“A cousin, you say.” The cabby’s mouth opened in a wide, friendly smile as he parked the car and turned around to look at Dom and then at J.J. “This lovely lady, she is your wife?”
“No, she’s a friend of mine and of Miguel’s,” Dom said. “Her family has entrusted me with her care while we are visiting here.”
The cabby looked J.J. over thoroughly, then nodded. “It is good that her father did not allow her to travel alone. Too many young women are acting like men these days, ruining their reputations and making them unsuitable for marriage.”
J.J. had to bite her tongue to keep from making a comment, but when her eyes widened and she clenched her teeth, Dom grinned, knowing full well that she was more than a little irritated.
After they got out of the cab, Dom helped the driver take their suitcases to the veranda, then he tipped the guy generously. “We’ll just leave our luggage here for now,” Dom said. “Thanks.”
As the cabby drove away, Dom rang the doorbell. “Get ready for the performance of your life.”
“My playing a lovesick fool will require an Academy-awardwinning performance.”
A heavyset, middle-aged woman opened the door. Without any expression on her slightly wrinkled, makeup-free face, she sized up the two guests.
“I am Domingo Shea,” he said in Spanish. “I am Señor Ramirez’s cousin from Miami. And this—” he indicated with a sweep of his hand “—is Señorita Jennifer Blair.”
“You are expected?” the woman asked.
“Yes, I believe he’s expecting us tomorrow,” Dom told her. “But we were able to get away earlier than anticipated. I do hope our early arrival will not be an inconvenience.”
“Please, come inside and I will announce you.”
Dom and J.J. waited in the massive, marble-floored foyer. Overhead a huge chandelier shimmered with what appeared to be a hundred tiny lights, all reflecting off the crystal gems. A wide, spiral, marble staircase led from the foyer to the second level, the wrought-iron banisters circling the open landing.
“This is some place,” Dom said. “I can’t imagine any presidential mansion being more impressive.”
“Actually, it reminds me a little of my Grandmother Ashford’s place in Mobile.”
“Poor little rich girl.”
“My mother is rich. My stepfather is rich. Me, I’m just an ordinary woman who works for a living.”
Moments turned to minutes as they waited. And waited. And waited. After a good ten minutes had passed, a tall attractive man, with thick salt-and-pepper hair and a thin, dark moustache, appeared and greeted them. J.J. guessed his age to be somewhere around forty. Mentally reviewing the photos she’d been shown of the people closest to Ramirez, she realized that this was Roberto Aznar.
“You have arrived a day early.”Aznar seemed genuinely agitated.
“I hope that won’t be a problem.”
“No. No problem. I’m sure the servants can prepare your rooms tonight. I’ll ask Ramona to see that your bags are taken upstairs and if you’d like to freshen up—”
“We’d like to see Miguel,” Dom said.
“Yes, well…you see, he has guests. He’s giving a small dinner party for—”
“Wonderful.” J.J. sighed. “I’m starving. You know how airline food is. Like cardboard, even in first class. Please, be a dear and lead us to the dining room.” J.J. slipped her arm through Roberto’s, much to his astonishment. “Besides, I know Miguel will be thrilled to see us. I’m sure he’s missed me as much as I’ve missed him.”
Dom followed as Roberto led J.J. down the hall and into the dining room. The table sat twenty, but this evening the guests were placed at the far end of the table, the two men and two women flanking the head of the table where Miguel Ramirez presided.
When Roberto entered, bringing J.J. with him and Dom coming in behind them, Ramirez rose from his chair.
Impressive, J.J. thought. The man’s photographs didn’t do him justice. He was one-hundred-percent male, from his wide shoulders to his lean hips and long legs. He was handsome without being pretty. His bronze skin was a shade darker than Dom’s, but he had the same blue-black hair, only his was cut conservatively short and neatly styled. But it was his unique golden-brown eyes that captured J.J.’s attention. Large, expressive eyes, the color of dusty topaz.
“Your cousin Dom has arrived a day early,” Roberto said. “And look who he has brought with him.”
