.’ His hand went to her hair and he took a strand between his fingers, rubbing it gently as if it were silk. “That’s why I looked the way I did.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear me? Dammit, Conor, I don’t care!’

  ‘Ah,’ he said softly, smiling just a little, ‘but you should. Just think, sweetheart, if I’d made a better first impression—’

  ‘The only way you could have managed that would have been if the lift had dropped through the foundations and taken you with it.’

  He grinned. ‘I like a woman with a temper.’

  ‘And I don’t like anything about you!’

  ‘You don’t have to. All you have to do is admit the truth: that if we hadn’t started off on the wrong foot that night, you’d have gone to bed with me.’

  Colour flared under her skin. ‘You really are crazy!’

  ‘One night, and we’d have got all this out of our systems.’

  ‘You’re completely insane!’

  ‘I’m honest, which is more than you are. You’re still angry that I ruined the little scam you were going to run on that guy in your room, so angry that you won’t admit the truth.’

  Arden punched her fist against his shoulder. ‘My God, you’re the most egotistical, despicable, lying son of a bitch I’ve ever met! When I tell Felix—’

  ‘Tell him wha
t? That I’m on to you?’

  ‘Listen here, Conor—’

  ‘That I accused you of being beautiful, and desirable, and every inch a woman?’ He laughed. ‘My uncle is old and ill but he’s not a fool. Why do you think he hired you?’

  ‘Because—because I can talk about things with him, and—’

  ‘I said, he’s not a fool. What man wouldn’t want a woman with brains as well as beauty?’ His hands slid up her throat; he cupped her face and tilted it to him. ‘Even me,’ he said gruffly. ‘Hell, I’m no better than my uncle or that poor son of a bitch you conned into coming to your room that night.’ His mouth narrowed. ‘The only difference between them and me is that I know you for what you are.’

  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.’

  She was halfway to her room when Linda Vasquez stepped out of a doorway. The girl had traded the bikini for a skin-tight dress of crimson silk and her sultry smile for a grimace of distaste.

  ‘In the future,’ she said coldly, ‘you are to use the service staircase on your day off.’

  Arden smiled. ‘In the future,’ she said pleasantly, ‘you can go straight to hell.’

  It was, she thought, the best possible exit line.

  Pride made her want to return to the same San José hotel in which she’d roomed when she’d worked for McCann, Flint, Emerson, but logic advised against it. The hotel was expensive and her funds were limited. There was no reason to think she’d have to stay very long, but there was no sense in squandering her money, either. She asked Pablo to recommend a hotel.

  ‘Somewhere clean and inexpensive,’ she said.

  He looked at her in the mirror, his eyes filled with questions, but he asked none of them.

  ‘Certainly, señorita. I can take you to such a place.’

  The inn he took her to was both clean and cheap. It was also threadbare and depressing, but it would do. How long could it take to settle things with her former boss?

  She went to the office unannounced, hoping the element of surprise would give her an advantage. But the only person she surprised was Julie Squires.

  ‘Mr Lithgow’s not coming in today,’ Julie said, once she got over the shock of seeing Arden. She leaned forward. ‘What happened to you?’ she whispered. ‘You just vanished into thin air!’

  ‘Well,’ Arden said politely, ‘I’m back now. What time will Lithgow be in tomorrow? I’d like to see him as early as possible.’

  The next morning, Lithgow sat behind his oversized desk, his face set in stern lines, ready for her.

  ‘I’ve no idea what you expect to accomplish by this visit, Miss Miller. Let me assure you that—’

  ‘You owe me,’ she said gently.

  He turned pale, which almost made her laugh, and she let the seconds slip by before she went on.

  ‘You owe me, Mr Lithgow—and you’ll either give me what I want, or I’ll
make so much trouble that you’ll wish you’d never been born’

  His pallor became more pronounced. Tiny beads of sweat welled on his shiny forehead.

  ‘You can’t get away with this,’ he whispered.

  Arden smiled. ‘I want my severance pay,’ she said, ticking her demands off on her fingers, ‘and a letter of reference—’

  Lithgow fell back in his chair. ‘What?’

  ‘And my ticket home,’ she added, enjoying every moment of his panic. Her smile faded. ‘And I want them immediately.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, his relief visible in the spots of colour that suddenly rose to his cheeks. ‘Of course!’

  Arden sat down in the chair opposite his desk, the one where she’d so often taken dictation. She watched as he snatched up the phone and barked out orders to Julie. It delighted her to see how easily she’d frightened him. Men like Lithgow expected to have the upper hand with women. They preyed on a woman’s docility and accommodating nature—but if a woman wasn’t docile, if she fought for what was rightly hers, they were lost.

  She had known that once, used it when rich, spoiled young men had tried to make her life miserable back in Greenfield. But Edgar Lithgow, who’d seemed the very embodiment of morality and propriety, had caught her off guard that night in her hotel room.

  Arden shifted in her seat. She’d been caught off guard by Conor, as well, the times he’d taken her in his arms, the times she’d responded to his kisses. The memory was humiliating. Why had she let him make such a fool of her?

  ‘I’ve made all the arrangements, Miss Miller.’ She looked up. Lithgow was smiling brightly. ‘You wanted a letter of reference, an airline ticket, and your severance pay.’

  ‘Yes. All the things you surely meant to give me before you went off on your trip a few weeks ago, Mr Lithgow, isn’t that right?’

  He blinked. ‘I assure you, I thought everything was taken care of before I left, but—’ He spread his hands. ‘A regrettable error.’

  ‘Well,’ Arden said briskly, ‘let’s make sure there are no errors this time.’

  Lithgow nodded. ‘Miss Squires is arranging for your ticket now, and you’ll have the letter of reference within half an hour. The cheque will take a bit longer. New York will have to OK it,’ he added quickly, when Arden frowned. ‘Today’s a holiday back home, had you forgotten? It may take until Thursday.’