Ramirez hesitated for a moment as he studied J.J. Then he smiled, scooted back his chair and walked hurriedly around the table and straight to her. He opened his arms in an expression of welcome, then reached down and grasped both of her hands in his.
“Querida, it is so good to see you again.” He kissed first one hand and then the other. “Please, come in and let me introduce you to everyone.”
They stood there in the dining room, just beyond the threshold and stared at each other, his gaze locked on her face. J.J.’s heart skipped a beat. Uh-oh, that wasn’t a good sign. As a general rule, most men didn’t have this effect on her, but when one did, that meant she was in trouble. She had hoped the man she would be protecting wouldn’t set off a frenzy of crazed butterflies in her belly. So much for hoping. The little buggers were doing a Saint Vitus dance in her stomach right now.
He led J.J. farther into the room, then paused while the others stared at her.
A very pregnant, black-haired woman glanced from J.J. to Miguel. “Who are these people?”
Dom spoke up first. “I’m Miguel’s cousin, Domingo Shea, from Miami.”
“And this is Jennifer.” Miguel’s voice embraced her name. “She is—”
“I am Miguel’s fiancée,” J.J. said, deciding on the spur of the moment that she did not intend to spend the next month being treated like a mistress. Then she turned and looked Miguel right in the eyes, daring him to contradict her. “That is, if your proposal is still good and you still want me.” She batted her eyelashes.
His eyes widened in surprise, but, barely missing a beat, he replied. “Of course, I still want you, querida. More than ever.”
Chapter 2
The lady was not what he’d been expecting. No six-foot Viking goddess. No cool, sophisticated Grace Kelly blonde. Not even a hard-as-nails, pro-wrestler-type female with a killer look in her eyes. No, Jennifer Blair was none of those things. What she was was a petite, raven-haired beauty with an hourglass figure and the most striking blue-violet eyes Miguel had ever seen.And the way she’d taken charge of the moment—accepting a fictitious marriage proposal in front of an audience—told him she expected to run the show. Call him old-fashioned, call him a macho pig, but he preferred his women to defer to him in all things. And that included his female bodyguard. Miguel chuckled to himself as he held the lady’s small, delicate hands. She didn’t look as if she could swat a fly, let alone protect a man more than twice her size.
“Querida, let me introduce you to everyone.” Miguel slipped his arm around her tiny waist and led her farther into the room. Without glancing back, he said, “Come along, Dom.”
Dolores glowered at J.J., so much so that he felt his cousin’s hostility as if it were a viable thing. “You asked this woman to marry you and you have told no one here about her? I find that very strange.”
Emilio cleared his throat, then said hastily. “Miguel told me about Miss Blair, but he swore me to secrecy. Otherwise, you know I would have told you.”
“Dolores, don’t be upset with Emilio,” Miguel said, falling hurriedly into the act that he would have to perpetuate for the next few weeks. “I met Jennifer on my trip to Miami. She is a friend of Dom’s and he introduced us. We had a whirlwind romance and I—” The words caught in his throat. Lying about loving a woman was something he’d never done. “We fell in love and I asked her to marry me. But we agreed that she would wait to give me an answer, that we would put some time and distance between us to make sure what we felt was…real love.”
Skewering J.J. with her cynical gaz
e, Dolores came toward her. Dolores knew Miguel the way a sister knows her brother, so convincing her that he was in love with this American woman would not be easy.
“You have decided that you love Miguel and wish to be his wife?” Dolores asked.
“Yes, that’s right,” J.J. replied, keeping her phony smile in place.
Emilio wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders and hugged her to him. “Then congratulations are in order, are they not? We should ask Ramona to bring in champagne…er…uh…and sparkling cider for you, my sweet.”
“I did not know we had a cousin in Miami.” Naturally, the ever-skeptical Dolores was not convinced that J.J. and Dom were genuine. His cousin’s feminine instincts had warned her that something wasn’t quite right about the situation, that something was rotten in Nava tonight.
“He is my cousin, not yours.” When Miguel tightened his hold around J.J.’s waist, he realized that his actions had told her that he was tense, that already the lies were bothering him. “He is from the other side of the family. The son of one of Papá Tomas’s cousins.”
“Hmm…” Dolores glanced from Dom to J.J. “Have you had dinner?”
A collective sigh permeated the room. Miguel loosened his tenacious hold about J.J.’s waist. Dolores’s cordiality did not mean she had accepted these strangers on face value, but it did mean she was giving them the benefit of the doubt and would allow them to prove themselves to her.
“As a matter of fact, we haven’t.” Dom went around the room, shaking hands and making nice. When he paused by the chair where the elegant redhead sat, the woman stopped glaring daggers at J.J. and smiled at Dom.
“And who is this enchanting creature?” Dom asked.
Not waiting for a proper introduction, she spoke for herself, “I am Zita Fuentes and am I delighted to make your acquaintance, Señor Shea.” She cut Miguel to the quick with a withering glare.
“If you all will entertain Dom, I need a moment alone with Jennifer.” Not giving anyone a chance to halt him by word or action, Miguel grasped J.J.’s arm and all but dragged her out of the dining room.
Once outside in the hall, she jerked free and stopped dead still. “Do not ever pull that Me-Tarzan-You-Jane routine with me again.”
Totally exasperated with this woman, Miguel groaned. “Lower your voice. Sound carries in this old house, especially in the hallways.”
She looked him square in the eye and said softly, “Then let’s go somewhere more private. We should set up the ground rules for this charade immediately. That way, we’ll both know where we stand and what to expect from the other person.”
“Agreed. Come with me.”
He did not touch her again; instead he allowed her to fall into step beside him as he led her away from the dining room. A few minutes later, he opened the massive double doors to the mahogany-paneled library with bookcases on three sides that reached to the top of the fourteen-foot ceiling.
“Would you care to sit, Ms. Blair?” He indicated one of the two leather chairs flanking the fireplace, in which a warm blaze emitted delicious heat on this unseasonably cool October evening. Here in Mocorito the temperatures seldom dropped below the high sixties.
“I’ll stand.” She tilted her chin defiantly.
Wonderful, Miguel thought. He was dealing with a hotheaded little feminist. How was it possible that a woman could look like a beautiful young Elizabeth Taylor and be a ball-bashing women’s libber? He had encountered numerous women such as this during the years he had spent in the United States, but none had been as lovely as Ms. Blair. And none had been assigned to him as his bodyguard; nor had they played the part of his fiancée for several weeks.
“Suit yourself,” Miguel told her.
“I usually do.”
Miguel huffed.
“First thing you should know is that there will be no sex between us while we’re playing lovers.” She crossed her arms over her ample chest, as if it to make a point.
Point duly noted. And her large, full breasts were duly noted, also. “Of course,” he replied. “No sex.”
“In public, I will play the part of a dutiful, obedient fiancée, a woman totally besotted with you. But in private, I will be myself. Understand?”
“Yes, I understand. And I will do the same. In public, I will be your adoring future husband.”
“In matters of your security, my word is law,” she told him. “You will make that clear to Emilio Lopez and Roberto Aznar. Neither they nor you will question my authority in that area.”
“I assumed Mr. Shea would—”
“Dom is here to do an internal investigation and to act as my backup. I am completely in charge of you.”
Miguel groaned silently as the image of this lovely creature dominating him in a very intimate way flashed through his mind, sending arousal signals to his lower anatomy. Willing his traitorous body under control, he nodded, then said, “I am not accustomed to taking orders from a woman.”
“Well, ‘el presidente,’you’d better get used to taking orders from this woman.” She tapped herself in the middle of her chest. “Because until you take the oath of office and we unearth the people behind the plot to kill you, I’m going to be your worst nightmare.”
Bristling at her derogatory use of the title, he glowered at her. “Meaning?”
She smiled. “Meaning you’re going to obey me, not the other way around. When I say jump, you ask, how high?”
Enough of this nonsense, he told himself. Who did this arrogant, cocksure woman think she was? Miguel Cesar Ramirez had spent his life proving to himself and the world around him that he was a man of integrity and self-assurance, a leader and not a follower. He was on the verge of being elected the president of Mocorito, a country where the majority of women knew their place.
“You overstep your authority, Ms. Blair. You have not been assigned to this job to issue me orders.You are here to watch over me, to ensure my safety, and even to take a bullet for me, if necessary.”
She didn’t so much as flinch nor did she blush with embarrassment as most females would do. “I haven’t been here thirty minutes and already we seem to be at odds over the ground rules. And I had so hoped that your being educated in the United States would have prepared you to deal with a woman as an equal. I will play the subservient female in public, but in private, I am in command. Take it or leave it, Señor Ramirez.”
He surveyed her from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. “Your ego is bigger than you are.”
“Don’t let my size fool you. You know the old saying, don’t you?” She grinned mockingly.
He lifted an inquisitive eyebrow.
“Dynamite comes in small packages,” she said.
“In your case, I do not doubt it for a moment.” And he did not doubt that under the right circumstances, his little American bodyguard would be as hot as a firecracker in bed. In his bed. He would truly enjoy setting her off and seeing the sparks fly.
“Then we understand each other? I’m the boss.”
“If you need to think of yourself in those terms, then by all means, do so,” he told her.
“Are we at an impasse?”
“If by that you mean it is apparent that neither of us is willing to back down from our position, then yes, Señorita Blair, we are definitely at an impasse.”
She heaved a deep sigh, apparently as aggravated with him as he was with her. “We’re in a no-win situation. I suppose you realize that. We’re stuck with each other, whether we like it or not. There is no way another female agent can come in and pose as your fiancée now.”
“Ah, yes, my fiancée. Who gave you permission to announce yourself as my fiancée?”
“I was told that you were willing to pass me off as your fiancée, if the circumstances warranted it.” She shrugged. “I felt it was necessary. There’s no way I’m going to pretend to be your mistress for weeks on end. Not here in this male-dominated country where mistresses are second-class citizens.”
He co
uld not deny the truth of her statement. Mistresses were treated as second-class citizens, a fact he knew only too well. His sweet, caring mother had been treated like dirt beneath the feet of the ladies and gentlemen of Mocorito because she had borne her lover’s child out of wedlock.
“I had assumed that being anAmerican woman, you would not mind being thought of as my mistress, but apparently I was wrong.”
“You were dead wrong.”
He studied her closely, forcing himself to break away from those hypnotic violet eyes. She wore a simple dress of some non-wrinkling fabric in a shade of cream, a complimentary shade to her pale olive complexion. The garment was not too tight, but it draped her body like a well-fitting glove. Until this moment he had not truly taken in her appearance, other than to note that she was beautiful, in a sexy, earthy way. Her short black hair curled about her face in soft waves, enticing a man to run his fingers through the silky locks. Her lips were full and painted hot pink, bringing to mind a set of other moist feminine lips. His body reacted in a natural way, warning him that arousal was imminent.
He glanced away, took a deep breath and then turned his back on her. He could not allow himself to continue reacting to her in such a carnal way. “Unless my life is in danger, in public you will be the demure, adoring fiancée. Any disagreements we will keep private, between the two of us. Agreed?”
“I suppose I can live with those terms,” she told him, her lips twitching in a barely restrained smile.
“Agreed?” he demanded harshly.
“Agreed, agreed.”
He glowered at her. “I will tell my guests that you were tired and wished to have dinner in your room tonight. They will understand.”
She laughed.
Damn the woman.
“I take it that I’m being dismissed and sent off to the attic for being a bad girl?”
“Your room is far from an attic. It is the master suite. Ramona will bring you a dinner tray and unpack your suitcases and attend to any of your needs. If you require a personal maid while you are here, I will provide you with one.”
Determined to Protect, Forbidden to Love Page 3